Veterans for Common Sense

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose “Duelfer Report” established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq’s nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

Consider, for example, these false public statements made in the run-up to war:

On August 26, 2002, in an address to the national convention of the Veteran of Foreign Wars, Cheney flatly declared: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” In fact, former CIA Director George Tenet later recalled, Cheney’s assertions went well beyond his agency’s assessments at the time. Another CIA official, referring to the same speech, told journalist Ron Suskind, “Our reaction was, ‘Where is he getting this stuff from?’ ”

In the closing days of September 2002, with a congressional vote fast approaching on authorizing the use of military force in Iraq, Bush told the nation in his weekly radio address: “The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.” A few days later, similar findings were also included in a much-hurried National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction — an analysis that hadn’t been done in years, as the intelligence community had deemed it unnecessary and the White House hadn’t requested it.

In July 2002, Rumsfeld had a one-word answer for reporters who asked whether Iraq had relationships with Al Qaeda terrorists: “Sure.” In fact, an assessment issued that same month by the Defense Intelligence Agency (and confirmed weeks later by CIA Director Tenet) found an absence of “compelling evidence demonstrating direct cooperation between the government of Iraq and Al Qaeda.” What’s more, an earlier DIA assessment said that “the nature of the regime’s relationship with  Al Qaeda is unclear.”

On May 29, 2003, in an interview with Polish TV, President Bush declared: “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories.” But as journalist Bob Woodward reported in State of Denial, days earlier a team of civilian experts dispatched to examine the two mobile labs found in Iraq had concluded in a field report that the labs were not for biological weapons. The team’s final report, completed the following month, concluded that the labs had probably been used to manufacture hydrogen for weather balloons.

On January 28, 2003, in his annual State of the Union address, Bush asserted: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.” Two weeks earlier, an analyst with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research sent an email to colleagues in the intelligence community laying out why he believed the uranium-purchase agreement “probably is a hoax.”

On February 5, 2003, in an address to the United Nations Security Council, Powell said: “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.” As it turned out, however, two of the main human sources to which Powell referred had provided false information. One was an Iraqi con artist, code-named “Curveball,” whom American intelligence officials were dubious about and in fact had never even spoken to. The other was an Al Qaeda detainee, Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had reportedly been sent to Eqypt by the CIA and tortured and who later recanted the information he had provided. Libi told the CIA in January 2004 that he had “decided he would fabricate any information interrogators wanted in order to gain better treatment and avoid being handed over to [a foreign government].”

The false statements dramatically increased in August 2002, with congressional consideration of a war resolution, then escalated through the mid-term elections and spiked even higher from January 2003 to the eve of the invasion.

It was during those critical weeks in early 2003 that the president delivered his State of the Union address and Powell delivered his memorable U.N. presentation. For all 935 false statements, including when and where they occurred, go to the search page for this project; the methodology used for this analysis is explained here.

In addition to their patently false pronouncements, Bush and these seven top officials also made hundreds of other statements in the two years after 9/11 in which they implied that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or links to Al Qaeda. Other administration higher-ups, joined by Pentagon officials and Republican leaders in Congress, also routinely sounded false war alarms in the Washington echo chamber.

The cumulative effect of these false statements — amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts — was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war. Some journalists — indeed, even some entire news organizations — have since acknowledged that their coverage during those prewar months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional, “independent” validation of the Bush administration’s false statements about Iraq.

The “ground truth” of the Iraq war itself eventually forced the president to backpedal, albeit grudgingly. In a 2004 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, for example, Bush acknowledged that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq. And on December 18, 2005, with his approval ratings on the decline, Bush told the nation in a Sunday-night address from the Oval Office: “It is true that Saddam Hussein had a history of pursuing and using weapons of mass destruction. It is true that he systematically concealed those programs, and blocked the work of U.N. weapons inspectors. It is true that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. But much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. As your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq. Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power.”

Bush stopped short, however, of admitting error or poor judgment; instead, his administration repeatedly attributed the stark disparity between its prewar public statements and the actual “ground truth” regarding the threat posed by Iraq to poor intelligence from a Who’s Who of domestic agencies.

On the other hand, a growing number of critics, including a parade of former government officials, have publicly — and in some cases vociferously — accused the president and his inner circle of ignoring or distorting the available intelligence. In the end, these critics say, it was the calculated drumbeat of false information and public pronouncements that ultimately misled the American people and this nation’s allies on their way to war.

