RAF CHIEF JOINS FIGHT FOR PROBE ON GULF WAR ILLNESS

BRITISH war veterans fighting to get a fair deal over Gulf War Syndrome yesterday won the backing of their former supreme commander.

Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Craig of Radley, chief of the Defence Staff in the 1991 Gulf War, called on ministers to act “urgently” on important US findings about the debilitating illness.

He was joined by Labour peer Lord Morris of Manchester, who sat on the influential Research Advisory Committee commissioned by the US Congress to investigate GWS.

Last year it identified “a strong causal link” between Gulf War illness and two neurotoxins which virtually all British veterans were given.

Veterans blame the cocktail of jabs and pills they were given in preparation to push Iraq out of Kuwait for illnesses they have suffered since.

These include chronic physical and mental fatigue, skin rashes, breathing problems and depression.
 
"Other veterans are no less pointed in condemning the 18-year-long wait for closure on their claims for fairer treatment."  Lord Morris

Today the peers at a conference in Westminster, addressed by British and American experts, will try to force the Ministry of Defence to provide better care for victims.

Successive governments have viewed GWS as a stress-related, not a physical illness.

Flight Lieutenant John Nichol, shot down and tortured by the Iraqis and paraded on TV in 1991, said the Government has spent just £8.5million since 1991 on GWS research, compared with £8million-a-year on entertainment.

Lord Morris said: “Other veterans are no less pointed in condemning the 18-year-long wait for closure on their claims for fairer treatment.