Gulf War veterans deserve to be treated with compassion

Even by the standards of the Ministry of Defence, it was a graceless climbdown. A British soldier, Alex Izett, who has been suffering from a brittle-bone disease, has won a landmark Gulf War syndrome case. A tribunal has ruled that a cocktail of drugs given to him in 1991 should be blamed for his illness. He was never deployed in the Gulf, but his symptoms, including fatigue and digestive and psychological problems, were identical to those of some veterans of that war.

Even though the MoD lost the case, it still maintains that Gulf War syndrome does not exist. Commenting on the Today programme, Lewis Moonie, a junior Defence minister, was at his most curmudgeonly: "The tribunal is not competent to make that kind of decision. They can come to their conclusion. They are entitled to do it... if you are going to create a syndrome, it has to be one that the medical profession accepts".

Given the roles this Government has recently asked our armed forces to undertake, Mr Moonie's is an offensive, as well as an ungrateful and politically unwise, response. It is also plain wrong. The United States military has shown itself perfectly prepared to acknowledge the existence of Gulf War syndrome and to act accordingly. The Americans recognised the illness in 1994, and sufferers receive disability pensions. But the MoD seems determined to stick to an argument about whether the various illnesses suffered by Gulf War veterans can be properly called a "syndrome" – a rather narrow point. Ministers are also far too willing to push the whole of the onus of proof on to the disabled ex-servicemen and women and their representatives in what is a complex scientific debate.

Yet what would be so very wrong with the Government allowing a little leeway towards those who have been prepared to fight for their country? Is there not a strong moral argument for dropping this stubborn and increasingly ineffective official resistance to the claims of Gulf War veterans? Why not treat them with the compassion they deserve? In America, there is a cabinet minister in charge of veteran affairs; here we seem to have a whole department of state dedicated to denying veterans justice.