Bush and the top officials of his administration have so far largely avoided the harsh, sustained glare of formal scrutiny about their personal responsibility for the litany of repeated, false statements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. There has been no congressional investigation, for example, into what exactly was going on inside the Bush White House in that period. Congressional oversight has focused almost entirely on the quality of the U.S. government’s pre-war intelligence — not the judgment, public statements, or public accountability of its highest officials. And, of course, only four of the officials — Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz — have testified before Congress about Iraq.

Short of such review, this project provides a heretofore unavailable framework for examining how the U.S. war in Iraq came to pass. Clearly, it calls into question the repeated assertions of Bush administration officials that they were the unwitting victims of bad intelligence.

Above all, the 935 false statements painstakingly presented here finally help to answer two all-too-familiar questions as they apply to Bush and his top advisers: What did they know, and when did they know it?

The Full House Veterans’ Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on the VA Budget Request for FY 2009 on February 7, 2008, at 1:00 p.m. in room 334 Cannon.  Veterans for Common Sense was asked to testify, and we will have between three and five minutes to speak.  Because we are a grassroots organization, VCS wants your valuable input: What problems and solutions about VA’s budget would you share with Congress?  Please send your comments via e-mail to our Executive Director at Paul@VeteransForCommonSense.org by Friday, February 1, 2008.

Jan. 22 Update: VCS Releases New VA and DoD Fact Sheets

Dear VCS Supporters:

This week Veterans for Common Sense releases updated versions of our popular VA and DoD Fact Sheets. The statistics are very disturbing.

The Pentagon officially reported 72,043 battlefield casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan through Jan. 5, 2008.

VA hospitals and clinics have already treated 263,909 unplanned patients from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. On top of that, VA reported 245,034 unanticipated disability claims from veterans of the two wars.

VCS issued warnings about this growing problem. On Veterans Day in 2007, VCS posted an editorial about how we believe VA and DoD mask the true costs of the two wars.

To assist you with making sense of the new Fact Sheets, a VCS analysis shows that between June 2007 and November 2007:

* The number of PTSD claims approved rose 80 percent (from 19,015 to 34,138), while the veteran population rose only 16 percent. The incidence of PTSD is dramatically rising, or VA is finally starting to take this problem more seriously, or both.

* 100 PTSD claims were approved every day. VA can expect tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands more PTSD claims from our new war veterans as more service members deploy to the war zone and then begin to return home.

* Veterans who served in the National Guard or Reserves were nearly three times as likely to have their VA disability compensation claim rejected (14{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} compared to 5{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d}). VCS remains concerned about the apparent unequal treatment faced by our veterans who were ordered to active duty in the war zone from the National Guard and Reserves.

While the PTSD claims situation may be improving slightly due to intense pressure brought about by the VCS and Veterans United for Truth lawsuit against VA, there are still nearly 18,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans diagnosed by VA with PTSD who are not yet receiving VA disability payments.

VCS believes that VA is still not properly reviewing and approving PTSD claims for veterans already diagnosed with PTSD by VA doctors. This means VA continues to deny and delay essential disability payments for our veterans that could be the difference between paying the rent or becoming homeless.

Wounded Warrior Update: Last week, the House voted to include the “Dignity for Wounded Warriors Act” (formerly S 1606 and then HR 1585), in the new Defense Bill, HR 4986. Now we are waiting on the Senate to approve the bill. Sadly, the provision allowing our Gulf War veterans tortured by Iraq to sue the new Iraqi government was watered down.

Please share the critical information in your VCS Update with your friends, reporters, and elected officials so that they know the facts about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Please donate generously to VCS so we can keep reporting the accurate and complete facts about the human consequences of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. We appreciate your support so we can provide the policy advocacy that all our veterans need.

Thank you,

Paul Sullivan
Executive Director
Veterans for Common Sense

VCS provides advocacy and publicity for issues related to veterans, national security, and civil liberties. VCS is registered with the IRS as a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, and donations to VCS are tax deductible. VCS does not provide direct services to veterans.

January 22, 2008 – The percentage of Army recruits with a high school diploma dropped last year, continuing a trend that has worsened since the start of the Iraq war, according to a report released Tuesday.

National Priorities Project, a research group that analyzes federal data, found that nearly 71 percent of Army recruits graduated from high school in the 2007 budget year. It based its findings on data it obtained from the Defense Department through a Freedom of Information Act request.

