Veterans for Common Sense

September 11, 2008 – The House of Representatives gave final approval Wednesday to a veterans’ cost-of-living adjustment bill, sending it to the White House for President Bush’s signature and setting the stage for what could be major relief for thousands of service members and veterans who are facing escalating mortgage payments.

The House also passed a bill that would allow some veterans in highly rural areas to get health care from non-VA facilities.

The COLA bill, S 2617, provides for a Dec. 1 increase in disability compensation, dependency and indemnity compensation, and pensions that will match whatever increase is provided in Social Security benefits. The increase, which applies to about 2.8 million veterans and survivors, would first appear in January paychecks.

The Social Security increase won’t be known until mid-October, but is expected to be a minimum of 6 percent. The Social Security COLA automatically applies to military and federal civilian retired pay, but veterans’ disability and survivor benefits and pensions increase only through the enactment of new legislation.

The Senate passed the veterans’ COLA measure in July.

The House also passed HR 6832, a measure that approves construction and leasing for veterans facilities. It also extends expiring programs and expanded refinancing rules under the veterans’ home loan program in a way that could help service members and veterans with adjustable-rate mortgages or other high-interest mortgages.

It does this by making two changes in VA loan rules. First, it removes a requirement for a homeowner to have at least 10 percent equity in a home in order to refinance. Allowing 100 percent loans – those where the loan matches the total value of the house – makes it easier for people whose homes have not increased in value to still refinance.

Second, it allows refinancing of loans up to the maximum guaranty for a new home purchase. Under current law, refinancing is limited to loans of about $144,000, but the bill allows loans up to $417,000 in most areas, and up to $729,000 in high-cost areas.

Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee chairman, has been pushing for the changes in refinancing rules, arguing that VA’s loan program is so restrictive that it has been of little help to veterans.

The House bill would help veterans who are pinched but are not in severe financial troubles, because qualifying for refinancing through VA would still require meeting credit standards.

HR 6832 has not passed the Senate, which means the refinancing changes and the construction, lease and program extensions in the bill are far from final.

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee has been working on its own home loan legislation. S 3023, passed by the committee in June, includes provisions sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, that would raise the refinancing loan limit, similar to the increase in the House bill, but limits the homeowner to borrowing 95 percent of the assessed value, requiring at least 5 percent equity.

The rural veterans’ bill, HR 1527, creates a pilot project aimed at veterans who are 60 miles or more from the nearest VA primary care facility, 120 miles from the nearest VA acute care hospital or 240 miles from the nearest VA facility providing specialty care. They would be allowed to receive treatment at government expense at the nearest non-VA clinic or hospital, with VA also filling prescriptions ordered by non-VA doctors.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., is one of several measures pending in Congress that tries to expand the reach of VA care after complaints, including many from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who were mobilized National Guard and Reserve members, about the difficulty of getting care for service-connected health problems.

“Despite our best efforts, the reality is that some veterans live in remote areas beyond VA’s ability to construct medical facilities to care for them,” Moran said. “Too often, the distance means rural veterans are foregoing the trip to the VA.”

September 11, 2008 – The events of the past seven years have yielded a definitive judgment on the strategy that the Bush administration conceived in the wake of 9/11 to wage its so-called global war on terror. That strategy has failed, massively and irrevocably. To acknowledge that failure is to confront an urgent national priority: to scrap the Bush approach in favor of a new national security strategy that is realistic and sustainable — a task that, alas, neither of the presidential candidates seems able to recognize or willing to take up.

On Sept. 30, 2001, President Bush received from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld a memorandum outlining U.S. objectives in the war on terror. Drafted by Rumsfeld’s chief strategist, Douglas Feith, the memo declared expansively: “If the war does not significantly change the world’s political map, the U.S. will not achieve its aim.” That aim, as Feith explained in a subsequent missive to his boss, was to “transform the Middle East and the broader world of Islam generally.”

Rumsfeld and Feith were co-religionists: Along with other senior Bush administration officials, they worshiped in the Church of the Indispensable Nation, a small but intensely devout Washington-based sect formed in the immediate wake of the Cold War. Members of this church shared an exalted appreciation for the efficacy of American power, especially hard power. The strategy of transformation emerged as a direct expression of their faith.

The members of this church were also united by an equally exalted estimation of their own abilities. Lucky the nation to be blessed with such savvy and sophisticated public servants in its hour of need!

The goal of transforming the Islamic world was nothing if not bold. It implied far-reaching political, economic, social and even cultural adjustments. At a press conference on Sept. 18, 2001, Rumsfeld spoke bluntly of the need to “change the way that they live.” Rumsfeld didn’t specify who “they” were. He didn’t have to. His listeners understood without being told: “They” were Muslims inhabiting a vast arc of territory that stretched from Morocco in the west all the way to the Moro territories of the southern Philippines in the east.

Yet boldly conceived action, if successfully executed, offered the prospect of solving a host of problems. Once pacified (or “liberated”), the Middle East would cease to breed or harbor anti-American terrorists. Post-9/11 fears about weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of evildoers could abate. Local regimes, notorious for being venal, oppressive and inept, might finally get serious about cleaning up their acts. Liberal values, including rights for women, would flourish. A part of the world perpetually dogged by violence would enjoy a measure of stability, with stability promising not so incidentally to facilitate exploitation of the region’s oil reserves. There was even the possibility of enhancing the security of Israel. Like a powerful antibiotic, the Bush administration’s strategy of transformation promised to clean out not simply a single infection but several; or to switch metaphors, a strategy of transformation meant running the table.

When it came to implementation, the imperative of the moment was to think big. Just days after 9/11, Rumsfeld was charging his subordinates to devise a plan of action that had “three, four, five moves behind it.” By December 2001, the Pentagon had persuaded itself that the first move — into Afghanistan — had met success. The Bush administration wasted little time in pocketing its ostensible victory. Attention quickly shifted to the second move, seen by insiders as holding the key to ultimate success: Iraq.

Fix Iraq and moves three, four and five promised to come easily. Writing in the Weekly Standard, William Kristol and Robert Kagan got it exactly right: “The president’s vision will, in the coming months, either be launched successfully in Iraq, or it will die in Iraq.”

The point cannot be emphasized too strongly: Saddam Hussein’s (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction and his (imaginary) ties to al-Qaida never constituted the real reason for invading Iraq — any more than the imperative of defending Russian “peacekeepers” in South Ossetia explains the Kremlin’s decision to invade Georgia.

Iraq merely offered a convenient place from which to launch a much larger and infinitely more ambitious project. “After Hussein is removed,” enthused Hudson Institute analyst Max Singer, “there will be an earthquake through the region.” Success in Iraq promised to endow the United States with hitherto unprecedented leverage. Once the United States had made an example of Saddam Hussein, as the influential neoconservative Richard Perle put it, dealing with other ne’er-do-wells would become simple: “We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: ‘You’re next.'” Faced with the prospect of sharing Saddam’s fate, Syrians, Iranians, Sudanese and other recalcitrant regimes would see submission as the wiser course — so Perle and others believed.

Members of the administration tried to imbue this strategic vision with a softer ideological gloss. “For 60 years,” Condoleezza Rice explained to a group of students in Cairo, Egypt, “my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East — and we achieved neither.” No more. “Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.” The world’s Muslims needed to know that the motives behind the U.S. incursion into Iraq and its actions elsewhere in the region were (or had, at least, suddenly become) entirely benign. Who knows? Rice may even have believed the words she spoke.

In either case — whether the strategy of transformation aimed at dominion or democratization — today, seven years after it was conceived, we can assess exactly what it has produced. The answer is clear: next to nothing, apart from squandering vast resources and exacerbating the slide toward debt and dependency that poses a greater strategic threat to the United States than Osama bin Laden ever did.

