Head of Gulf War Illness Probe Is Replaced

The head of the Pentagon’s Persian Gulf War illness investigative team, criticized by some veterans as unsympathetic to their complaints about the mysterious malady, has been replaced as part of an overhaul of the unit, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

The reassignment of Air Force Col. Edward Koenigsberg was explained as a result of his inability to manage a unit that recently has been expanded tenfold to aid its search for the cause of the mysterious ailments that have afflicted thousands of Gulf War veterans.

“He just didn’t understand how I wanted to organize the work,” said Bernard Rostker, who became Koenigsberg’s boss last November when Defense Department officials named him special assistant for Gulf War illnesses.

The Pentagon recently has sought to overcome steady criticism of its 6-year-old effort to uncover the source of the ailments that apparently stem from the 1991 war with Iraq. That criticism has become particularly intense since the disclosure last June that, contrary to earlier assertions, military personnel may have been exposed to chemical weapons when U.S. troops blew up an Iraqi munitions dump.

Earlier this month, a presidential advisory committee found that the government had been “somewhat slow” in its pursuit of the mystery.

Leaders of some veterans groups had expressed their unhappiness with Koenigsberg as recently as last week, when they met with Rostker to talk about the direction of the Pentagon’s investigation.

“We’re glad that Mr. Rostker appears to be taking this issue seriously, and the Gulf War vets have opened up a constructive dialogue with the Pentagon,” said Paul Sullivan, a Gulf War activist from Georgia.

He said that the veterans’ problem is “not a Koenigsberg problem” but a problem with any Pentagon official resistant to the veterans’ concerns.

“He just happened to be the guy heading the team,” Sullivan said. “The problem was the whole mind-set.”

Koenigsberg could not be reached for comment. Congressional committees have been pounding the Pentagon for what some legislators view as its efforts to conceal information on Gulf War illnesses.

Since assuming his post last November, Rostker has declared that he regretted the shortcomings of the Pentagon’s efforts to date, and he has vowed to institute a new spirit of openness and cooperation.

In an interview, he acknowledged that some veterans may have seen Koenigsberg as a hindrance in efforts to find the cause or causes of the illnesses. ‘I’m sure that’s right, from their point of view,” he said.

Yet, he said, the reassignment had nothing to do with any lack of openness from Koenigsberg or his relations with the veterans.

Nor was it, he said, part of his effort to foster better public relations on the highly sensitive issue.

“There’s nothing sinister here. He’s not a bad man,” Rostker said of Koenigsberg, a pediatrician. “He needs to do doc things--not things of an analytical manager.”

Koenigsberg was replaced by Ann Davis, a litigator who comes from the office of the Air Force general counsel. Another litigator, Dee Morris, will also join the management of the unit, which has grown from 12 people to 110 in three months.

Koenigsberg, who had held the investigative team job since 1995, will return to the office of the assistant secretary for health affairs at the Pentagon.