At 3:45 p.m., June 16, 1996, the Department of Defense press briefing 

Airborne Corps detonated a bunker that contained Iraqi rockets that were filled 

with chemical agents. The Iraqi ammunition storage depot was located in Southern 

Iraq and commonly referred to as Khamisiyah. The United Nations Special 

Commission (UNSCOM) confirmed, as a part of the weapons inspection in May 

1996, that chemical agents were found at Khamisiyah (DoD News Briefing, June 21, 

1996). Joseph said UNSCOM had first found the agents back in October 1991 (DoD 

News Briefing, June 21, 1996). This allowed media to change its focus from the 

mystery illness to the story of a cover-up. The journalists, who do not have a 

scientific background, now felt comfortable investigation the Gulf War syndrome 

from the cover-up point of view (McKenna, 1997).

Kenneth Bacon, assistant secretary of defense (public affairs), said in October 

sites did exist in the location of American troops (DoD News Briefing, June 21, 

1996). However, it was not until June 1996, that the Pentagon admitted that they had 

made a mistake. Five years after the Gulf War, the Pentagon announced the 

reversal of their position on troop exposure during Operation Desert Storm. The 

Pentagon made repeated statements to Congress, veterans' groups, and the press 

that they had been wrong and indeed chemicals had been present on the Iraqi 

battlefield. The exposure of hundreds of troops occured during a 1991 demolition 

of an Iraqi ammunition storage area (Khamisiyah) where nerve agents and mustard 

gas were stored (McKenna, 1997).

The Pentagon used a deception strategy at the beginning to hide that there 

reverse its stance and use a disclosure strategy because of the pressure from the 

media. This paper looks at the type of press the Department of Defense received as 

a result of the deception strategy. The hypothesis is that as a result of the deception 

strategy incorporated at the beginning, the Department of Defense was given 

negative press. The idea of the paper, after proving or disproving the hypothesis, is 

to provide the strategy that would have been more effective. To test the hypothesis, 

this paper used a content analysis to gain information on the type of press coverage 

received after the June 16, 1996, news briefing.