In point of fact, hardly had the Pentagon commenced its second move, its invasion of Iraq, when the entire strategy began to unravel. In Iraq, President Bush’s vision of regional transformation did die, much as Kagan and Kristol had feared. No amount of CPR credited to the so-called surge will revive it. Even if tomorrow Iraq were to achieve stability and become a responsible member of the international community, no sensible person could suggest that Operation Iraqi Freedom provides a model to apply elsewhere.

Sen. John McCain says that he’ll keep U.S. combat troops in Iraq for as long as it takes. Yet even he does not propose “solving” any problems posed by Syria or Iran (much less Pakistan) by employing the methods that the Bush administration used to “solve” the problem posed by Iraq. The Bush doctrine of preventive war may remain nominally on the books. But, as a practical matter, it is defunct.

The United States will not change the world’s political map in the ways top administration officials once dreamed of. There will be no earthquake that shakes up the Middle East — unless the growing clout of Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in recent years qualifies as that earthquake. Given the Pentagon’s existing commitments, there will be no threats of “you’re next,” either — at least none that will worry our adversaries, as the Russians have neatly demonstrated. Nor will there be a wave of democratic reform — even Rice has ceased her prattling on that score. Islam will remain stubbornly resistant to change, except on terms of its own choosing. We will not change the way “they” live.

In a book that he coauthored during the run-up to the Iraq invasion, Kristol confidently declared, “The mission begins in Baghdad, but it does not end there.” In fact, the Bush administration’s strategy of transformation has ended. It has failed miserably. The sooner we face up to that failure, the sooner we can get about repairing the damage.

September 11, 2008, Washington, DC – A former Marine who was a voting assistance officer told a Senate committee on Tuesday that he recommends troops living overseas look at online voting alternatives rather than use their military-organized programs.

Bryan O’Leary, a former F-18 pilot who works for a Washington law firm, noted that many servicemembers are on the move or based in remote areas. Those troops, O’Leary said, would be better off using an online registration site — www.overseasvotefoundation.org — rather than the “broken” system devised by the Department of Defense for its members.

“This is your best recourse if you haven’t gotten a ballot yet,” O’Leary told the Senate Judiciary Committee during a hearing on ways the Justice Department is trying to ensure voting access.

O’Leary, citing statistics from the Defense Manpower Data Center, said that only 22 percent of military members voted in the 2006 election, including only 17 percent of those stationed overseas, compared with 40 percent of eligible voters in the general population.

He also told the committee that more than 48,000 ballots from overseas were rejected after being challenged by various candidates from both major political parties.

The upcoming presidential election between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama is likely to spark heavy interest from potential overseas voters, O’Leary said. It also could prompt maneuverings by the respective campaigns to disallow ballots they feel might have been cast against their candidates.

“I challenge either presidential candidate to condemn legal challenges to throw out military ballots,” he said. “To challenge ballots sent in from a place [such as] Helmand province in Afghanistan in just shameful.”

Four of the 19 committee members attended part or all of the hearing, which was chaired by Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, D-Md.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., doubted that the hearing would have an impact on military members’ ability to vote in the Nov. 4 election.

“I don’t have great hope that it is going to get solved this time,” Coburn said.

Advocates of online voting such as O’Leary note that military members and others have for years filed their income taxes online as well as done their banking. Secure Internet systems are in place, he said, that would ensure efficient and legitimate voting from overseas.

Skeptics contend that tamper-free online voting is at the mercy of those who built or know the software used for it, making it difficult to provide oversight and verify the legitimacy of those votes.

The military’s overseas voting program, O’Leary said, has proven unworkable because it tasks already overworked unit commanders with marshalling a paper-and-pen, snail-mail program.

The military’s overseas voting program hasn’t improved, O’Leary said, in the years since hanging chads in Florida helped decide the 2000 presidential election.

“The only difference is we have more data that shows how pathetic this program is.”

September 10, 2008 – As Congress prepares to debate expansion of drilling in taxpayer-owned coastal waters, the Interior Department agency that collects oil and gas royalties has been caught up in a wide-ranging ethics scandal – including allegations of financial self-dealing, accepting gifts from energy companies, cocaine use and sexual misconduct.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department’s inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government’s largest sources of revenue other than taxes.

“A culture of ethical failure” pervades the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration’s watch.

The highest-ranking official criticized in the reports is Lucy Q. Denett, the former associate director of minerals revenue management, who retired earlier this year as the inquiry was progressing.

The investigations are the latest installment in a series of scathing inquiries into the program’s management and competence in recent years. While previous reports have focused on problems the agency had in collecting millions of dollars owed to the Treasury, and hinted at personal misconduct, the new reports go far beyond any previous study in revealing serious concerns with the integrity and behavior of the agency’s officials.

In one of the new reports, investigators concluded that Ms. Denett worked with two aides to steer a lucrative consulting contract to one of the aides after he retired, violating competitive procurement rules.

Two other reports focus on “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” in the service’s royalty-in-kind program. That part of the agency collects about $4 billion a year in oil and gas rather than cash royalties.

Based in suburban Denver and modeled to operate like a private sector energy company, the decade-old royalty-in-kind program sells oil and gas on the open market. Its employees are subject to government ethics rules, such as restrictions on taking gifts from people and companies with whom they conduct official business.

One of the reports says that the officials viewed themselves as exempt from those limits, indulging themselves in the expense-account-fueled world of oil and gas executives.

The reports provoked immediate outrage in Congress. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who is chairman of the Public Lands and Forests Subcommittee, accused the Minerals Management Service on the Senate floor Wednesday of “a pattern of abuses and mismanagement” that is costing taxpayers billions.

And Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, suggested that Congress should not lift its ban on offshore drilling – a hot-button issue in his state – because of the problems identified.

The report says that eight officials in the royalty program accepted gifts from energy companies whose value exceeded limits set by ethics rules – including golf, ski and paintball outings; meals and drinks; and tickets to a Toby Keith concert, a Houston Texans football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game.

The investigation also concluded that several of the officials “frequently consumed alcohol at industry functions, had used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relationships with oil and gas company representatives.”

The investigation separately found that the program’s manager mixed official and personal business. In sometimes lurid detail, the report also accuses him of having intimate relations with two subordinates, one of whom regularly sold him cocaine.

The culture of the organization “appeared to be devoid of both the ethical standards and internal controls sufficient to protect the integrity of this vital revenue-producing program,” one report said.

The director of the Minerals Management Service, Randall Luthi, said in a conference call with reporters that the officials implicated in the reports had violated the public’s trust.

“When you come to work for the federal government, the American people expect the best of you,” he said, adding, “I am not going to leave this post in January without addressing this problem.” Mr. Luthi, who became the service director in July 2007, said that the agency had requested the investigation after receiving whistle-blower complaints in the spring of 2006, and that it had already made several changes. A spokesman for Mr. Devaney declined to comment.

A former official named in the report, Jimmy W. Mayberry, pleaded guilty to a felony conflict-of-interest charge in August and faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In late 2002, when he was about to retire, Mr. Mayberry drafted a “statement of work” for a consulting contract to perform essentially identical functions to his own. He then retired, started a company, and in June 2003 won the contract with the help of Ms. Denett and Milton Dial, another friend at the agency.

Danny Onorato, the lawyer representing Mr. Mayberry, said his client had a sentencing date in November, but added that “we are not interested in having Mr. Mayberry speak.”

The inspector general also urged the administration to take action against several of the officials in the royalty-in-kind program who accepted gifts from the oil companies, by firing them or banning them for life from certain positions. Several have already been transferred out of the program but remain on the government payroll, the report said.

