August 12, 2009 - Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and four other Democratic senators have asked the Pentagon's inspector general to review the Army's response to the potential exposure of Indiana National Guardsmen to a deadly chemical in Iraq.

The senators said they believe the conduct of the Army and military contractor KBR may have caused hundreds of U.S. troops to be exposed to dangerous levels of cancer-causing sodium dichromate.

Former KBR employees have said that workers and soldiers, including Indiana Guard members, were exposed to sodium dichromate at an Iraqi water pumping plant that was being repaired in 2003. Sodium dichromate was used at the site as an anti-corrosive.

Some of the guardsmen are suing KBR, which has said it acted properly.

The senators said the review done by an advisory committee to the secretary of defense and by the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine "may have been deeply flawed."

The issues the senators want the inspector general to review include whether the Army failed to clear sodium dichromate from the facility before authorizing KBR to enter the site and whether the Army responded adequately when soldiers began experience health problems.

"We know that multiple failures by contractor KBR lead to this exposure," said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "But it is also becoming clear that the Army's multiple failures resulted in soldiers not being warned about the contamination, not being provided personal protective gear, not having their symptoms taken seriously, and not being tested in a timely manner."

The Defense Health Board, an advisory committee to the secretary of defense that provides independent advice, has said the Army correctly concluded that Indiana National Guardsmen were not overexposed to the toxin.

The Courier-Journal