What's New
| 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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| 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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| March 9 VCS Weekly Update |
This week’s VCS update keeps you in the loop with news on issues you care about. One good change – our weekly news updates won’t ask you for money. Instead, our news updates point you to news articles at our web site. We hope you will read them and share the important facts with your friends. This week's update includes news about VA and suicides, VCS on CNN, our VCS FOIA campaign, VA automating Agent Orange claims, a waterboarding torture video, and Gulf War veterans' benefits. |
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| Federal Court Keeps Torture Lawsuit Against Rumsfeld Alive |
What's Waterboarding? Watch Video of Torture March 5, 2010, Chicago, Illinois (Associated Press) - A federal judge refused Friday to dismiss a civil lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of responsibility for the alleged torture by U.S. forces of two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm. [Rumsfeld served at the Pentagon under former President George W. Bush.] |
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| Reducing Suicides: VA Adopts Policy on Emergency Care for Mental Health Patients |
This Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Directive provides policy to ensure the provision of safe and secure mental health services during all hours of operation for Emergency Departments (EDs) and Urgent Care Clinics (UCCs) in VHA |
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Cheney Shrugs Off CIA-Torture Investigation
Written by David Montero
Monday, 31 August 2009 10:42
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August 31, 2009 - US Attorney General Eric J. Holder, Jr. and his prosecutors are likely to start knocking on a lot of doors in Washington, since announcing last Monday an official investigation into the alleged abuse of detainees held by the Central Intelligence Agency.
But they won't find a welcome mat if they come around to former Vice President Dick Cheney. In a Fox News television interview six days after Mr. Holder's announcement, Mr. Cheney suggested that he might not cooperate with the Attorney General, The Washington Post reported. Asked whether he would talk to John Durham, the veteran prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to examine allegations that the CIA abused Sept. 11 terror suspects, Cheney said: "It will depend on the circumstances and what I think their activities are really involved in. During the interview, Cheney dismissed the need for cooperation with prosecutors, reports Reuters. "I'm very proud of what we did in terms of defending the nation for the past eight years, successfully," Cheney said in a recorded interview. "And it won't take a prosecutor to find out what I think. I've already expressed those views." Cheney has accused Mr. Holder of making the investigation a "political act." But some observers think Cheney's reaction is equally political. Yael T. Abouhalkah, a columnist for the Kansas City Star, writes: Cheney is playing to the conservative crowd, but he also appears to be saying he will decide whether he's above the law or not. "It will depend on the circumstances and what I think their activities are really involved in. I've been very outspoken in my views on this matter." Yes, he has been. But that doesn't mean the former vice president will look very good to many Americans if he refuses to cooperate - especially given his hands-on treatment of terrorist investigations while he served in the Bush administration. Cheney may not be willing to cooperate, but security analysts say many within the CIA want the record to come out, reports the Public Record: They want the dirty laundry aired and the people responsible punished," [Col. Lawrence] Wilkerson, [former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff]. "One or two are worried about countries such as Poland and Morocco where secret prisons were located and [torture was] condoned, but no so much for future intelligence reasons as for what may happen to the leaders who condoned the prisons now that the citizens of those countries have been made aware.
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