But two of the highest-ranking officials who were subjects of the investigations will apparently escape penalty. Both retired during the investigation, rendering them safe from any administrative punishment, and the Justice Department has declined to prosecute them on the charges suggested by the inspector general.

One of them is Ms. Denett, who oversaw the Denver-based royalty-in-kind program from Washington. The report contends that she manipulated the contracting process to steer the consulting work to Mr. Mayberry, her friend and former special assistant.

Six other companies submitted bids for the contract, spending more than $90,000 on their proposals. The report said an Interior Department procurement lawyer described the arrangement as one in which “the fix is in throughout – this is tainted from the beginning, that is totally improper.”

Ms. Denett did not return a message left at her home on Wednesday with her husband, Paul A. Denett, who was the top procurement official in the White House Office of Management and Budget until he resigned this month. He declined to comment.

But the report quotes Ms. Denett repeatedly telling investigators that in retrospect she had made a “very poor” decision. She also told them that “she had been preoccupied with a very stressful personal issue at the time,” which the report did not describe.

The other high-ranking official the Justice Department has declined to prosecute is Gregory W. Smith, the former program director of the royalty-in-kind program. Mr. Smith worked in Colorado and reported to Ms. Denett. He retired in 2007.

The report said that Mr. Smith improperly used his position with the royalty program to get an outside consulting job helping a technical services firm seek deals with oil and gas companies with which he was also conducting official business.

The report accused Mr. Smith of improperly accepting gifts from the oil and gas industry, of engaging in sex with two subordinates and of using cocaine that he purchased from his secretary or her boyfriend several times a year between 2002 and 2005. He sometimes asked for the drugs and received them in his office during work hours, the report said.

The report also said that Mr. Smith lied to investigators about these and other incidents, and that he urged the two women subordinates to mislead the investigators as well.

In discussions with investigators, the report said, Mr. Smith acknowledged buying cocaine from his secretary and having a sexual encounter with her at her home, but he denied discussing drugs at work. He also denied telling anyone to lie, saying that he only told people that “no one has a right to know what I do on my personal time.”

The report omits any response from Mr. Smith about allegations of sexual misconduct with another female subordinate.

Mr. Smith on Wednesday referred questions to his lawyer, Steve Peters, who said he had not yet seen the report. But he lauded Mr. Smith’s work with the royalty-in-kind program.

“Greg Smith was a loyal, dedicated employee of the federal government for more than 28 years, and notwithstanding the unfair and in many respects inaccurate allegations in today’s report, Greg is very proud of what he accomplished – and he should be,” Mr. Peters said. A Justice Department spokeswoman, Laura Sweeney, declined to explain why prosecutors chose not to bring charges against Ms. Denett or Mr. Smith, citing departmental policy.

The report also detailed cozy relationships between energy companies and other officials in the royalty-in-kind program office. Some 19 officials – a third of the staff – took gifts from oil and gas executives, some with “prodigious frequency,” it said.

On one occasion in 2002, the report said, two of the officials who marketed taxpayers’ oil got so drunk at a daytime golfing event sponsored by Shell that they could not drive to their hotels and were put up in Shell-provided lodging. Two female employees “engaged in brief sexual relationships with industry contacts,” the reports’ cover memo said, adding that “sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms’ length.”

On one occasion, the report said, the royalty-in-kind program allowed a Chevron representative who had won a bid to purchase some of the government’s oil to pay taxpayers a lower amount than his winning offer because he said he had made a mistake in his calculations. A report from Mr. Devaney’s office earlier this year found that the program had frequently allowed companies that purchased the oil and gas to revise their bids downward after they won contracts. It documented 118 such occasions that cost taxpayers about $4.4 million in all.

On another occasion, the new report said, one of the officials shared information about the confidential price a pipeline company was charging the government.

The report said that the officials told investigators that the gifts and socializing did not affect how they treated the companies in their official duties.

They also said they did not view socializing with oil company representatives and taking gifts as inappropriate because they said they needed to be part of the marketing culture in order to market the program’s oil and gas. Several of the lower-ranking program officials have been transferred out of their old jobs, the report said. It recommended stronger supervision and a series of changes to make clearer the limits of acceptable behavior, some of which Mr. Luthi said have already been implemented.

September 9, 2008 – Transcript of “Morning Edition” Radio Broadcast from September 9, 2008

RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Possibly the most cherished veterans program in America is the GI Bill. Now the Bush administration has announced plans to turn over parts of it to private industry, and they’ll do it just a few months before President Bush leaves office. NPR’s Daniel Zwerdling has this report.

DANIEL ZWERDLING: The GI Bill has paid 22 million vets and family members to go to college or other schools since the end of World War II.

SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “THE CAISSONS GO ROLLING ALONG”

ZWERDLING: And government employees have run this program since the end of World War II.

Unidentified Man #1: Veterans Administration offices have been set up in every state, and it’s here the ex-soldier goes if he wants to continue his education under the GI Bill of Rights – any kind of education, and in any part of the country.

ZWERDLING: But now officials of the VA want private industry to replace those government employees – more precisely, officials say they want industry to design a computer system that will replace government employees. Veterans advocates say on the face of it, they’re all for a better computer system. Sounds great. But they say this controversy is about a lot more than software.

Mr. PETER GAYTAN (American Legion): The VA’s been successful in administering the educational benefits since 1944. The American Legion questions why they feel they are incapable of doing that now.

ZWERDLING: Peter Gaytan helps run the American Legion. They’re traditionally one of the most conservative veterans groups.

Mr. GAYTAN: Why are they seeking to outsource a program to a private contractor who has no experience of understanding of veterans’ educational benefits?

SOUNDBITE OF DIAL TONE

ZWERDLING: To understand why groups like the American Legion are worried, you need to know how the GI Bill works now.

SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING

ZWERDLING: Say you’re a vet. You’ve served tour in Iraq, and you want to go to college.

Unidentified Man #2: Welcome to the Department of Veterans Affairs Education Customer Service Office. If you are calling from a touchtone phone – 

ZWERDLING: And, as though explained, you have to send in a detailed application – six pages of application. Then a government employee, like Sophia Waranovich(ph), will decide if you’re eligible for GI benefits and exactly how much money you deserve.

Ms. SOPHIA WORONOWICZ (Government Employee): The education benefits are, unfortunately, not clear-cut and simple.

ZWERDLING: The VA has 850 employees like Waranovich who work on the GI Bill. She’s also a steward for the Government Employees Union, and she says it could take detective work to process a vet’s application. Claims examiners might have to call the Pentagon to get more information about where the vet served.

Ms. WORONOWICZ: It all depends upon how convoluted each case is. In some instances, they may call the veteran themselves.

ZWERDLING: And the GI Bill is about to get more convoluted. Congress recently voted to give vets twice as much money as they used to so they can go to better and more expensive schools. That’ll involve more paperwork and regulations. An official at the VA told me that’s exactly why they’ve asked private industry to revamp the system. From now on, a computer will instantly decide which vets are eligible and how much they should get.

Mr. KEITH PEDIGO (Associate Deputy Undersecretary of the VA): Our expectation is that the new IT solution will be sophisticated enough to eliminate the need for human intervention in most cases.

ZWERDLING: That’s Keith Pedigo. He’s an associate deputy undersecretary of the VA. And Pedigo says the new system will be better for everybody, especially the vets.

Mr. PEDIGO: Presently, it takes us about 20 days to process an original claim from a veteran.

ZWERDLING: That sounds pretty darn good.

Mr. PEDIGO: But if you ask them if they would rather have it processed in one minute, my guess is that most of them would opt for the one-minute approach.

