Veterans advocate claims "smoking gun" records prove toxic exposure at military base

Newly uncovered military records obtained by CBS News may explain rare cancers and other illnesses among U.S. servicemembers deployed to an overseas base after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The 2001 PowerPoint presentation about the Karshi-Khanabad air base in Uzbekistan, known as "K2," was compiled by an Army environmental testing team in the fall of 2001. The 17 slides in the presentation describe multiple hazards at the base including "enriched radioactive material" and pointed to air as the "pathway of greatest exposure concern," as well as "severe subsurface soil fuel contamination" that posed "a direct health threat if exposed."

"The records are the smoking gun. This is what we knew existed," Army Veteran Mark T. Jackson with the advocacy group The Stronghold Freedom Foundation told CBS News. "This is what they said never existed. And now we can prove it."