Democrats in the U.S. Senate say the Army and the nation's largest war contractor failed to protect troops from a "deadly poison" in Iraq and are demanding that the inspector general investigate.

The statement came after a former Oregon Army National Guardsman and three other combat veterans testified before a Senate panel Monday that since being exposed to hexavalent chromium in 2003, they have been chronically ill and that some of their fellow soldiers have died.

"Before my service to Iraq, I was physically fit. I used to run several miles without much effort," said Rocky Bixby of Hillsboro, who struggled to speak between raspy coughs. "Now I have trouble walking from my house to my car. I simply run out of breath."

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., called the Army's investigation into the exposure "tragically inadequate" and likened it to the government's mishandling of Agent Orange.

"The Defense Department failed to protect our troops," Dorgan said. "And I believe they are downplaying this in part because it is an embarrassment to them."

The Army has defended its handling of the case and of Kellogg Brown & Root, the company that earned millions in bonuses for restoring Iraqi oil production.

Dorgan spoke at the 20th oversight hearing he has conducted, mostly into the contracts between the Defense Department and KBR, the Houston firm that provides almost all basic services for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. After last year's hearings, the inspector general reported that KBR's shoddy electrical work failed to protect a Marine electrocuted in the shower and that it served troops contaminated drinking water.

The troops' exposure to the industrial chemical first came to light at a June 2008 hearing. A former KBR safety official testified that he was sent home from Iraq in 2003 after raising concerns about the reddish-orange powder piled at a water treatment plant near Basra. The plant was needed to restore pressure in nearby oil wells.

Ed Blacke testified that in addition to KBR employees, hundreds of U.S. troops were exposed to the toxic powder as they slept, ate and patrolled the plant between April and August of 2003. Among those exposed: members of the 1st Battalion, 162nd Infantry, the first Oregon Guard members sent to Iraq.

But the troops, including others from Indiana and West Virginia, knew almost nothing of the toxin until the state military departments and the Pentagon began mailing letters out earlier this year. Troops say windstorms whipped up the reddish dust that spilled from hundreds of 100-pound bags and turned the soldiers into "orange-powdered doughnuts." They recalled the constant metallic taste that one veteran described like "a mouthful of pennies."

But they were never told to use masks and other protective gear they had carried into combat. And their constant nosebleeds, skin sores and headaches were written off as allergies to desert dust.

"Within two months, you could shine a light into my nasal cavity through a hole that had eaten throughout to the outside of my nose," testified Russell Kimberling, a former Indiana National Guard commander who was medically evacuated to Germany. Kimberling was still guarding the plant that August when KBR employees showed up in full protection suits. The Guard commander escorting them is now in hospice care with lung disease.

Kimberling testified that company officials dismissed the corrosion fighter as a "mild irritant" and that they said one would "literally have to bathe" in it for harm to occur.

Within weeks, the plant was shuttered and cleaned up. The Army eventually administered blood tests to 137 troops a month later. The men never received written results.

On Monday, Herman Gibb, an epidemiologist and the Environmental Protection Agency's former top expert on hexavalent chromium, testified before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee that much of the toxin would have been out of the troops' bodies at the time of the tests. Gibb likened it to "giving a Breathalyzer to a person three days after they were pulled over for erratic driving."

Gibb said an epidemiological study based on the military's medical records was needed, as well as ongoing medical evaluation and care.

Oregon has tried to provide that. This summer, the Legislature, led by Rep. Chip Shields of Portland, approved money for soldiers who develop cancer as a result. Some soldiers are also going to court.

Bixby is one of five current and former Oregon Army National Guard members, along with dozens of other soldiers in Indiana and West Virginia, who are suing KBR.

Bixby, a public safety officer at Oregon Health & Science University, told the senators that after receiving his letter earlier this year, the nonsmoker finally had a chest X-ray at Veterans Affairs.

"The doctors discovered I have a node on my lung."

-- Julie Sullivan: juliesullivan@news.oregonian.com