Editorial Column Against Torture by Vietnam War Prisoner of War

Posted on January 26, 2009 by Team VCS

To Support and Defend: A Message to US Senators and Representatives

January 24, 2009 – “I, Phillip Neal Butler, having been appointed a Midshipman in the United States Navy, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, so help me God.” (Oath of Office, July 1, 1957.)

Upon graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1961, I had the honor of repeating this oath to be commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy. I served 20 years as an active duty commissioned officer. During that time, I became a naval aviator, flew combat in Vietnam, was downed over North Vietnam on April 20, 1965, and became a prisoner of war. I was repatriated on February 12, 1973, having served 2,855 days and nights as a POW – just short of eight years. The Vietnamese were not signatories to any international treaties on treatment of prisoners. They pronounced us “criminals” and freely used torture, harassment, malnutrition, isolation, lack of medical care, and other degradations during our captivity. I was tortured dozens of times during my captivity. But I often thought of our Constitution and the higher purpose we served – a purpose that helped me resist beyond what I thought I’d ever be capable of. Ironically, we POWs often reminded each other “that our country would never stoop to torture and the low level of treatment we were experiencing at the hands of our captors.”

This Oath of Office, the same one sworn to by all officers, government officials, presidential cabinet members, senators and representatives of our nation, has had a powerful effect on me. It has given me an over-arching purpose in life: to serve the greatest and most influential legal document ever written. The only different oath is specified for the president of the United States in Constitution Article II, Section 1 (8.) It mandates that he or she will “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”

So, what in the world has happened during the past eight years of the George W. Bush administration? The only defensible answer is that he and his subordinates have trampled our precious Constitution and the rule of law into the ground, while our elected members of Congress have stood idly and complicitly by. Our highest elected officials have utterly failed in their duty of greatest responsibility.

During these years, we have seen gross attempts to institutionalize torture. Our Constitution, Article VI, (2), commonly known as the “Supremacy” clause, clearly states that treaties made shall become “the supreme law of the land,” thus elevating them to the level of constitutional law.

The Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, ratified in 1949, states in Article 17, “No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.” This and numerous other ratified treaties clearly stipulate that “prisoners” is an inclusive term that is not limited to any nation’s uniformed combatants.

Other gross Bush administration crimes, in addition to authorizing torture, of general and constitutional law include: 1) the use of “signing statements” to illegally refrain from complying with laws, 2) authorization of the illegal suspension of Habeas Corpus, 3) authorization of wire tapping and other intrusive methods to illegally spy on American citizens, 4) unilateral declaration and pre-emptive conduct of war in violation of US Constitution Article I, Section 8 (11).

These violations of our Constitution and rule of law have resulted in reducing our nation to the level of international pariah. Our beacon of liberty and justice no longer shines throughout the world. We no longer set the example for other nations to follow. We no longer stand on a firm foundation. We have lost our national, moral gyro.

I despair when I think of the personal sacrifices made by so many in US wars and conflicts since 1776. If our forefathers were here to see, they would surely be angry and disappointed. And I think they would issue a clarion call for redress and setting an example for the world by punishing those who are guilty. The only way our nation can right itself is for Congress to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes.

I, therefore, call on my elected representatives in the Senate and House of Representatives to bring criminal charges against President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, legal counsel William J. Haynes, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former legal counsel David Addington, and potentially other high officials and uniformed officers. There is no other option if you are to carry out your responsibilities. Citizens of the United States and of the world are watching you. Do your duty. Support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

———

Note: This article was written for and at the request of Sen. John Kerry, to use as leverage with his Senate colleagues.

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Veterans to Speak Out Against Operation Iraqi Freedom

Posted on January 26, 2009 by Team VCS

January 24, 2009 – A day after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Chris Miles left his home in LeRoy, Minn., for boot camp at Naval Training Center in Chicago.

Rising to the rank of third class petty officer, Miles, 26, served four years on the USS Arleigh Burke, DDG51, a guided missile destroyer out of Norfolk, Va. He served nearly three of those years at sea and one year deployed in combat in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. He earned three Navy Achievement medals and a Global War of Terrorism medal. He is currently a Bemidji State University student majoring in English and philosophy.

“At one time, I was very pro-war,” Miles said.

That is no longer the case.

Miles said the research he has conducted since he was honorably discharged in 2005 has disillusioned him and given him the impetus to become an anti-war advocate.