All troops must have a high school diploma or an equivalent degree. The military prefers that they have a high school diploma because its studies have shown they are more likely to finish an enlistment term. Still, the Army has paid for some recruits to take General Educational Development preparation classes and take the test.

The Army’s goal is 90 percent high school graduates, which it hasn’t met since 2004. Each year since, the number of recruits with at least a high school diploma has steadily declined.

Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky., acknowledged it has been a difficult recruiting environment. He said overall high school graduation rates are declining, which could be a factor.

Strained, in part, by military operations in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the military has had to increase the number of waivers and raise enlistment bonuses to fill its ranks.

“Every soldier that we put in the Army is qualified,” Smith said. “We don’t put unqualified people in the Army, but it’s something we’re watching.”

The National Priorities Project said the percentage of “high-quality” recruits — those with a high school diploma who scored in the top half on the military’s qualification test — declined from budget years 2004 to 2007. In that period, the number of high-quality recruits fell from about 61 percent to nearly 45 percent, the group said.

It also found that in the 2007 budget year, upper middle- and high-income neighborhoods were underrepresented by an even larger margin than three years earlier.

The Army has been under growing pressure to strengthen recruiting as part of an ongoing effort to increase its size.

Plans are to raise the number of active-duty Army, Army Guard and Army Reserve by 74,000 overall, with the active-duty force rising by 65,000 to a total of 547,000. In October, top Army leaders said they planned to move faster to expand the force by adding the full 74,000 soldiers by 2010, two years earlier than originally planned.

In September, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters he’d like the see an increase in the percentage of recruits with a high school diploma. He said he was reluctant to accelerate an expansion of the force that would lead to a lowering of recruitment standards.

Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said recruitment has been strong in the first four months of this budget year.

January 21, 2008

“It cannot be stopped at the border;
Or trapped in a shelter of stone;
Or arrested by following orders.
War has been coming home.”

In my first column two months ago, I discussed the mental health problems that our troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing. I drew on a recent study of veteran suicides by CBS News and a study of homelessness by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Now comes a third study by the New York Times, “War Torn: Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles,” which discusses some of the 121 cases that the Times uncovered in which veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have been involved in or charged in killings.

Some of the stories are heart-breaking, such as the case of Stephen Sherwood. Sherwood lost his entire tank unit to a rocket attack while he was on leave to celebrate his son’s first birthday. Several months later, he returned from Iraq and shot his wife and himself.

Or Seth Strasburg, who shot and killed an Iraqi dragging a sack of gravel by the roadside, thinking the man was about to plant an IED.

While home on leave, his gun went off in a drunken scuffle and killed a man.

Stories like these should surprise no one. Mass murder, such as what typically happens in modern warfare, is not natural to the human species. The military goes to great lengths to break down societal conditioning against murder. Undoing such training may not always be as simple as those who glorify war might pretend. And such instances as these must be considered as part of the societal costs of war.

Many manage to readjust to civilian life, in spite of whatever wartime traumas they have lived through. However, there are some who have difficulty readjusting, and do not seek or receive needed help. Some of these end up living on the streets; and some end up killing themselves or others.

This is true of every war, from time immemorial. Some will bring the war back home with them with disastrous results for society. Take, for example, Timothy McVeigh.

McVeigh was awarded the Bronze Star for service in the 1991 Gulf War.

He claimed to have been shocked by being ordered to execute surrendering prisoners, and later wrote, “Do people think that government workers in Iraq are any less human than those in Oklahoma City? Do they think that Iraqis don’t have families who will grieve and mourn the loss of their loved ones? Do people believe that the killing of foreigners is somehow different than the killing of Americans?”

McVeigh was executed in 2001 for the Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168, including 19 small children, an act which he characterized as “revenge” against the government.

Fortunately, there is hope. As Lawrence Sherman, director of the Jerry Lee Center of Criminology remarked, “The real tragedy in these veterans’ cases is that, where PTSD is a factor, it is highly treatable,” and “when people are exposed to serious trauma and don’t get it treated, it is a serious risk factor for violence.”

In other words, there is treatment for the symptoms. But, how much better would it be to treat the disease, as well as the symptoms? War is the disease of which PTSD and other mental illnesses that plague our soldiers and veterans are merely symptoms.

This disease has plagued humanity for at least 10,000 years. We think we are cured, only to relapse and fight again and again. We recognize this every time we use phrases like, “perpetual war,” or “war without end.”

If we do not wish to be fighting “perpetual war” for the rest of eternity, then there is only one solution: Work for peace.

