Instead, the 12-member panel, known as the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, agreed to a Defense Department plan that would enable the Pentagon to continue investigating such cases on its own, but under the "oversight"of an outside body.
The committee did not specify which outside agency should provide the oversight. Although some members favored asking the National Academy of Sciences or the U.S. Institute of Medicine to take on the job, the panel decided to leave the choice up to the White House.
Although the committee's decision is another blow to the Pentagon's credibility on the Gulf war issue, it permits the department to save face by continuing to retain control over the investigation.
The advisory panel is scheduled to issue a formal report in late December. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has sharply expanded its investigative team and pledged to probe "dozens"of incidents of possible chemical exposure.
The move represents a major change from the panel's previous posture. A preliminary report drafted by the committee staff had suggested wresting away the investigation from the Department of Defense and turning it over to an independent body.
The Pentagon argued that would be impractical. Deputy Defense Secretary John White, who addressed the committee yesterday morning, pledged that the department would adopt as many of the committee's recommendations on Gulf war illness as it possibly could.
"My personal view is that the standard for acceptance should be that if the committee has suggested a good idea, we will pursue effective ways to implement the recommendations," he said.
Panel members also made it clear that while they have been sharply critical of the Pentagon's performance on the Gulf war issue in the past, they were impressed with its more recent efforts to step up the search for possible exposure by U.S. troops.
"I think what we heard this morning was as constructive and forthcoming as we could hope," said panel member John Baldeschwiler, a chemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology. Baldeschwiler is one of several scientists and physicians on the committee.