Jon Stewart pushes for breakthrough to provide full care to first 9/11 soldiers

WASHINGTON – The first U.S. soldiers deployed after the 9/11 attacks are suffering from radiation exposure that the government has not officially acknowledged 23 years later. They are the latest group of 9/11 casualties that comedian Jon Stewart, an advocate for first responders, can’t leave behind.

Special operations forces were sent to the former Soviet base in Uzbekistan in early October 2001, where they began their first missions against the Taliban in Afghanistan, including the covert horseback operation depicted in the film “12 Strong.” Over the next four years, more than 15,000 U.S. troops were deployed to Karshi-Khanabad, known as K2.

Troops found lumps of yellow powder scattered near bunkers where Soviet forces stored missiles. Tests showed it was radioactive uranium, according to a declassified Defense Department assessment from November 2001.

In the years since, thousands of K2 veterans have reported cancers, kidney problems and other conditions, some of which are linked to radiation exposure. But K2 exposure is not covered by a major veterans relief bill known as the PACT Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022.

“The K2 veterans were the tip of the spear. They were the first group sent into the war on terror and they continue to be on the lazy Susan of bureaucratic nonsense that prevents them from getting the benefits and health care that they deserve,” Stewart told The Associated Press this week.

Stewart is pushing the Biden administration to make changes that will ensure K2 veterans are fully insured, convening a meeting of veterans with the Defense Department’s assistant secretary of health on Monday.

An evaluation of the scene by an Army medical team in 2001 found uranium scattered around K2 in the form of “granules, discrete pockets of yellow sediment, and fine dispersion in the soil.”

“Tests to date indicate that the uranium is not depleted uranium, but rather an enriched product,” the declassified report reads.

Despite those records, the Defense Department has not officially identified the base as the site of the radiation exposure. And the Department of Veterans Affairs has not added it to the alleged conditions soldiers experienced there. The White House has said it remains a priority for Biden, but it has referred the matter to agencies, which say more information is needed.

“President Biden believes that veterans who suffered from toxic exposures while stationed at K2 should have access to the benefits they have earned and deserved,” White House spokeswoman Kelly Scully said in a statement to the AP.

The Pentagon also said in a statement that it “remains committed to thoroughly reviewing all information related to K2” and that “ensuring the health and safety of our service members and veterans remains a top priority.”

VA spokesman Terrence Hayes said in a statement that since the PACT Act was passed, nearly 12,000 K2 veterans have received benefits for at least one service-connected condition and have received an average annual benefit of $30,871 to compensate them for the disabilities they currently experience.

But K2 veterans have also been dying while waiting for the Pentagon and the VA to recognize their claims of radiation-related illnesses, and further investigation and analysis only prolongs that process, said Matt Erpelding, leader of the K2 veterans group Stronghold Freedom Foundation.

“This has to be done now,” said Erpelding, who was sent to K2 as a C-130 pilot in December 2001.

Arjun Makhijani, a fusion scientist and president of the Energy and Environmental Research Institute, said an analysis of declassified data from K2 showed that radiation levels recorded at K2 in 2001 were as much as 40,000 times higher than would have been recorded if uranium occurred naturally.

Exposure to radiation from uranium can cause kidney damage, increase the risk of bone cancer and affect pregnancy, among other things, said Makhijani, who previously worked with veterans who became ill from radiation exposure at Bikini Atoll during nuclear weapons testing in the 1940s.

The VA has no statistics on how many of the more than 15,000 troops deployed to K2 have become ill. The veterans organization has contacted about 5,000 of them, and more than 1,500 have reported serious health conditions, including cancer, kidney and bone problems, reproductive problems and birth defects.

U.S. forces left the base in 2005. Since then, Uzbekistan has played a larger role in regional counterterrorism efforts, especially after the U.S. lost its foothold in Afghanistan following its 2021 withdrawal.

Only about a dozen U.S. troops have been regularly deployed to Uzbekistan over the past few years, according to the Pentagon. Uzbek Maj. Gen. Shukhrat Khalmukhamedov met Monday at the Pentagon with Gen. C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to discuss joint efforts to defeat the Islamic State and “Uzbekistan’s desire to develop a strategic partnership with the United States,” Brown’s office said in a statement.

The issue of K2 did not come up, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting.

Veterans do not understand why U.S. agencies do not want to officially confirm radiation exposure, especially since information about it is included in agency documents.

“They’re obviously weirdly sensitive about this place,” Stewart said.

Congress obtained detailed environmental assessments of the database and reams of data from the Pentagon and made them public four years ago in a bipartisan effort to acknowledge toxic exposures among K2 veterans. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., recently announced new legislation to do so.

In response to multiple questions from the AP, officials from the White House, Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense highlighted other aspects of expanded care for K2 veterans — both under the PACT Act and the follow-up care the Department of Veterans Affairs announced last month, adding more health conditions they face.

On radiation exposure, the government cites a Johns Hopkins study on the effects of depleted uranium on veterans, which won’t be completed until 2031, the 30th anniversary of the attacks.

“Because the Department of Defense and by extension the Department of Veterans Affairs will not acknowledge that such a provision existed, it is a sticking point for any K2 bill or regulation and was not included in the PACT Act because it was not subject to negotiation,” said K2 veteran Mark Jackson.