What's New
| VA Secretary Pressed by Senator on High Percentage of Wrongly Denied Benefit Claims |
March 16, 2010, Washington, DC (CQ Politics) - A leading Republican senator on Tuesday asked Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to explain why so many veterans’ benefit claims are wrongly denied, resulting in a high rate of reversal on appeal. |
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| Profile of New Veterans' Courts in New York Times |
Defendants Fresh From War Find Service Counts in Court - VCS Supports Veterans' Courts March 15, 2010, Charleston, West Virginia (New York Times) — When Judge Robert C. Chambers handed down Timothy Oldani’s federal sentence for selling stolen military equipment on eBay, he gave the former Marine a break. |
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| Presdent Obama Donated $250,000 of Nobel Prize Money to Fisher House |
March 11, 2010, Washington, DC (New York Times) - President Obama made good on his promise to give his $1.4 million Nobel Prize money to charity, releasing the names on Thursday of the organizations that will benefit. |
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| Philanthropist Bobby Willis to Build New $3.3 Billion Hospital for VA in Farmington, NM for Rural and Native American Veterans |
Proposed state-of-the-art Kirtland veterans clinic could provide as many as 8,000 jobs March 14, 2010, Farmington, New Mexico (Farmington Daily Times) — A proposed veterans complex in Kirtland centered around a new hospital, backed by a wealthy entrepreneur and costing an estimated $3.3 billion promises to bring state-of-the-art medicine and other benefits to veterans, as well as 8,000 jobs to the local economy. |
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| Dr. Haley at UTSW Presents Compelling Brain Images Showing Gulf War Illness |
VCS Asks VA: Since UTSW Research Remains Vital to Understanding Gulf War Illness, Then Why Did a Handful of VA Staff in Washington Impede UTSW Contract and Then End Funding for UTSW? March 9, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah (Science News) - Nearly two decades after vets began returning from the Middle East complaining of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government has yet to formally accept that their vague jumble of symptoms constitutes a legitimate illness. Here, at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, yesterday, researchers rolled out a host of brain images – various types of magnetic-resonance scans and brain-wave measurements – that they say graphically and unambiguously depict Gulf War Syndrome. |
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Afghan War Will Exceed Cost of Iraq, Experts Say
Written by Walter Pincus
Tuesday, 11 August 2009 10:04
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August 10, 2009 - As the US expands its involvement in Afghanistan, military experts are warning that it is taking on security and political commitments that will last at least a decade and a cost that is likely to eclipse that of the Iraq war.
This assessment follows comments on Saturday from the new head of the British Army, General David Richards, who believes stabilising Afghanistan may take as long as 40 years. Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 the US has spent $US223 billion ($267 million) on war-related funding for that country, according to the Congressional Research Service. Aid spending, excluding the cost of combat operations, has grew from $US982 million in 2003 to $US9.3 billion last year. The costs are almost certain to keep growing. The US is in the process of overhauling its approach to Afghanistan, focusing on long-term security, economic sustainability and development. That approach is also likely to require deployment of more US military personnel. Later this month the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is expected to present his analysis of the situation in the country. Military experts, including some advisers to General McChrystal, insist that additional resources are necessary. ''We will need a large combat presence for many years to come, and we will probably need a large financial commitment longer than that,'' said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defence policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the ''strategic assessment'' team advising General McChrystal. The expansion of the Afghan security force that the general will recommend ''will inevitably cost much more than any imaginable Afghan government is going to be able to afford on its own'', Mr Biddle said. ''Afghan forces will need $US4 billion a year for another decade, with a [similar] sum for development,'' said Bing West, a former assistant secretary of defence who has chronicled the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr Bing warned that the US Congress was ''so generous in support of our own forces today, it may not support the aid needed for progress in Afghanistan tomorrow''. Anthony Cordesman, a national security expert with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and an adviser to General McChrystal, said that even with military gains in the next 18 months, it would take years to reduce sharply the threat from the Taliban and other insurgent forces. The task that the US has taken on in Afghanistan is in many ways more difficult than the one encountered in Iraq, where the US has spent $US684 billion in war-related funding. The US President, Barack Obama, has a timeline for US involvement in Iraq but has not said when he would like to see troops withdrawn from Afghanistan.
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