UK payout over secret Cold War tests

Britain's defense ministry said Thursday it had agreed to pay a total of $6 million in compensation to 360 military veterans who took part in secret chemical weapons tests during the Cold War.

Defense Minister Derek Twigg apologized to the veterans, many of whom claim to have suffered serious long-term health problems as the result of the tests, but said the government did not admit liability.

"The government accepts that there were aspects of the trials where there may have been shortcomings and where, in particular, the life or health of participants may have been put at risk," Twigg said in a written statement to lawmakers.

"The government sincerely apologizes to those who may have been affected."

However, he said, the real risk of chemical attack meant that "the security of the country rested on these trials and the contribution of those who took part in them."

In the 1950s and 1960s, hundreds of servicemen and women were exposed to substances including nerve agents, poisons and LSD at the Porton Down military research facility in southwest England.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/01/31/uk.compensation.ap/index.html