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Editorial: Report burn-pit truth

Military officials say no known long-term health effects can be linked to heavy, lengthy exposure to the smoke from open-air burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But a report containing data on chemical exposures from the burn pit at the biggest U.S. facility in Iraq, Joint Base Balad, remains classified because it has details of base perimeters and facilities that officials say would pose a security risk if made public.

That leaves troops and veterans to rely on the Pentagon’s word regarding potential health effects — and that’s a concern. Disabled American Veterans has built a database of more than 100 troops, and counting, who say they were made ill by exposure to burn-pit smoke while deployed, some with lymphomas and leukemia.

As former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously said, “There are things we don’t know we don’t know.” Saying there are no known long-term health effects from burn-pit smoke is not the same as definitively saying there are no long-term effects.

That is why it’s important for the Defense Department to get out in front here — which would be a departure from its history on operational health issues.

From atomic radiation tests in the 1940s, to secret chemical and biological tests in the ’60s, to Agent Orange in the ’70s, to Gulf War illness in the ’90s, the Pentagon’s default position has been to obfuscate and deny, sometimes for years, before doing the right thing by its people.

There’s no reason the Pentagon cannot redact the burn-pit report for operational security concerns and make public the findings. This is how countless reports containing classified data have been handled for decades. Mistrust will only fester as long as the findings are kept secret.

If defense officials resist, Congress should give them a hard shove. If a potential health issue lurks here, it would be refreshing to see the Pentagon be part of the solution, not the problem.