Both the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency issued statements denying the charges, and the President's Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses - which is probing the controversial issue - said it already had considered the evidence in question.
The former analysts, Patrick and Robin Eddington, said yesterday that they found evidence of up to 60 separate incidents in which nerve gas and other chemical weapons were released in the vicinity of American troops, but that they were muzzled by CIA higher-ups.
The two, who are husband and wife, resigned from the CIA earlier this year and are writing a book on their allegations. Patrick Eddington said in an interview that he believes the government is engaged in "a pattern of deception and denial" that "is continuing to this day."
It was not clear what impact the new allegations would have. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, were unavailable for comment. Those panels both have probed the administration's handling of Gulf War medical cases.
The thrust of the Eddingtons' charges, reported initially in the New York Times, is that the CIA is hiding logs and cables that show Iraq had moved chemical weapons near its border just before the Gulf war and that U.S. commanders knew their troops might be at risk.
The two analysts said CIA Director John Deutch expressed alarm over their course of inquiry, and that middle-level officials later sought to squelch their findings. CIA officials said Deutch only wanted to ensure that the pair's conclusions were not characterized as an official CIA position.
Eddington also charged that Defense Secretary William Perry and Gen. John Shalikashvili, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, lied in a 1994 letter to veterans in which they asserted that no U.S. troops had been exposed to chemical agents.
Actually, the 1994 letter by Perry and Shalikashvili said only that the Pentagon had no information indicating "that chemical or biological weapons were used in the Gulf" - an assertion that the Defense Department insists it still believes is true today.
Both the Pentagon and CIA reacted sharply on Wednesday to the Eddingtons' allegations. CIA officials said the evidence the Eddingtons cited involved "raw intelligence reports," containing information that later proved untrue or could not be confirmed.
Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesperson, said the Eddingtons' findings were "looked at by the CIA and provided to the presidential advisory commission," and that "agency (CIA) analysts did not agree with his conclusions." The advisory committee is slated to report in December.
Mansfield said the Eddingtons' views on the issue "were not suppressed in any way, shape or form" inside the agency. Outsiders said the CIA is reviewing the Eddingtons' book manuscript to make sure that it does not reveal classified information.
A spokesperson for some Gulf War veterans' groups hailed the Eddingtons' decision to fully air their charges. Richard H. Haines, president of Gulf War Veterans International, an activist group, called the allegations an important contribution to the debate.