Copyright © 1998 Nando.net
Copyright © 1998 Reuters News Service

WASHINGTON, June 7 (June 7, 1998 11:03 p.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) - The U.S. military used lethal nerve gas during the Vietnam War,
targeting American defectors in a village base camp in Laos, CNN and Time magazine said in a joint report on Sunday.

Adm. Thomas Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that sarin nerve gas was used in 1970 in a secret raid into Laos
called Operation Tailwind, according to the report aired on CNN on Sunday.

Capt. Eugene McCarley, commander of the mission, told the program "Newsstand: CNN & Time" that "upwards of 100" people perished in the
raid, including women and children. Platoon leader Lt. Robert Van Buskirk estimated up to 20 American military defectors were killed.

The Pentagon said on Sunday its own research did not indicate that nerve gas was used during the Vietnam War.

"We've haven't seen the piece yet, however we've researched this kind of thing and there's nothing to lead us to believe that nerve gas was
used in Vietnam or Laos," said Defence Department spokesman Jim Turner.

The report, which also appears in the issue of Time on sale on Monday, said that the United States has not before admitted to using sarin in
combat. Sarin is the gas used in a 1995 Tokyo subway attack that killed 12 people and made thousands ill.

Moorer told the program the White House national security team of President Richard Nixon approved use of the nerve gas and the CIA had
partial responsibility for the operation. He said he was speaking out now because of his respect for history.

The report quoted military officials and soldiers who took part in the raids as saying that the sarin gas was dropped on more than 20 missions
in Laos and North Vietnam.

The year of the Tailwind mission, Nixon had pledged a no-first-use policy on nerve gas as part of his commitment to the Geneva Protocol
limiting chemical weapons use, but the Senate had not yet ratified the chemical weapons treaty.

Van Buskirk told CNN and Time he had orders to kill everyone, including U.S. defectors.

"It was pretty well understand that if you came across a defector, and could prove it to yourself beyond a reasonable doubt, do it. Under any
circumstance, kill them," he said. "It wasn't about bringing them back, it was to kill them."

Soldiers who took part in the secret September 1970 Tailwind mission -- about 60 miles deep into Laos -- were in the Studies and
Observations Group, SOG, which mounted operations against unusual targets, using unusual weapons.

Van Buskirk said an Air Force colonel warned him about the lethal gas before the mission and urged him to be sure that his soldiers took their
M-17 gas masks, designed to protect against nerve gas. The SOG commandos were also issued atropine, a nerve gas antidote, CNN and
Time reported.

One of the soldiers on the mission, Jim Cathey, said he spent five hours closely observing the village base camp and saw 10 to 15
Caucasians.

"I believe that there were American defectors in that group of people in that village, because there was no ... sign of any kind of restraint," he
said. "In retrospect I believe that mission was to wipe out those longshadows," as defectors were known since they were taller than Laotians
and Vietnamese.

In an off-camera interview Moorer acknowledged that Tailwind's target was the defectors in the village, CNN & Time said. Although he would
give no firm estimate, Moorer indicated scores of U.S. military had defected during the war.

In the Tailwind raid, U.S. planes passed over the village base camp and dropped the deadly nerve gas. SOG commandos entered the camp
the next morning, and according to Mike Hagen, who was a platoon sergeant, "basically destroyed everything there."