Toxic 'Black Goo' Base Used by US Had Enriched Uranium. More Veterans Report Cancer

WASHINGTON -- For the last six weeks, a private Facebook group set up to help veterans who served at a toxic base in Uzbekistan has been flooded with new members, many with hauntingly familiar stories: I served at K2. I have cancer.

"It was overwhelming," said retired Army Chief Warrant Officer Scott Welsch, a special operations military intelligence officer who deployed to K2, or Karshi-Khanabad, Uzbekistan, in October 2001.

McClatchy exclusively reported in December that the Pentagon had known from the beginning that K2, a former Soviet and Uzbek base, was contaminated with radioactive processed uranium, chemical weapons remnants and underground pools of fuel and solvents that broke through the soil in a "black goo."

Despite the contamination, about 7,000 U.S. forces were deployed there after the 9/11 attacks, from October 2001 to 2005, until Uzbekistan withdrew permission for the United States to use the base.

After the K2 story became public, the veterans' K2 Facebook site was flooded with new requests to join. Each new member was vetted for their military service. Once accepted, more names of ill veterans began to surface.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/04/toxic-black-goo-base-used-us-had-enriched-uranium-more-veterans-report-cancer.html