US wanted to gas Aussies
DOCUMENTS that reveal the US military planned to test deadly nerve gas on Australian soldiers in a Far Northern rainforest during the Cold War should be released immediately, Cook MP Jason O'Brien said yesterday.
Newly declassified Defence and Prime Minister's office files show the US was strongly pushing then prime minister Harold Holt's government to allow tests of two of the deadliest chemical weapons ever developed - VX and GB, better known as Sarin nerve gas.
The top secret plan involved allowing 200 mainly Australian combat troops to be aerially bombed and sprayed with the chemical weapons near Lockhart River, Channel Nine's Sunday program reported.
It is understood the Iron Range rainforest was the likely location for the tests.
Peter Bailey, a former senior official with Mr Holt, told the program the request caused consternation in Canberra and, as far as he knows, the tests never went ahead.
But he says planning was advanced in the US, which wanted the operation to be kept secret because the weapons were illegal under international law. Mr O'Brien yesterday told The Cairns Post the classified Federal Government files should be released immediately, backing similar calls by former Democrat Senator Lyn Allison.
"This was all going on 40 years ago so it's certainly time to release all documents," he said.
"If there are people up there and families who have concerns, then the release of the documents would allow them to get the facts."
The files reveal that then-US defence secretary Robert McNamara asked the Australian Defence Department in July 1962 to conduct joint testing of chemical weapons "on a classified basis without a public release by either country".
The Sunday program reported that in early 1963, a survey team of Australian and US scientists suggested the remote Iron Range rainforest near Lockhart River as a location.
The report follows claims that Agent Orange was tested at a site near Innisfail during the 1960s, but a Defence Force report written in 1967 debunked the claims.
Cassowary Coast Regional Council is still considering testing water supplies for chemicals to allay community concerns.
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Release the documents: Cook MP Jason PO'Brien.
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