NEW YORK, November 7. /TASS/. According to The New York Times, over 600 US soldiers have applied for medical assistance due to possible exposure to chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003.

The Pentagon ignored the requests for medical assistance and didn't provide any help to soldier that claimed possible exposure to chemical weapons.

The Pentagon suddenly reconsidered its attitude towards the requests after The New York Times reported that the US troops found about 5 thousand units of chemical weapons in Iraq in the period from 2004 to 2011. Part of the weapons had been produced before 1991 with the help of western states. The soldiers that found the weapons could have been exposed.

The US Department of Defense was hiding these facts for years, but after the newspaper revealed the truth, an investigation was authorized which showed that the number of the affected reached hundreds of people.