Miles and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran retired Staff Sgt. Wes Davey of the Twin Cities, will speak as Iraqi Veterans Against the War at 10 a.m. Sunday at Headwaters Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 522 America Avenue N.W., and at 7 p.m. Monday in BSU Hagg-Sauer Hall Room 100.

Miles said he and Davey will describe some of their experiences and take questions from their audiences.

“Everyone is encouraged to attend no matter what their politics are, or how they feel about the war,” Miles said. “Democracy depends on civil discourse.”

Information on Iraqi Veterans Against the War is available at ivaw.org. The group calls for, “Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from Iraq; and reparations for the human and structural damages Iraq has suffered; and full benefits, adequate health care (including mental health), and other support for returning servicemen and women.”

Miles said when he first returned from service four years ago, seeing anti-war protests angered him. But after looking into the reasons for the United States to invade and occupy Iraq, he said he changed his position.

“At a certain point, I began educating myself,” Miles said. “It was a slow wake-up for me and I would call it painful.”

In addition to what turned out to be false intelligence about Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and the country harboring al-Qaida members connected with Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Miles said he was also appalled by the military culture.

“Women are treated horribly in this environment,” he said, citing reports of sexual harassment and rapes of women soldiers.

He also faulted the underfunding of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the poor treatment of veterans, both for physical and mental wounds. He said the costs of the wars include the casualty tolls on Iraqi and Afghan civilians, as well as the anti-American feelings he said U.S. strategies have engendered among these people.

“What really bothered me, and bothers me today and gives me nightmares, is knowing the effects of the attacks I helped carry out,” Miles said. “It also helped to create more terrorists by creating hate for America.”

He said he doesn’t doubt that Islamic terrorists aim to harm the U.S., but invading a sovereign nation with no connection at that time to attacks on this country was wrong.

Miles also cited the huge financial burden of the wars, noting that spending some of that money to eliminate the hopeless conditions that encourage terrorists would be one of his goals as an anti-war advocate. Another positive direction, he said, would be to invite mothers of veterans to give the government their input on the personal costs of war.

“My real big goal is to one day get a Ph.D. and start a veterans’ study research center, an academic discipline, so people can understand the cost of war,” he said.

Meanwhile, the public must keep the government accountable, Miles said.

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Bush’s Afghanistan War Becomes Obama’s War: Fearing Another Quagmire in Afghanistan

Posted on January 25, 2009 by Team VCS

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
And the women come out to cut up what remains
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.
    —Rudyard Kipling, “The Young British Soldier,” 1892

January 25, 2009, Washington, DC — Can President Obama succeed in that long-lamented “graveyard of empires” — a place that has crushed foreign occupiers for more than 2,000 years?

Ever since the Bush administration diverted its attention — and resources — to the war in Iraq from the war in Afghanistan, military planners and foreign policy experts have bemoaned the dearth of troops to keep that country from sliding back into Taliban control. And in that time, the insurgency blossomed, as Taliban militants took advantage of huge swaths of territory, particularly in the south, that NATO troops weren’t able to fill.

Enter Mr. Obama. During the campaign he promised to send two additional brigades — 7,000 troops — to Afghanistan. During the transition, military planners started talking about adding as many as 30,000 troops. And within days of taking office, Mr. Obama announced the appointment of Richard Holbrooke, architect of the Balkan peace accords, to execute a new Afghanistan policy.

But even as Mr. Obama’s military planners prepare for the first wave of the new Afghanistan “surge,” there is growing debate, including among those who agree with the plan to send more troops, about whether — or how — the troops can accomplish their mission, and just what the mission is.

Afghanistan has, after all, stymied would-be conquerors since Alexander the Great. It’s always the same story; the invaders — British, Soviets — control the cities, but not the countryside. And eventually, the invaders don’t even control the cities, and are sent packing.

Think Iraq was hard? Afghanistan, former Secretary of State Colin Powell argues, will be “much, much harder.”

“Iraq had a middle class,” Mr. Powell pointed out on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” a couple of hours before Mr. Obama was sworn in last Tuesday. “It was a fairly advanced country before Saddam Hussein drove it in the ground.” Afghanistan, on the other hand, “is still basically a tribal society, a lot of corruption; drugs are going to destroy that country if something isn’t done about it.”

For Mr. Obama, Afghanistan is the signal foreign policy crisis that he must address quickly. Some 34,000 American troops are already fighting an insurgency that grows stronger by the month, making this a dynamically deteriorating situation in a region fraught with consequence for American security aims. Coupled with nuclear-armed Pakistan, with which it shares a border zone that has become a haven for Al Qaeda, Afghanistan could quickly come to define the Obama presidency.

