Molly Ivins March 2

BERKELEY, Calif. — A perfect political Rorschach test for our time:

"Military loses Gulf War records: 75 percent of chemical weapons logs are missing; ill vets suspect cover-up."

"Pentagon reveals it lost most logs on chemical arms: Logs missing from two sites; Gulf War veterans now raise questions of cover-up or criminal incompetence."

The first requirement for taking this test is that you know no more about the situation than is covered in the headlines, which is about the same amount you learned from watching TV news. The second requirement is that you are prepared to reach a conclusion immediately. This is:

A. A cover-up.

B. A foul-up.

C. Danged peculiar.

Your choice means you are:

A. Paranoid.

B. A chump.

C. A sensible person and nobody's fool.

Specific information that may help you decide: "Missing from two sites." Human beings find coincidences infinitely astonishing, but coincidence is as common as dirt. Remember the list of amazing parallels between the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations? Lincoln had a secretary named Mrs. Kennedy, and Kennedy had a secretary named Mrs. Lincoln, etc. All of which meant nothing. They were just coincidences. And we are surrounded by coincidences. Lots of them are very nice coincidences, too, and there is even a word for them — serendipitous.

On the other hand, having been through Vietnam, Watergate, Iran/Contra and any number of lesser "gates" in relatively recent years, should we not conclude that only a chump would trust the government? Or a big corporation? Or a doctor? Or a lawyer? Or a minister? Or a Boy Scout leader? HELP, we're surrounded by scoundrels, knaves and liars, you can't trust anyone, Ike was a commie, U.N. troops in black helicopters are planning to impose a New World Order, and the Bavarian Illuminati will get us all in the end. Just step over here into this nice, white jacket and we'll send you off for a long rest at a lovely place.

On still another hand, Richard Nixon, among others, would have told you with his dying breath that Watergate was not a conspiracy, it was just a deadly combination of bad luck, bad timing and bad judgment. Plus some lying. Bad luck, bad timing, bad judgment and, I am sorry to say, lying are also as common as dirt. And more common than all of them put together are simple and compound human stupidity.

"Criminal incompetence" is a swell phrase.

A person studying history could come to believe in criminal incompetence, either misdemeanant or felonious, the way most people believe in water. It's real. Consider also that we are speaking of the Pentagon, an organization that not long ago confessed that it had mislaid $15 billion. Fifteen billion. Just misplaced it. Couldn't find a trace. Had no idea. Sort of a giant "oops." Oops is a key word in human affairs. Students of human organizations already know that's the size of the oops you get when you're dealing with something as large as the Pentagon.

Note also that some of the missing information seems to have been wiped out by a computer virus, allegedly introduced into the system by an officer who took some computer games to Gulf War headquarters. Oops. This is an especially inviting scenario since few of us understand computers and the tendency to be paranoid about new forms of technology is long-established, and in my opinion quite healthy, like our atavistic fear of snakes.

According to The New York Times, "The gaps in the logs include the period from March 4 to March 10, 1991, when American troops blew up an Iraqi ammunition depot that is now thought to have contained tons of nerve gas and other chemical weapons. ... Today's report does add to the growing body of evidence that Defense Department officials mishandled — may even have destroyed — evidence that would have indicated that the exposures did occur. After years of denials, the Pentagon acknowledged only last June that some American soldiers might have been exposed to nerve gas and other chemical weapons, and it has since conceded that more than 20,000 troops may have been exposed." Warnings from the CIA were apparently ignored, and American commanders received and disregarded several reports of chemical detections during the war.

So, what do they think they're hiding, assuming they are, and why are they hiding it? Monetary claims from soldiers whose health was damaged? That would certainly mount to the millions, even billions, even $15 billion. To protect the military's reputation for having achieved a brilliant victory in the Gulf War, a reputation carefully built and burnished by the military itself, in part to make up for its long period in the national doghouse after Vietnam?

That American soldiers might have been impaired by fiendish weapons made by the arch-villain Saddam Hussein wouldn't have fazed Americans one bit. That our own military might have lied about same to save either money or reputation would be truly devastating to the public trust. In other words, if there's a conspiracy here, it's a conspiracy of fools. As usual.

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Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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