A Sixth Opinion

Unimpeded by science, a presidential panel will declare that Gulf War Syndrome is real.

Michael Fumento from the February 1998 issue

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Actually, no speculation as to Zumwalt's GWS bias is needed. In 1995 he told Life magazine that Gulf vets "need to keep the pressure on, because in the case of Agent Orange--and I'm sure it'll occur with Desert Storm syndrome--the companies who stand to be found liable for any harmful effects will be in there lobbying." As to how far Zumwalt will push his position, consider that he had the chutzpah to claim that the report he gave Congress in 1990 linked Agent Orange to cancers that weren't even mentioned in the report.

With Rudman and Zumwalt as two-fifths of the panel, all Clinton has to do is appoint the obligatory Gulf vet who claims to be suffering from GWS. There's your majority; case closed.

GWS will never be a scientific or medical reality, but it will become--indeed, has already become--a political and popular reality. As with Agent Orange, hundreds of thousands of veterans who bravely served their nation in its hour of need will be tossed some scraps in the form of benefits. The only trade-off is that they will live the rest of their lives in terror of contracting--and perhaps even spreading to their families--a horrible illness that doesn't exist.