The opening quote is from the song “The War Has Been Coming Home,” by Charlie King.

Tom Sager is a retired professor at the University of Missouri – Rolla. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at tom@tomsager.org

January 22, 2008 (AP) The Senate voted Tuesday to approve a revised defense bill authorizing a 3.5 percent pay raise for troops while sidestepping a veto showdown with President Bush.

The 91-3 vote sends the $696 billion measure to Bush for his expected signature.

The president had rejected an earlier version of the bill because of a provision that would have guaranteed that victims of state-sponsored abuse can sue foreign governments in court and collect judgments by seizing its assets inside the United States. Bush said that would have exposed Iraq to high-dollar lawsuits over abuse during the Saddam Hussein era at a time when the country is struggling to rebuild its infrastructure.

The administration estimated that Iraq had more than $25 billion of assets invested in the U.S. that could be tied up in litigation.

Democrats reluctantly revised the measure to allow Bush to grant immunity to Iraq, so long as he determines that doing so promotes Iraqi reconstruction and that Baghdad remains a “reliable ally” in the war on terror.

The House passed the new bill last week by a 369-46 vote.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who sponsored the provision on abuse lawsuits, said the final bill still achieved his goal of “providing justice for American victims of terrorism at the hands of terrorist states like Iran and Libya.”

“I will not rest until all American victims of terrorism get the justice they deserve,” he added.

The revised bill also makes the 3.5 percent pay raise retroactive to Jan. 1.

The decision to change the bill without trying to challenge Bush’s rejection reflects the difficulty Democrats have had in challenging the president on even minor issues. Democrats lack the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush’s veto was a “terrible mistake” because it delayed implementation of the various benefit programs for troops included in the bill, including the pay raise.

The bill does not include a provision to bring troops home, as Democrats want. But they say they will try again this year with legislation aimed at giving soldiers and Marines more rest between combat tours, as well as measures intended to curb contracting abuse.

“Most Republicans chose to stuck with the president on Iraq, and it devastated our armed forces,” said Reid, D-Nev.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he hopes Democrats will give up trying to bring troops home by a certain date.

“It was wrong to tempt fate when our progress in Iraq was uncertain,” said McConnell, R-Ky. “It would be foolish to do so when progress is undeniable.”

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Bush is expected to sign the revised measure.

Teenage Bomber Strikes In Anbar: Suicide Attack Targets Meeting Of Tribal Leaders
 
January 21, 2008, Baghdad, Iraq – A 13-year-old boy wearing an explosives-packed vest blew himself up Sunday among a group of tribal leaders in the western province of Anbar, becoming one of the youngest suicide bombers since the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqi police said.

The explosion killed at least three other people and wounded eight in the city of Fallujah, according to local police Capt. Jasim Faiyadh.

Faiyadh said the boy was the son of one of the five most-wanted leaders of al-Qaeda in Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group that U.S. officials say is led by foreigners.

The attack targeted a meeting of leaders from the Anbar Awakening Council, a U.S.-supported group that has turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq. A tribal chief, Hadi Hussein al-Isawi, was among those killed, police and Fallujah hospital officials said.

Five of the wounded were in critical condition, said Mohammed al-Ani, a doctor at the hospital.

The explosion was one of the deadliest attacks in Anbar since the council drove most al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters out of the province last year.

Meanwhile, near the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, gunmen in a sedan opened fire on a checkpoint manned by U.S.-supported tribesmen battling al-Qaeda in Iraq, said police Col. Yadkar Abdullah. The attack, in the town of Hawijah, west of Kirkuk, killed a tribesman and wounded three others, he said.

In the holy Shiite city of Najaf, an operation has been launched to investigate the deadly attacks last week in southern Iraq that killed more than 70 people.

Ahmad Deabil, a government spokesman in Najaf, said 45 detainees from the Soldiers of Heaven, the obscure Shiite sect that staged the attacks, had been moved from the southern cities of Basra and Nasiriyah to Najaf. Thirteen of the captured men were religious leaders from Najaf, Deabil said. One of them was Hassan al-Hamami, the son of a revered Shiite cleric who died years ago.

Deabil said the investigation has revealed that the group is supported by Arab countries neighboring Iraq that he declined to identify.

Special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf and Washington Post staff in Fallujah, Mosul and Kirkuk contributed to this report.