ZWERDLING: In fact, the administration said in a recent report that they’ve saved time and billions of dollars for taxpayers because they’ve asked corporations to do work like this all across the government. But veterans don’t have to look far to find cases where private industry caused a disaster.

Mr. STEVE NOHLGREN (St. Petersburg Times): Oh, it was a huge disaster.

ZWERDLING: Back in 2003, the VA paid a prominent defense contractor to install another computer system. That one was supposed to track supplies in VA hospitals. Steve Nohlgren helped cover the fiasco for the St. Petersburg Times in Florida.

Mr. NOHLGREN: Cost them close to 300 million, and it never worked.

ZWERDLING: The federal government’s own investigations found that the computer system caused so many problems that it threatened patients’ health. Surgeons couldn’t get the supplies they needed. They had to postpone operations.

Mr. NOHLGREN: At one point, people were actually buying their own surgical gloves just to have them, and morale was just completely shot until finally they dumped it.

ZWERDLING: The company never paid any fines, and it went on to become a major contractor in Iraq. But leaders at national veterans groups remember that scandal, and they’re wondering what might happen to vets who apply for the GI Bill if a private company runs that program.

Rick Weidman’s one of the directors of Vietnam Veterans of America.

Mr. RICK WEIDMAN (Director, Vietnam Veterans of America): Anything goes wrong, I’ll tell you what’ll happen – and it’s what always happens in these instances – is they’ll say, well, it’s not our job. It’s the VA’s. And the VA will say, we can’t do anything. It’s contracted out. It’s the contractor’s job. And that is baloney. The problem isn’t the troops. The problem is the leadership.

ZWERDLING: And some veterans’ advocates want to know why are VA officials keeping details about this deal secret? They’ve handpicked only a small number of companies to compete for the contract, and so far, officials won’t even reveal the companies’ names. A Congressional committee will ask for answers at a hearing later this week.

August 26, 2008 – Since I posted on April 28 the article “Is There an Army Cover Up of the Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers,” the deaths of two more U.S. Army women in Iraq and Afghanistan have been listed as suicides—the Sept. 28, 2007, death of 30-year-old Spc. Ciara Durkin and the Feb. 22, 2008, death of 25-year-old Spc. Keisha Morgan. Both “suicides” are disputed by the families of the women.

Since April 2008, five more U.S. military women have died in Iraq—three in noncombat-related incidents. Ninety-nine U.S., six British and one Ukrainian military women and 13 U.S. female civilians have been killed in Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as probably hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and girls. Of the 99 U.S. military women, 64 were in the Army active component, nine in the Army National Guard, seven in the Army Reserve, seven in the Marine Corps, nine in the Navy and three in the Air Force. According to the Department of Defense, 41 of the 99 U.S. military women who have been killed in Iraq died in “noncombat-related incidents.” Of the 99 U.S. military women killed in the Iraq theater, 41 were women of color (21 African-Americans, 16 Latinas, three of Asian-Pacific descent and one Native American—data compiled from the Web site www.nooniefortin.com).

Fourteen U.S. military women, including five in the Army, one in the Army National Guard, two in the Army Reserves, three in the Air Force, two in the Navy (on ships supporting U.S. forces in Afghanistan) and one in the Marine Corps, one British military woman and six U.S. civilian women have been killed in Afghanistan. According to the Department of Defense, four U.S. military women in Afghanistan died in noncombat-related incidents, including one now classified as a suicide. Four military women of color (three African-Americans and one Latina) have been killed in Afghanistan. (Data compiled from www.nooniefortin.com.)

The deaths of 14 U.S. military (13 Army and one Navy) women and one British military woman who served in Iraq, Kuwait or Afghanistan have been classified as suicides.

Two Army women in Iraq (Pfc. Hannah Gunterman McKinney, a victim of vehicular homicide, and Pfc. Kamisha Block, who was shot five times by a fellow soldier who then killed himself) and two Navy women in Bahrain (MASN Anamarie Camacho and MASN Genesia Gresham, both shot by a male sailor who then shot, but did not kill, himself) have died at the hands of fellow military personnel.

Several more military women have died with unexplained “noncombat” gunshot wounds (U.S. Army Sgt. Melissa Valles, July 9, 2003: gunshot to the abdomen; Marine Lance Cpl. Juana Arellano, April 8, 2006: gunshot wound to the head while in a “defensive position”). Most of the deaths of women who have died of noncombat gunshot wounds have been classified as suicides, rather than homicides.

The Army, the only military service to release annual figures on suicides, reported that 115 soldiers committed suicide in 2007. According to Army figures, 32 soldiers committed suicide in Iraq and four in Afghanistan. Of the 115 Army suicides, 93 were in the Regular Army and 22 were in the Army National Guard or Reserves. The report lists five Army women as having committed suicide in 2007. Young, white, unmarried junior enlisted troops were the most likely to commit suicide, according to the report (Pauline Jelinek, “Soldier suicides hit highest rate, 115 last year,” Associated Press, May 29, 2008, abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4955043).

From 2003 until August 2008, the deaths of 13 Army women and one Navy woman in Iraq and Afghanistan (including Kuwait and Bahrain) have been classified as suicides (numbers confirmed with various media sources):

2008—Spc. Keisha Morgan (Taji, Iraq)
2007—Spc. Ciara Durkin (Bagram, Afghanistan), Capt. (medical doctor) Roselle Hoffmaster (Kirkik, Iraq)
2006—Pfc. Tina Priest (Taji, Iraq), Pfc. Amy Duerkson (Taji, Iraq), Sgt. Denise Lannaman (Kuwait), Sgt. Jeannette Dunn (Taji, Iraq), Maj. Gloria Davis (Baghdad).
2005—Pvt. Lavena Johnson (Balad, Iraq), 1st Lt.  Debra Banaszak (Kuwait), USN MA1 Jennifer Valdivia (Bahrain)
2004—Sgt. Gina Sparks (it is unclear where in Iraq she was injured, but she died in the Fort Polk, La., hospital)
2003—Spc. Alyssa Peterson (Tal Afar, Iraq), Sgt. Melissa Valles (Balad, Iraq)

The demographics of those Army women who allegedly committed suicide are as intriguing as the circumstances of their deaths: 
— Seven of the women, being between the ages of 30 and 47, were older than the norm (Davis, 47; Lannaman, 46; Dunn, 44; Banaszak, 35; Hoffmaster, 32; Sparks, 32; and Durkin, 30).  (Most military suicides are in their 20s).
— Three were officers:  a major (Davis), a captain and medical doctor (Hoffmaster) and a first lieutenant (Banaszak).
— Five were noncommissioned officers (Lannaman, Dunn, Sparks, Valles and Valdivia).
— Five were women of color (Morgan, Davis, Johnson, Lannaman, Valles).
— Four were from units based at Fort Hood, Texas, and were found dead at Camp Taji, Iraq (Dunn, Priest, Duerkson, and Morgan).
— Two were found dead at Camp Taji, Iraq, 11 days apart (Priest and Duerkson).
— Two were found dead at Balad, Iraq (Johnson and Valles).
— Two had been raped (Priest, 11 days prior to her death; Duerksen, during basic training).
— One other was probably raped (Johnson, the night she died).
— Two were lesbians (Lannaman and Durkin).
— Two of the women were allegedly involved in bribes or shakedowns of contractors (Lannaman and Davis).
— Two had children (Davis and Banaszak).
— Three had expressed concerns about improprieties or irregularities in their commands (Durkin’s concerns were financial; Davis had given a seven-page deposition on contracting irregularities in Iraq the day before she died; Peterson was concerned about methods of interrogation of Iraqi prisoners).
— Several had been in touch with their families within days of their deaths and had not expressed feelings of depression (Morgan, Durkin, Davis, Priest, Johnson).

