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Health Checks for U.S. Troops Coming Back from Iraq

All U.S. military personnel -- soldiers, sailors, marines, aircrew -- who served in the Iraq war will be given health screenings, the Pentagon says.

The screening program is being done to avoid the delays and denials that sick soldiers had to endure after the 1991 Gulf War, the Associated Press reports.

Within 30 days of their arrival back home from Iraq, all military personnel will be required to give a blood sample, fill out a health questionnaire and review that questionnaire with a health provider.

About 250,000 troops were sent to the Persian Gulf during this spring's Iraq war.

In a related development, the General Accounting Office (GAO) says the U.S. government miscalculated the number of U.S. troops who may have been exposed to nerve gas during the 1991 Gulf War.

The GAO says the CIA and Pentagon used a flawed computer model to estimate that about 100,000 U.S. troops were exposed to fallout when Iraqi nerve gas weapons were destroyed, the AP reports.

In a memo to a House Government Reform subcommittee, the GAO says the flawed models were created using inaccurate data. The memo says the height of the plume caused by the destruction of the Iraqi weapons was underestimated.

But the memo doesn't indicate whether more or fewer troops may have been exposed than the initial estimate of 100,000, the AP reports.

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Last updated 6/3/2003