Fairmont, West Virginia, January 20, 2008 —  Spurred by last winter’s spate of stories about the poor living conditions and bureaucratic hassles encountered by wounded veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, state lawmakers ordered a study at the end of the last regular session.

The select committee was told to make recommendations on how the state can assist in getting them the care they deserve, according to the joint resolution setting it up.

The experience was “an eye-opening one for us,” said Delegate Richard J. Iaquinta, D-Harrison. The chairman of the House Veterans Committee, Iaquinta was a co-chairman of the select committee with state Sen. Jon Blair Hunter, D-Monongalia, and chairman of the Senate Military Committee.

Meeting in the spring and over the summer, the committee turned to Larry Linch, director of the state Division of Veterans Affairs and leaders of state veterans groups. Another key resource was rural health-care experts at West Virginia University. The state VA helped cut through red tape and privacy issues, providing a mailing list based on veterans who had earlier applied for a state military bonus for their overseas service.

The Legislature wants to ensure the latest group of combat veterans “get the health services and information about benefits that they may need in making the transition to civilian life,” Iaquinta said.

The survey by the Veterans Project Group at West Virginia University on the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression is just one of the select committee’s products, he said.

Staying in touch with the new combat veterans and their families and relatives over the years is important, Iaquinta said.

Funding for more research and for training rural primary health caregivers on PTSD and depression is another issue.

Lawmakers will continue to work on issues like in-state treatment for veterans with traumatic brain injury from the concussion of roadside bombs, Iaquinta and Director Linch said.

The state is now ready to offer care for those with traumatic brain injury, Linch said.

Delegate Barbara Evans Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, said many veterans in the regular Army and Marine Corps have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. So have some units of the state National Guard and Reserves, such as aviation units and other specialized units.

“They have a role over there of always being on the alert,” said Fleischauer. “They’re constantly on-guard and doing some terrific work. Then they have to shift back to normal life all of a sudden when they get back home.”

“We are just at the beginning of thinking what the results of the statewide survey means,” she said.

Getting health care to veterans and their families in rural areas is the key, committee members said.

“There are going to be continuing social and mental health needs for these veterans — and all our veterans,” said Delegate Linda Longstreth, D-Marion, and vice chairman of the House Veterans Affairs committee.

“These are legitimate mental health issues for all veterans and their families,” she said.

“The issue for us is how we can improve outreach for these vets and all our veterans and that we follow through.”

Linch, a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War, said the state agency wants to ensure access to treatment and services.

“We’re going to make sure these guys get treated better than Vietnam veterans were treated when they came home.”

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.

January 17, 2008 – Both Montana Senators, Jon Tester and Max Baucus, are teaming up to call for an investigation into the state’s VA mental health care.

The senators want the VA’s top investigator to get to the bottom of recent news stories that show veterans from the Treasure state may be getting the short end of the stick on mental health care.

A letter has been drafted to the VA Inspector General, asking for a thorough review of any ‘significant disparity’ in post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD ratings given to Montana’s Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. They also want the Inspector General to review the quality of care for those veterans who suffer from PTSD, and to look into the wait times Montana vets are enduring before they receive mental health care.

The senators are also asking for recommendations on ways to improve the system.

January 17, 2008 – WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush on Thursday released $3.7 billion in emergency money that Congress requested to care for veterans, including those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bush released the emergency funds even though he said he thought the money should have been considered as part of the normal appropriations process. The emergency money was tucked in a $550 billion government spending measure that Congress passed last month before leaving for the holidays.

“While I believe that these funds should have been considered as regular appropriations, the men and women who have sacrificed for our country should not be held hostage to budgetary wrangling in Washington,” Bush said in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said the emergency funds were needed because the veterans budget proposed by the president would have underfunded the Veterans Affairs Department at a time when there was a need to expand mental health care, improve treatment for traumatic brain injuries and reverse a claims backlog.

“This could not be allowed to happen,” said Akaka, who wrote to the president urging him to release the extra money. “I am relieved that he has seen fit to do so.”

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, also applauded the president’s action.

Edwards said the added funding will help pay for more qualified doctors and nurses to improve medical services for veterans.

“For the 400,000 veterans, including combat wounded vets, who are having to wait too long to have their benefits cases reviewed, this bill means over 1,800 new VA case workers to reduce the unacceptable delays in receiving earned benefits,” he said. “For veterans with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health care issues, and lost limbs, this bill means renewed hope to rebuild their lives. For many of the 200,000 homeless veterans in America, it means the dignity of not having to sleep on the streets and hope for a better future.”