The Death of Lavena Johnson

As discussed in my article “Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?,” 19-year-old Army Pvt. Lavena Johnson was found dead on the military base in Balad, Iraq, in July 2005, and her death was characterized by the Army as suicide from an M-16 rifle gunshot. From the day their daughter’s body was returned to them, the parents, both of whom have had a long association with the Army—the father, a medical doctor, is an Army veteran and worked 25 years as a Department of the Army civilian and the mother, too, worked for the Department of the Army—harbored grave suspicions about the Army’s investigation into Johnson’s death and the Army’s characterization of her death as suicide. As she had been in charge of a communications facility, Johnson was able to call home daily; in those calls, she gave no indication of emotional problems or being upset. In a letter to her parents after her death, Johnson’s commanding officer, Capt. David Woods, wrote, “Lavena was clearly happy and seemed in very good health both physically and emotionally.”
In viewing his daughter’s body at the funeral home, Dr. John Johnson was concerned about the bruising on her face. He was puzzled by the discrepancy in the autopsy report on the location of the gunshot wound.  As an Army veteran and a long-time Army civilian employee who had counseled veterans, he was mystified how the exit wound of an M-16 shot could be so small. The hole in Lavena’s head appeared to be more the size of a pistol shot rather than an M-16 round. But the gluing of military uniform white gloves onto Lavena’s hands, hiding burns on one of her hands, is what deepened Dr. Johnson’s concerns that the Army’s investigation into the death of his daughter was flawed.

Over the next two and a half years, Dr. and Mrs. Johnson and their family and friends, through the Freedom of Information Act and congressional offices, relentlessly and meticulously requested documents concerning Lavena’s death from the Department of the Army. Gradually, with the Army’s response to each request for information, another piece of evidence about Johnson’s death emerged.

The military criminal investigator’s initial drawing of the death scene revealed that Johnson’s M16 was found perfectly parallel to her body. The investigator’s sketch showed that her body was found inside a burning tent, under a wooden bench with an aerosol can nearby. A witness, an employee of the defense contractor Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), stated that he heard a gunshot and when he went to investigate, he found a KBR tent on fire. When he looked into the tent, he saw a body. The official Army investigation did not mention a fire, nor that Johnson’s body had been pulled from the fire.

KBR Women Employees Raped in Iraq

The fact that Lavena Johnson’s body was discovered in a KBR tent raises questions. 

Many KBR women employees have been raped in Iraq. One law firm in Houston has 15 clients with sexual assault, sexual harassment or retaliation complaints against Halliburton and its former subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root LLC (KBR), as well as against the Cayman Island-based Service Employees International Inc., a KBR shell company (Karen Houppert, “Another KBR Rape Case,” The Nation, April 3, 2008).

Two female employees of KBR who were raped while in Iraq have testified before Congress. On her fourth day in Iraq, July 28, 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by seven fellow KBR employees at Camp Hope in Baghdad. Jones’ rape occurred nine days after Lavena Johnson was found dead in a KBR tent at Balad Air Base. Jones was drugged, raped and beaten, and the injuries she suffered were so severe that she had to have reconstructive surgery on her chest (“Democracy Now,” April 18, 2008, “Two Ex-KBR Employees Say They Were Raped by Co-Workers in Iraq,” www.democracynow.org/2008/4/8/exclusivein_their_first_joint_interview_two).

Jones reportedly was taken back to the KBR area, where she was placed into an empty shipping container under KBR armed guard for almost 24 hours without food or water or the ability to communicate with anyone. The military doctor who examined her turned over the “rape kit” photographs and statement to KBR. Jones persuaded a guard to allow her a phone call, which she made to her father. Her father promptly called their Texas congressional representative, Ted Poe, who then called the State Department in Iraq and demanded her immediate release. Jones was rescued shortly thereafter and quickly left Iraq. Congressman Poe again contacted the State Department and the Department of Justice in an effort to launch an investigation, but both departments ignored the requests and even refused to contact Poe for the next two years. The “rape kit” and the photographs of and statement from Jones taken by a military doctor disappeared (ABC News, “KBR Employees: Company Covered Up Sexual Assault and Harassment,” www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/popup?id=3948132&contentIndex=1&start=false&page=1).

Jones testified Dec. 17, 2007, before the House Judiciary Committee on “Enforcement of Federal Criminal Law to Protect Americans Working for U.S. Contractors in Iraq” (www.judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_121907.html).

The nonprofit foundation Jones created after her ordeal, the Jamie Leigh Jones Foundation, has been contacted by 40 U.S. contractor employees alleging that they are the victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment on the job and that Halliburton, KBR and Service Employees International Inc. have not helped them or have obstructed their claims (Karen Houppert, “Another KBR Rape Case,” The Nation, April 3, 2008). 

Dawn Leamon was another civilian contractor employed by KBR who was raped allegedly by KBR employees. She was the sole medical provider at Camp Harper, a base near Basra in southern Iraq. Leamon reported being raped anally by a U.S. soldier in January 2008 while a KBR employee forced his penis into her mouth. She says she was told to keep quiet by her KBR supervisor and by the military liaison officer. Her laptop computer was seized within hours after she e-mailed a civilian lawyer. She testified on April 9, 2008, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the hearing “Closing Legal Loopholes: Prosecuting Sexual Assaults and Other Violent Crimes Committed Overseas by American Civilians in a Combat Environment” (www.foreign.senate.gov/hearings/2008/hrg080409a.html).

Johnsons’ Quest Continues in Daughter’s Death

After two years of requesting documents, the family of Lavena Johnson received a set of papers from the Army that included a photocopy of a compact disk. Wondering why the copy was among the documents, Dr. Johnson requested the CD itself. The Army finally complied after a congressman intervened. When Dr. Johnson viewed the CD, he was shocked to see photographs taken by Army investigators of his daughter’s body as it lay where her body had been found, as well as other photographs of her disrobed body taken during the investigation.

The photographs revealed that Lavena, barely five feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, had been struck in the face with a blunt instrument, perhaps a weapon stock. Her nose was broken and her teeth knocked backward. One elbow was distended. The back of her clothes contained debris, indicating she had been dragged. The photographs of her disrobed body showed bruises, scratch marks and teeth imprints on the upper part of her body. The right side of her back as well as her right hand had been burned, apparently from a flammable liquid poured on her and then lighted.  Photographs of her genital area revealed massive bruising and lacerations. A corrosive liquid had been poured into her genital area, probably to destroy DNA evidence of sexual assault. 

Despite the bruises, scratches, teeth imprints and burns on her body, Lavena was found completely dressed in the burning tent. There was a blood trail from outside the contractor’s tent to inside the tent. She apparently had been dressed after the attack and her attacker had placed her body in the tent before setting it on fire.

Investigator records reveal that members of her unit said Johnson had told them she was going jogging with friends on the other side of the base. One unit member walked with her to the post exchange, where she bought a soda, and then, in her Army workout clothes, Johnson went on by herself to meet friends and to exercise. The unit member said she was in good spirits, showing no indication of personal emotional problems.

The Army investigators initially concluded that Pvt. Johnson’s death was a homicide and indicated that on their paperwork. However, a decision apparently was made by higher officials that the investigators would stop the homicide inquiry and classify her death a suicide.

