WASHINGTON — Comedian Jon Stewart is pushing the Biden administration to close a loophole in a sweeping veterans aid bill that left out some of the first U.S. troops to arrive on the scene after the September 11 attacks. became ill after being deployed to a contaminated base containing dangerous amounts of uranium.
Special operations forces were deployed to Karshi-Khanabad, or “K2,” in Uzbekistan about three weeks after the 2001 attacks. K2 was a former Soviet air base that U.S. forces used to strike Taliban targets in Afghanistan in the early days of the war. The base was a former chemical weapons processing site and was littered with Soviet-era debris, including demolished bunkers, missile parts and highly radioactive uranium powder, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
It’s not clear why uranium powder was on the ground or how it got there. But it’s a concern for those who served at K2. Thousands of K2 veterans have reported complex medical conditions in the years since, some of them related to radiation exposure.
“Imagine being stationed in the meth lab from ‘Breaking Bad,'” Stewart said in an interview with the AP. “These guys were exposed to a toxic soup of essentially an exploded chemical and nuclear weapons facility.”
A massive veterans aid bill, the PACT Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, addressed many of the health issues facing K2 veterans. But it did not include coverage for radiation exposure at K2.
K2 veterans have been asking the Department of Veterans Affairs for help for years, but so far the VA has not acted. The agency has said it is still studying the issue and is asking the Pentagon for additional information before determining whether to add radiation exposure as a condition for which K2 service members can receive coverage.
“Any presumed conditions established by the VA, and not by law, require a factual basis,” said VA spokesman Terrence Hayes.
It’s been more than 20 years since troops first deployed to K2, and nearly two years since Biden celebrated the passage of the PACT Act. But K2 veterans still face the very claims denials the PACT was intended to fix.
AP data showed that the soil at K2 registered uranium radiation levels up to 40,000 times higher than what would have been expected if it were natural uranium, said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear fusion specialist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, who reviewed the data.
Even when it was in its least radioactive form, depleted uranium, the soil was up to 24,000 times higher than what would have been found in nature. Air samples were more than 30 to 100 times higher than the levels that would have been found in normal air samples, Makhijani said.
The radiation levels recorded by the health team were so high that anyone not wearing protective clothing would have inhaled high levels of contamination when the dust rose, especially during activities such as earthmoving, Makhijani said.
The radiation data were collected in November 2001 by retired Army Sgt. Matthew Nicholls, who was part of an Army Environmental Health Team that was quickly deployed to collect air, water and soil samples from K2 after local Uzbek workers preparing the site for incoming U.S. troops became ill with headaches, nausea and vomiting.
As the health team walked around the base, past destroyed bunkers and rocket remains, they found the ground littered with yellow clumps the size of pebbles and powder, and cans of tuna leaking yellow powder, Nicholls said.
An instrument used to detect radiation “went from click, click, click to the sound that sounded like a fishing rod going off,” Nicholls said.
“That stuff was scattered all over the place,” he said. Photos obtained by the AP show Nicholls and his team collecting the yellow clumps and scattered powder.
After the health team reported its findings, the military created a secret base map obtained by the AP, marking the area as an “enriched uranium contamination site” to prevent tents from being built. But the soil had already been moved by bulldozers and trucks as they pushed up a protective berm, and tents were being built on the other side of the berm on land directly adjacent to the restricted fields.
Exposure to radiation from uranium can damage the kidneys, increase the risk of bone cancer and also affect pregnancies because it crosses the placenta, among other harmful effects, said Makhijani, who previously worked with “nuclear veterans” who became ill from radiation after working on Bikini Atoll during nuclear weapons testing in the 1940s.
“Uranium goes to the bone,” Makhijani said.
Despite the detection of the uranium, the military continued to use the base for the next four years, building a sprawling tent city. Heavy winds and rains regularly hit the base, spreading the contaminants throughout the base. More than 15,000 troops were transferred from 2001 to 2005, when the U.S. troops left.
Since the PACT Act was passed, K2 veteran and former Army Staff Sgt. Mark Jackson has sought medical attention for severe osteoporosis, had a testicle removed, and had his entire thyroid removed.
None of the new medical issues he has experienced since the PACT Act was passed have been covered by the VA. This Friday, Jackson will join Stewart in Washington to pressure the Department of Veterans Affairs to act more quickly.
Hayes, the VA spokesman, said the agency is “currently conducting extensive research to identify evidence that may demonstrate radiation exposure — including analyzing all claims filed by veterans who served at K2. We are working on this with the utmost urgency.”
In a statement to the AP Monday night, the Pentagon said its own monitoring of the site “does not indicate the presence of enriched uranium” and that it is examining material from K2 veterans at the site.
The VA does not have complete figures on the number of sick K2 veterans, so the veterans have had to take it upon themselves to organize and collect data. They have contacted about 5,000 K2 veterans. Of those, more than 1,500 have self-reported ailments, including cancer, neurological disorders, reproductive problems, a variety of birth defects and bone disorders, among other problems, said Natalie White, a volunteer for the group. White’s husband, Tech. Sgt. Clayton White, died at age 41 after suffering from a long list of ailments, including osteoarthritis, grand mal seizures and kidney failure. White deployed to K2 shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
Stewart has long advocated for the firefighters and first responders who responded to the World Trade Center attacks. In recent years, he has also advocated for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan who returned home with cancer and other serious illnesses after being exposed to toxins on the battlefield.
The PACT Act was “an immense improvement,” Stewart said. A small adjustment by VA Secretary Denis McDonough to address radiation exposure at K2 would fulfill the intent of the PACT Act.
He fears that some K2 veterans are running out of time.
“The worst part is the years when they’re sickest, when they’re living in fear and struggling with a system that’s hostile in some way,” Stewart said. “I don’t know why it’s a hostile system in any way. But that seems to be the uphill climb that everyone has to go through to get the benefits or the health care that they’ve earned.”