Update Report Letters     

PITTS & ASSOCIATES

Dear Gulf War Veteran Client:

The test case is now scheduled to go to trial in October of this year, in Angleton, Texas, which is southeast of Houston. The Court will have discretion on whether to have one, two, three or some other small number of plaintiffs heard in this trial.

After lengthy attempts in both Texas and New York to get judicial personal jurisdiction over the many foreign companies that we discovered were involved in supplying Saddam’s chemical warfare complex, we are left with the Alcolac group as the defendants that we both have jurisdiction over and that are revealed by the Iraqi government records as having been involved. In the efforts to get jurisdiction over the foreign companies, we went before the Supreme Court of Texas twice. Unfortunately, the foreign companies do not have branch offices in the United States. Some have subsidiaries here. Unfortunately, the courts have held that having subsidiaries here is not enough. It was held that the foreign companies did not have "continuous and systematic contacts" with the U.S. sufficient for the courts to assert personal jurisdiction over them.

Alcolac was one of the two American companies that supplied chemical precursors to Saddam. The other company, Al Haddad Trading, was owned and operated from Nashville by an Iraqi national who fled the United States when the Gulf War occurred. That company became defunct at that point and has no assets to seek recovery from.

We have harbored suspicions about another American company, Kellogg (not the cereal company), that built an ammonia factory in Iraq in the 1980s, but they do not show up in the Iraqi government records that reveal in great detail who all was involved in Saddam’s chemical warfare complex, and what they did. We have not been able to uncover evidence sufficient to prove in court that Kellogg was involved in making chemical weapons.

We are left with Alcolac. That company was based in Baltimore when it sold about 400 tons of thiodyglycol, the precursor for mustard gas, to Saddam in the 1980s. Their offices were raided by U.S. Customs agents before the Gulf War. They were found guilty of violating Federal export laws. They are identified and discussed in the Iraqi government documents concerning Saddam’s chemical warfare program. The Iraqi government documents that we acquired in the course of this case were shared by us with the Dutch government in their prosecution of the Dutch national that was involved as the middleman between Alcolac and Saddam. Two years ago, that middleman, Mr. Frans van Anraat, was found guilty of complicity in war crimes by the Dutch court, because of his involvement in supplying the means to make the mustard gas that was used by Saddam to slaughter tens of thousands of Kurdish people. He was sentenced to prison for 15 years. He had argued that he did not know that Saddam was going to use the thiodyglycol to make mustard gas. The Dutch court did not buy his argument. We anticipate that an American court and jury will not believe a similar argument by Alcolac, once they hear the facts in court in October.

Mustard gas is a carcinogen and causes birth defects. Most Gulf War vets that have been ill since the war have suffered from a multi-symptom neurological disorder. What has been known as "Gulf War Syndrome" or "Gulf War Illness" was identified by 1998 by the Centers for Disease Control ( the "CDC") as a multi-symptom neurological disorder. The large and lengthy amount of research on Gulf War Illness concluded with the consensus recognized by the September 2004 report of the U.S. Veterans’ Administration Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, which held that Gulf War Illness was "probably" caused by exposure to neuro-toxins, such as Sarin nerve gas, during the war. Mustard gas is not a neuro-toxin, however. On the other hand, it does cause cancer and birth defects. A higher than normal rate of cancer in Gulf War veterans, and a higher than normal rate of birth defects among the children of Gulf War veterans, have both been found in the medical research published since the Gulf War.

We have necessarily established a fairly conservative set of criteria for what is needed in order to be considered a "mustard gas client" in view of the plaintiffs’ burden of proof, and the uncertainties of the upcoming test case to be tried in court this coming October. The Court may set its own broader or more restrictive criteria in due course, and will then probably dismiss those that do not meet the Court’s eventual criteria on the matter. A "mustard gas client" will be considered to be someone who meets all of one of the following three sets of criteria:

1.) The Gulf War veteran parent must be an existing accepted client of one of the four law firms that are representing the plaintiffs/intervenors in the case: (Maloney, Martin & Associates, Pitts & Associates, Spagnoletti & Associates, or The Gallagher Law Firm); and

2.) The child in question had to be conceived after the 1991 Gulf War; and

3.) The child in question must have a significant physical birth defect; and

4.) Medical documentation of the child’s physical birth defect must have been presented to the law firm representing you; and

5.) The natural parent of the birth defected child must have served in the relevant area exposed to mustard gas fallout in northeastern Saudi Arabia (especially near Hafar al Batin or KKMC), Iraq and/or in Kuwait between January 16, 1991 and March 20, 1991.

1.) The Gulf War veteran must be an existing accepted client of one of the four law firms mentioned in I (1) above; and

2.) The veteran must have contracted cancer after serving in the 1991 Gulf War; and

3.) The veteran must never have been a smoker; and

4.) Medical documentation of the veteran’s cancer must have been presented to the law firm representing you; and

5.) The Gulf War veteran must have served in the relevant area exposed to mustard gas fallout in northeastern Saudi Arabia (especially near Hafar al Batin or KKMC), Iraq and/or in Kuwait between January 16, 1991 and March 20, 1991.

1.) The Gulf War veteran must be an existing accepted client of one of the four law firms mentioned in I (1) above; and

2.) The veteran must not have had pulmonary problems prior to the 1991 Gulf War; and

3.) The veteran cannot have been a smoker; and

4.) Medical documentation of the veterans’ serious actively medically treated Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease must have been presented to the law firm representing you; and

5.) The Gulf War veteran must have served in the relevant area exposed to mustard gas fallout in northeastern Saudi Arabia (especially near Hafar al Batin or KKMC), Iraq and/or in Kuwait between January 16, 1991 and March 20, 1991

If you are an existing client of Pitts & Associates and Maloney, Martin & Associates, and you have not received a letter in the last three months sending you the Defendants’ Master Set of Interrogatories and Requests for Production to answer and respond to, and you believe that your case completely fits within all of the restrictions of one of the three categories of being a "mustard gas client"above, please send a fax or letter to your law firm by the end of January 2008, and preferably in the next couple of weeks.

We will generally not be able to consider accepting any new clients until the results of the test case are back.

Thank you for the opportunity to represent you these many years. The fact that this case has been pursued will be some deterrent, at least in the United States, to those, like Alcolac, who might otherwise consider supplying the means to build weapons of mass destruction to Islamic-fascists or other terrorists or unstable regimes in the future.

I will post another update as any significant developments occur in the procedural status of the case.

Thank you again for your service to our country.

Best regards for the new year.

                                                                                                    Very truly yours,

                                                                                                    Gary B. Pitts