Three weeks later, a final autopsy report from the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, dated Aug. 13, 2005, said the cause of death was an intraoral gunshot wound to the head and the manner of death was a suicide. However, the autopsy report—written after the July 22, 2005, autopsy at Dover Air Force Base and signed on Aug. 9, 2005 by associate medical examiner Lt. Cmdr. Edward Reedy and by chief deputy medical examiner Cmdr. James Caruso—states much more in its opinion section:

“The 19 year old female, Lavena Johnson, died as a result of a gunshot wound of the head that caused injuries to the skull and brain. The entrance wound was inside the mouth and injuries to the lips and oral mucosa were a direct result of the discharge of the weapon. The exit wound was located on the left side of the head. No bullet or bullet fragments were recovered. Toxicology was negative for alcohol and other screened drugs. The investigative information made available indicates that this was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. With the information surrounding the circumstances of the death that is presently available the manner of death is determined to be suicide.”

The medical examiners revealed that they were basing their determination of suicide on “investigative information made available indicat[ing] that this was a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” not from medical evidence. They did not address what caliber of bullet entered her body—in fact, they stated that no bullet or bullet fragment was recovered, and they did not offer comments on what caliber of bullet would have made the entry and exit wounds. 

The Aug. 25, 2005, report from the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory in Forest Park, Ga., stated:

The characteristic gunshot residue particle indicated on Exhibit 5 (Gunshot residue kit (Item 9, Doc 775-05), the number is considered insignificant.  Based on these results, the report concludes that the following possibilities exist, but the report makes no conclusion:
a. The subject did not handle/discharge a firearm.
b. The subject handled/discharged a firearm but an insignificant number of gunshot residue particles were deposited on the hands.
c. The subject handled/discharged a firearm that deposited a significant number of gunshot residue particles on the hand; however, due to washing, wiping, or other activity, the particles were reduced to insignificant numbers.

The medical examiners who did the autopsy on Johnson’s body did not mention any burns on her body, but when the family had gloves that had been glued onto her hands cut off by the funeral home employees in Missouri, they found her hands had been burned, and further examination showed her back was burned. A witness statement taken on July 19, 2005, states: “The witness [name redacted] … found the victim under the bench and verified there were no signs of life … related he saw the M16 lying across the victim’s body … he didn’t know what setting the weapon was on … he related everything was smoking, including parts of the body. He called for an ambulance and secured the scene.”

On April 9, 2008, Johnson’s parents flew from their home in St. Louis for meetings with members of Congress and their staff. They again went to Washington, D.C., in July 2008 and were briefed by Army investigators and the military medical examiner who conducted the autopsy on Lavena. The Army briefers maintained that her death was a suicide and were unable to answer Dr. John and Linda Johnson’s long list of questions. The Johnsons are asking for a congressional hearing that would force the Army to further investigate their daughter’s death.

Murder of Three Women in North Carolina

Some of the circumstances surrounding Lavena Johnson’s death in Iraq three years ago are similar to those of other American servicewomen who died in recent months. In the six months from December 2007 to July 2008, three U.S. military women were killed by military males near the Army’s Fort Bragg and the Marine Corps’ Camp Lejeune, two mega-bases in North Carolina. 

Two of the women were in the Army. Spc. Megan Touma was seven months pregnant when her body was found inside a Fayetteville hotel room June 21, 2008. A married male soldier whom she knew in Germany has since been arrested. The estranged Marine husband of Army 2nd Lt. Holley Wimunc has been arrested in her death and the burning of her body. 

Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach had been raped in May 2007 and protective orders had been issued against the alleged perpetrator, fellow Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean. The burned body of Lauterbach and her unborn baby were found in a shallow grave in the backyard of Laurean’s home in January 2008.  Laurean fled to Mexico, where he was captured by Mexican authorities. He is currently awaiting extradition to the United States to stand trial. Lauterbach’s mother testified before Congress on July 31, 2008, that the Marine Corps ignored warning signs that Laurean was a danger to her daughter (testimony of Mary Lauterbach to the National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, www.nationalsecurity.oversight.house.gov/documents/20080731134039.pdf). 

Two Women Sexually Assaulted Before Their Deaths

Remarkably, a rape test was not performed on the body of Lavena Johnson although bruising and lacerations in her genital area indicated assault.

Another family that does not believe their daughter committed suicide in Iraq is the family of Pfc. Tina Priest, 20, of Smithville, Texas, who was reported raped by a fellow soldier in February of 2006 on a military base known as Camp Taji. Priest was a part of the 5th Support Battalion, lst Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas.  The Army said Priest was found dead in her room on March 1, 2006, of a self-inflicted M-16 shot, 11 days after the rape. Priest’s mother, Joy Priest, disputes the Army’s findings.

Mrs. Priest said she talked several times with her daughter after the rape and that Tina, while very upset about the rape, was not suicidal.  Mrs. Priest continues to challenge the Army’s 800 pages of investigative documents with a simple question: How could her five-foot-tall daughter, with a correspondingly short arm length, have held the M-16 at the angle which would have resulted in the gunshot? The Army attempted several explanations, but each was debunked by Mrs. Priest and by the 800 pages of materials provided by the Army itself. The Army now says Tina used her toe to pull the trigger of the weapon that killed her. The Army reportedly never investigated Tina’s death as a homicide, only as a suicide.

According to Tina’s mother, rape charges against the soldier whose sperm was found on Tina’s sleeping bag were dropped a few weeks after her death. He was convicted of failure to obey an order and sentenced to forfeiture of $714 for two months, 30 days’ restriction to the base and 45 days of extra duty.

On May 11, 2006, 10 days after Tina Priest was found dead, 19-year-old Army Pfc. Amy Duerksen was found dead at the same Camp Taji. Duerksen died three days after she suffered what the Army called “a self-inflicted gunshot.” The Army claimed that she, too, had committed suicide. In the room where her body was found, investigators reportedly discovered her diary open to a page on which she had written about being raped during training after unknowingly ingesting a date-rape drug. The person Duerkson identified in her diary as the rapist was charged by the Army with rape after her death. Many who knew her did not believe she shot herself, but there is no evidence of a homicide investigation by the Army.

Women Had Concerns About Job Irregularities

Three women whose deaths have been classified as suicides had expressed concerns about improprieties or irregularities in their military commands.

Army Spc. Ciara Durkin, 30, a Massachusetts National Guard payroll clerk, was found dead on Sept. 28, 2007, from a gunshot wound to the head. She had gotten off work 90 minutes earlier and was found lying near a chapel on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Durkin had called her brother just hours before she died, leaving an upbeat happy birthday message on his telephone. In previous conversations, Durkin told her sister that she had discovered something in the finance unit that she did not agree with and that she had made some enemies over it. She told her sister to keep investigating her death if anything happened to her (“How did Specialist Ciara Durkin Die?” CBSNews, Oct. 4, 2007, cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/04/world/main3328739.shtml). In June 2008, the Army declared her death a suicide. 

Army interrogator Spc. Alyssa Renee Peterson, 27, assigned to C Company, 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Ky., was an Arabic linguist who reportedly was very concerned about the manner in which interrogations of detained Iraqis were being conducted. She died on Sept. 15, 2003, near Tal Afar, Iraq, in what the Army described as a gunshot wound to the head, a noncombat, self-inflicted weapons discharge, or suicide. Peterson had reportedly objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners in Iraq and refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as “the cage.” Members of her unit have refused to describe the specific interrogation techniques to which Peterson objected. The military says that all records of those techniques have now been destroyed. After refusing to conduct more interrogations, Peterson was assigned to guard the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards. She was also sent to suicide prevention training. Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle on the night of Sept. 15, 2003. Family members challenge the Army’s conclusion.

