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Show The Salt Lake Tribune NATION Friday,July 25, 1997 Hotel Utah Offers Alternative July 24 More Gulf Troops Exposed to Gas? BY ROBERT BURNS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BY LIZ PETERSON SAN. FRANCISCO — While Utahns in Utah cele- brated Pioneer Day watching parades and rodeos, certain dispersed natives congregated at the Hotel Utah to imbibe discounted mixed drinks andtolisten to an alternative rock band cials Thursday said they would use new computer- Comeagain? No,not the newlychristened Joseph Smith Memo- generated estimates of troop exposure to study long- term health effects. rial Building, but a different place: a San Francisco saloon. Located at 500 4th Streetin thecitybythe bay, the bar at the residential Hotel Utah plays host to an It is notclear what constitutes a “dangerous level” of exposure,although the Pentagon’s new data show the vaporized Iraqi gas was in concentrations well below levels known to kill or incapacitate humans. Notroops reported health problems at the time, but in the aftermath of the Gulf War some havesuggested that exposure to Iraqi chemicals could be a cause of the mysterious ailments, known as Gulf War IIlness, suffered by many veterans. Little is known about the long-term effects in humans from exposure to small amounts of nerve informalcelebration to commemoratethestate holi- dayof its namesake. Five or 10 years ago, crowds of former Utahns would visit the bar on Pioneer Day. They would be greeted with shots of tequila andstories of celebrating July 24th in Utah. The bash has quieted in recent years since the former bar manager, a Utahnative, left, said Guy agent, said Bernard Rostker, head of the Defense Carson, the Hotel Utah's current manager.Still, Department office investigating the causes of Gulf War Illness. What evidence exists suggests there are Utahns continue to frequent the barbyvirtue of the name, he said, often bearing suchgifts as plates or no harmful effects, he told a news conference. room keys from Salt Lake City’s own former Hotel Liz Peterson’The Salt Lake Tribune The Hotel Utahsits in San Francisco, and hosts aninformal celebration to honor Pioneer Day. Utah. Carson said close to a hundred people came for Thursday's event. Along with $1 drinks and music from a newband, they could enjoy a Utah specialty — lime jello. The Old West-style bar is decorated with Utah memorabilia and nowhawks T-shirts bearing theslogan, “No Man, This is the Place,” a take on the famous words of Utah’s founder. The Pioneer Day event isn’t the only irreverent theme partysponsored bythe Hotel Utah, according to Ed Miller, whohaslived upstairs in the residential hotel area for five years. Pope Night, for example, is held on Holy Thursday. Everyone shows up dressed like a pontiff, he said. Miller recently spent a Sunday afternoon painting fresh colors on the outside of the bar. Gesturing to the bar's surroundings, he said he feared that the bar and neighborhood probably will change soon. Condominiumsareselling for $320,000 and higher to “lawyers and doctors.” Miller's current neighbors lean more to the unconventional, he said — artists, In June 1996 the Pentagon first acknowledged WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is notifying 100,000 Gulf War veterans that they may have been exposed to Iraqi poison gas but apparently in amounts too small to have caused health problems. While insisting that no U.S. troops encountered dangerous levels of chemical agents, Pentagonoffi- THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE musicians and “crazy people” TheHotel Utah, nicknamed the “Hotel Misfit,” by some, said Carson, tries to attract employees and tenants based on how interesting they are. “Wetry to have fun, buta sadreality is that it’s getting to be less fun.” Carson said. “The economics in thecitypointto high taxes,costs, and what wecall “squeezing the limes twice’ to make money.” The club holds status as the oldest club south of San Francisco’s Market Street. Since it opened in 1908. it has been frequented by subsequent eras’ most notable entertainers — Bing Crosby, for exam- ple. Whoopi Goldberg,the Allman Brothers and PJ Harveyall have been headliningacts. Filmmakers frequent the spot and often shoot scenes at the rustic location. The club owner,in fact, bought the property after helping to write the screenplay for the 1979 film “The Electric Horseman.” “We're muchcloser to solving the mystery” of whether chemical exposure is linked to veterans’ un- iagnosed ailments such as memory loss and chronic fatigue, Rostker said. that U.S. troops unknowingly demolished chemical weapons in an openpit at the isiyah ammuni- tion depot in southern Iraq in March 1991. Thursday’s report was its first estimate of how many sol- diers probably encountered the vaporcloud created by the demolition. Based on computer models and interviews with soldiers involved in the demolition, the Pentagon and the CIA determined that 98,910 U.S. soldiers — plus a smaller but unspecified number of non-U.S. troops — were exposed to low levels of sarin gas, a nerve agent Iraq had put in hundreds of 122mm rockets. Most of the troops were from the Army's 18th Airborne Corps and 7th Corps. “I have very real concerns that the exposure was, in fact, greater than the Pentagonis now reporting,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., who has been highly critical of the Pentagon’s investigation of Gulf War Illness. Last year, the Pentagon contacted about 20,000 Gulf War veterans who were within 50 kilometers (31 miles) of the Khamisiyah site around the time of the demolition. At that point, the Pentagon was unsure ofthe size or path of the vapor cloud. Earlier this year, scientists converged at the Dugway Proving Groyndin Utah to simulate munitions that were destroyed by U.S.troops in southern Iraq during the Gulf War. Thetests were part of the effort to determine withether the Khamisiyah event contributed to Gulf War Syndrome. Ex-GOPBoss Lashes Back at Fund-Raising Critics THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — Former me personally” concerning the nonprofit National Policy Forum GOP chairman Haley Barbour angrily rejected Democratic accusations Thursday that he misused a “Everything that the National foreign-backed loan to help Re- were used to repay an earlier debt the Republican National Com- he created while GOP chairman. Policy Forum did was legal and proper,” Barbour said. He was confronted with other missed evidence that contradicted his own testimony. But Barbour said “not a cent, testimony and documents that not a red cent” of the money was The first marquee witness in three weeks of Senate hearings into campaign fundraising, Bar- a $2.1 million loan guarantee he helped solicit from a Hong Kong publican campaigns and dis- bour told senators he came to “put the lie to someinfuriatingly phony charges whichare aimed at conflicted with his account about used for campaigns. Democrats had introduced documents suggesting Barbour and the Hong Kong businessman who guaran- businessman in the fall of 1994 teed the loan weretold the transactions were needed to free mon- forthe policy forum. Barbour acknowledged that $1.6 million of the loan proceeds ey for the elections. Police Say C00 MUSIC Cunanan Left No Reasons THEASSOCIATED PRESS MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — AndrewCunanancalled someone he knewin a desperate effort to obtain a false passport — and failing that, he stuck a .40-caliber hand- gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, the FBI said Thursday. Thesuspected serial killer took his life late Wednesday, in the up- stairs master bedroom ofa houseboat in which he was holed up, 24 miles from the spot where fashion designer Gianni Versace was gunned down. “There was no suicide note and no correspondenceto reflect why he committed the crimes,” Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Barreto said. 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