Maj. Gloria Davis, 47, an 18-year Army veteran, mother and grandmother, was found dead of a gunshot wound on Dec. 12, 2006, the day after she reportedly talked at length to an Army investigator about corruption in military contracting. She had been accused of accepting a $225,000 bribe from Lee Dynamics, a defense contractor that provided warehouse space for the storage of automatic weapons in Iraq (Eric Schmitt and James Glanz, “U.S. Says Company Bribes Officers for Work in Iraq,” New York Times, Aug. 31, 2007).

Davis’ mother, Annie Washington, told the author that military investigators have never located any of the $225,000 Davis is alleged to have taken. Washington said her daughter was right-handed and would have had a hard time holding the weapon in her left hand and shooting herself on the left side of her head (telephone conversation between Ann Wright and Annie Washington, July 2008).

Federal court documents show that the Army suspended Lee Dynamics from contracting on July 9, 2007, over allegations that the company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to numerous U.S. officers in Iraq and Kuwait in 2004 and 2005 to get contracts to build, operate and maintain warehouses in Iraq where weapons, uniforms and vehicles for the Iraqi military were stored. 

Reportedly included in the documents was a seven-page statement by an Army investigator who questioned Maj. Davis the day before she was found dead in her quarters. The deposition has apparently been used in ongoing federal cases on corruption in military contracting (Ed Blanche, “Kickbacks, Weapons and Suicide: The US Army’s Battle With Corruption,” March 15, 2008, kippreport.com/article.php?articleid=1056&page=1). The author attempted to obtain a copy of Davis’ statement from the Department of Justice, but a DoJ public affairs officer said the statement is not yet in the public domain and intimated that it is being used in other ongoing DoJ investigations into contracting fraud (telephone conversation on July 28, 2008, with DoJ public affairs officer).

The Lee Dynamics warehouses were part of a circle of corruption involving military personnel and contractors throughout Iraq and the disappearance of 190,000 U.S.-supplied weapons— 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 80,000 pistols intended for Iraqi security forces for which the U.S. military cannot account. A July 2007 Government Accountability Office report said that until December 2005 the U.S.-Iraqi training command had no centralized records on weapons provided to Iraqi forces, and although 185,000 AK-47 rifles, 170,000 pistols, 215,000 sets of body armor and 140,000 steel helmets had been issued by September 2005, because of poor record keeping it was unclear what happened to 110,000 AK-47s and 80,000 pistols and more than half the armor and helmets (GAO Report 07-711, Stabilizing Iraq: DOD Cannot Ensure That U.S.-Funded Equipment Has Reached Iraqi Security Forces, July 2007, Pages 14 and 15, www.gao.gov/new.items/d07711.pdf).

In December 2007, the U.S. military acknowledged that it had lost track of an additional 12,000 weapons, including more than 800 machine guns (Ed Blanche, “Kickbacks, Weapons and Suicide: The US Army’s Battle With Corruption,” March 15, 2008, www.kippreport.com/article.php?articleid=1056&page=1).

In 2005, Col. Ted Westhusing, 44, at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq, allegedly committed suicide after reportedly becoming despondent about the poor performance of private contractors who were training Iraqi police, for which he was responsible. After graduating third in his West Point class and serving as the honor captain for the entire academy his senior year, Westhusing became one of the Army’s leading scholars on military ethics and was a professor at West Point. 

In January 2005 Westhusing began supervising the training of Iraqi forces to take over security duties from the U.S. military. He oversaw the Virginia-based USIS, a private security contractor, which had contracts worth $79 million to train a corps of Iraqi police to conduct special-operations missions. Westhusing was upset about allegations, in a four-page anonymous letter, that USIS deliberately shorted the Iraqi government on the number of trainers it provided in order to increase its profit margin. The letter also revealed two incidents in which USIS contractors allegedly had witnessed or participated in the killing of Iraqi civilians. After an angry counseling meeting with the contractor, Westhusing was found dead of a gunshot wound. Many of Westhusing’s professional colleagues question the Army’s ruling of suicide, despite the note found in his quarters. They point out that Westhusing did not have a bodyguard and was surrounded by the same contractors he suspected of wrongdoing. They also question why the USIS company manager who discovered Westhusing’s body was not tested for gunpowder residue.

In the space of three months in 2006, three members of the U.S. Army who had been part of a contracting and logistics group in Kuwait and Iraq were accused of taking bribes from contractors and allegedly committed suicide. Two of them were women, Maj. Gloria Davis and Sgt. Denise Lannaman, and the third was Lt. Col. Marshall Gutierrez. In August 2006 Gutierrez was arrested at a restaurant in Kuwait and was accused of shaking down a laundry contractor for a $3,400 bribe. He was allowed to return to his quarters and was found dead on Sept. 4, 2006, with an empty bottle of prescription sleeping pills and an open container of what appeared to be antifreeze. 

The second woman soldier who was allegedly involved with bribes and allegedly committed suicide was New York Army National Guard Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman. Lannaman, 46, had completed one tour in Tikrit, Iraq, in 2005. In December 2005 she decided to volunteer to stay in Iraq longer and took an assignment at a desk job at a procurement office in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, that purchased millions of dollars in supplies. She received excellent performance ratings, and her supervisor said that her oversight eliminated misuse of funds by 36 percent.  On Oct. 1, 2006, Lannaman was questioned by a senior officer about the death of Lt. Col. Gutierrez and was reportedly told by that officer that she was implicated in the contracting fraud and would be leaving the military in disgrace. She was found in a jeep dead of a gunshot later that day.

The Army has classified Lannaman’s death as a suicide. A member of her family said that Lannaman had a history of psychiatric problems but somehow been allowed to enlist in the military. She had attempted suicide four times in her life, according to the family member. In September 2007, Army spokesman Lt. Col. William Wiggins told the family that Lannaman had not been the subject of any contract investigations, but he said he could not say whether Lannaman had been threatened by a superior officer with dismissal from the service (Jim Dwyer, “Letter from America: Journey from New York to Kuwait, and Suicide,” New York Times, Sept. 19, 2007).  Lannaman’s family said that because of her pre-existing mental state, the threat that the superior officer made to send her home in disgrace could have caused her to take her life.

Soldiers Convicted of Bribery

In June 2008 four persons plead guilty in bribery and kickback scandals concerning military contracts in Iraq. On June 11, 2008, recently retired Army National Guard Col. Levonda Joey Selph, a key person on Gen. David Petraeus’ team that was training and equipping Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, pleaded guilty to bribery and conspiracy.  She admitted disclosing to the owner of Lee Dynamics International confidential bidding information about a $12-million contract for building and operating U.S. military warehouses in Iraq that stored automatic weapons and other equipment. Lee Dynamics International is the same company that reportedly gave Maj. Davis a $225,000 bribe. Col. Selph helped the company owner, a former Army pay clerk, to submit “fake bid packages on behalf of six companies he controlled to create a false sense of competition,” for which she was given a trailer valued at $20,000; she eventually returned the trailer, and the contractor then gave her $4,000 in cash and paid for air fare and accommodations for a trip to Thailand in October 2005, valued at about $5,000. Selph has since agreed to pay the U.S. government $9,000 and could serve a prison sentence of up to two years (Eric Schmitt, “Guilty Plea Given in Iraq Contract Fraud,” New York Times, June 11, 2008).

After having been in military custody since July 2007, Army Maj. John Cockerham, 43, pleaded guilty last January to bribery, conspiracy and money laundering in awarding illegal contracts for supplies such as bottled water. He had received more than $9 million in bribes from at least eight defense contractor companies, and records found in his home indicated he expected to get $5.4 million more. Melissa Cockerham, Cockerham’s wife, also pleaded guilty to money laundering. Their plea bargains were kept under federal court seal until June 25, 2008, while they cooperated with investigators. Cockerham faces up to 40 years in prison, while his wife could face up to 20 years in prison (Dana Hedgpeth, “2 Plead Guilty to Army Bribery Scheme,” Washington Post, June 25, 2008).

The Death of Spc. Keisha Morgan

Army Spc. Keisha Morgan, 25, was on her second tour in Iraq. Just days before her February 22, 2008, death, she called her mother, Diana Morgan, and happily told her that she had reenlisted. Her mother said that Keisha wanted to be a nurse and planned to fulfill that ambition after she got out of the Army. Assigned to the Fourth Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, Keisha reportedly suffered two seizures in her barracks at Camp Taji and died in a military hospital in Bagdad. The Army reportedly told Keisha’s mother that Keisha was on antidepressants and may have overdosed. In a blog, Keisha’s mother said her daughter had never mentioned being on antidepressants.

However, the Army reportedly frequently prescribes antidepressants to soldiers with anxiety from effects of war, and one of the known side effects of some of the depressants is seizures. The Army’s fifth Mental Health Advisory Team report indicates that, according to an anonymous survey of U.S. troops taken in the fall of 2007, about 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq and 17 percent of those in Afghanistan are taking prescription antidepressants (such as Prozac and Zoloft) or sleeping pills (such as Ambien) to help them cope, with about 50 percent taking antidepressants and 50 percent taking prescription sleeping pills. In 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded the warning on antidepressants that the drugs may increase the risk of suicide in children and young adults ages 18 to 24, the age group most taking prescribed drugs in the Army. The Army should question whether there is a link between the increased use of the drugs by military troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rising suicide rate, which is now double the Army’s suicide rate in 2001.

Deception or Just Incompetence?

It’s now well known that there was deception by the U.S. military in the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman and the decision to make a heroic character out of Pvt. Jessica Lynch (www.oversight.house.gov/documents/20080714111050.pdf). But there are many other cases of deception and of misinformation given to families.

After much pressure from the families for more information on the deaths of their sons in 2004, the parents of Army Spc. Patrick McCaffery and 1st Lt. Andre Tyson were finally told by the Army two years after the death of their sons that they were not killed by insurgents but by Iraqi army recruits with whom they were training and patrolling (www.democracynow.org/2006/6/23/army_lies_to_mother_of_slain).

The parents of Spc. Jesse Buryj were initially told their son died in an accident. After relentless pressure on the Army for a copy of the autopsy, his mother read that Buryj had died of a gunshot wound. She had to request through the Freedom of Information Act a copy of the incident report, which states he was killed by friendly fire from coalition Polish troops. And later a soldier from Buryj’s unit came to her home and told her he had been killed by “one of our own troops” (www.democracynow.org/2006/3/15/sunshine_week_newspapers_and_broadcasters_challenge).

Karen Meredith had to request the report on the May 30, 2004, death of her son, 1st Lt. Ken Ballard, through the Freedom of Information Act. Ballard did not die in a firefight with insurgents as she was originally told (arlingtoncemetery.net/kmballard.htm). He actually died in an accident when a branch fell on a tank in which he was riding and set off an unmanned gun (www.mydd.com/story/2005/9/12/14492/7912).

On Sept. 9, 2005, Meredith met with an Army colonel in the Pentagon and received a letter of apology from the Army for its misinformation on her son’s death. On Sept. 27, 2005, she met with Secretary of the Army Francis Harvey and asked him to promise that soldiers’ families would promptly be told the truth about casualties.

As the Beaumont, Texas, newspaper the Enterprise stated in its June 20, 2008, editorial, “There is no excuse for the U.S. Army’s shabby treatment of Kamisha Block’s parents and others who cared for her. Her commanders knew right away that she had been killed by a fellow soldier in Iraq, who had been harassing her. It was a standard murder-suicide. Incredibly, the Army first told her parents that it was an accidental death due to friendly fire.”

A few days later, the Army changed its story and told the parents of Spc. Block that their daughter had been murdered by a shot to the chest. At the funeral home in Vidor, Texas, Block’s mother noticed her daughter had a wound to her head, not mentioned by the Army.

Six months later, after numerous phone calls to the Army and enlisting help from Congressman Kevin Brady, Block’s family was told by the Army that she had been murdered by a fellow soldier in her unit, a man who had physically assaulted her three times.  His unit had disciplined him once but kept him in the same unit where he assaulted Block two other times before he murdered her by firing five shots into her and then killing himself in the same barracks room. After many attempts, the parents finally received a 1,200-page investigation that gave the name of the murderer.

Our Soldiers’ Families Deserve Better

The families of slain soldiers deserve the truth about how they served and how they died. A professional military should handle each case with utmost care and concern. Tragically, in the past seven years, too many families have been faced with unanswered questions and a military bureaucracy that closes ranks against those who are trying to find answers.

I appeal to those in our military who know how these women died to come forward. Hopefully, the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Susan Davis, (202) 225-2040, will hold hearings on military suicides in the next two months and provide protection from retaliation for those willing to testify.

Army Reserve Col. Ann Wright, retired, is a 29-year veteran of the Army and Army Reserves. She was also a U.S. diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the Department of State on March 19, 2003, in opposition to the Iraq war. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”

September 10, 2008 – With Republicans and Democrats battling for every vote in the final months of the presidential election, both parties are courting veterans for their support.

The Veterans for McCain Ohio bus tour pulled into Toledo early yesterday morning. Aboard was retired U.S. Air Force Col. Tom Moe, who spent five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam with Republican candidate John McCain.

Mr. Moe, who lives in Lancaster, Ohio, was in the national spotlight when GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin spoke of his experience with Mr. McCain in her speech at the Republican National Convention.

“As the story is told,” Mrs. Palin said, “when Mr. McCain shuffled back from torturous interrogations, he would turn toward Moe’s door and flash a grin and thumbs-up as if to say, ‘We’re going to pull through this.’ My fellow Americans, that is the kind of man America needs to see us through these next four years.”

Mr. Moe, who is serving as chairman of Ohio Veterans for McCain, posed for photographs, shook hands, and signed T-shirts for several dozen people outside the Lucas County Republican Party headquarters at 10 S. Superior St. downtown.

Many of the people there wore uniforms, hats, or T-shirts declaring their military affiliation.

“We can never tell [Mr. Moe] thanks enough for what he did,” said Bob Brenot, 71, of Toledo, who attended the event with several fellow members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 66. Mr. Brenot served in the U.S. Navy from 1955 to 1959.

Mr. Moe said Mr. McCain’s experience during his years in Vietnam shows his strength, resolve, and ability to stand up to tremendous adversity.

“It speaks volumes to this man’s courage,” he said.

Mr. Moe, an Air Force pilot, was shot down in January, 1968, and spent five years in the “Hanoi Hilton” with Mr. McCain, until March of 1973.

Tom Morgan, chairman of the Lucas County Veterans for McCain group, said this election has mobilized veterans. Both campaigns have Web sites aimed at veterans with information such as how to go about absentee voting.

But Mr. McCain’s veteran status doesn’t mean he has a lock on veterans’ votes.

Jason Graven, who served in Iraq from 2003 until 2004, said he plans to vote for Democratic candidate Barack Obama for a number of reasons, including Mr. Obama’s support of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“His voting record shows his genuine care for the veterans of our country,” said Mr. Graven, 28, a University of Toledo student. Mr. Graven spoke at a press conference for veterans in support of Mr. Obama yesterday afternoon at VFW Post 2510 in East Toledo.

Veterans have a number of special needs that the government must address, said Jeffrey Crowther, who attended the press conference in support of Mr. Obama.

“Veterans’ issues are very unique,” he said, such as a need for good health care through the VA system, reintegration into civilian life, and education.