Mr. Obama’s extra troops will largely be battling a Taliban insurgency fed by an opium trade estimated at $300 million a year. And that insurgency is dispersed among a largely rural population living in villages scattered across 78,000 square miles of southern Afghanistan.

One question for Mr. Obama is whether 30,000 more troops are enough. “I think that this is more of a psychological surge than a practical surge,” said Karin von Hippel, an Afghanistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said she favored the troop increase, but only as a precursor to getting the Europeans to contribute more, and to changing America’s policy so it focuses more on the countryside, as opposed to the capital.

“In Afghanistan, the number of troops, if you combine NATO, American and Afghan troops, is 200,000 forces versus 600,000 in Iraq,” Ms. von Hippel said. “Those numbers are so low that an extra 30,000 isn’t going to get you to where you need to be. It’s more of a stop-gap measure.”

“But something,” she said, “is better than nothing.”

That last assertion, however, is also open to debate. Some foreign policy experts argue that Mr. Obama’s decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan is simply an extension of Bush administration policy in the region, with the difference being that Mr. Obama could be putting more American lives at risk to pursue a failed policy.

While more American troops can help to stabilize southern Afghanistan, that argument goes, they cannot turn the situation around in the country unless there are major changes in overall policy. Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, the darling of the Bush administration, has begun to lose his luster; American and European officials now express private frustration over his refusal to arrest drug lords who have been running the opium trade.

Mr. Karzai has also been widely criticized for not cracking down enough on corruption. And diplomats say his distaste for venturing far beyond his fortified presidential palace in Kabul reinforces the divide between Afghanistan’s central government and its largely rural population, giving the Taliban free rein in the countryside.

Before sending in more American troops, argues Andrew Bacevich, an international relations professor at Boston University, Mr. Obama should figure out if he is going to change an underlying American policy that has shrunk from putting pressure on Mr. Karzai.

“It seems there’s a rush to send in more reinforcements absent the careful analysis that’s most needed here,” said Mr. Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.”

“There’s clearly a consensus that things are heading in the wrong direction,” Mr. Bacevich said. “What’s not clear to me is why sending 30,000 more troops is the essential step to changing that. My understanding of the larger objective of the allied enterprise in Afghanistan is to bring into existence something that looks like a modern cohesive Afghan state. Well, it could be that that’s an unrealistic objective. It could be that sending 30,000 more troops is throwing money and lives down a rat hole.”

Putting aside the question of whether a modern cohesive Afghan state is a realistic objective, United States policy makers would like, at the very least, to get to a point in Afghanistan where the country is no longer a launching pad for terrorist attacks like what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. Beating back the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, and rooting out Qaeda training camps on the Pakistani border in eastern Afghanistan with the goal of finding Osama bin Laden, are all central parts of American policy, even absent a modern cohesive Afghan state.

Can 30,000 more troops help with that objective?

J. Alexander Their, an Afghanistan expert at the United States Institute of Peace, argues that additional troops can form a basis for stability, but that their presence will be for naught unless there is also government reform. “The Afghan population, particularly in the rural areas, have a strong degree of ambivalence toward the government,” he said. “People expect very little from government, or expect bad things. Yet we’ve ignored government reform and rule of law as part of our strategy.”

The appointment of Mr. Holbrooke as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan may signal the direction that the Obama administration will take there. In the past, Mr. Holbrooke has written — as he did in a column in The Washington Post last spring — that in Afghanistan, “massive, officially sanctioned corruption and the drug trade are the most serious problems the country faces, and they offer the Taliban its only exploitable opportunity to gain support.”

And during her confirmation hearing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Afghanistan a “narco-state” with a government “plagued by limited capacity and widespread corruption.” So an Obama administration may, indeed, look for ways to press Mr. Karzai to crack down on corruption and drug trafficking.

But Mr. Their, of the peace institute, says that for a troop increase to produce anything but the limited securing of a few areas, Mr. Obama and NATO may have to go further. “There has to be increasing recognition that what is most important is some form of accountable government,” he said. “If they’re willing to contemplate a world without Karzai, they’ll be more open to a fair process and more open to the idea that there may be others out there.”

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Jan 25, Editorial Column on PTSD and Suicide: The Big Picture About Violent Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans

Posted on January 25, 2009 by Team VCS

January 14, 2009 – Iraq War veterans seem to be killing and hurting themselves and others more than the veterans of any other war in American history.

VCS Note: Please see original article to see links to source materials.

Only two weeks ago, the New York Times reported nine murders and a rising number of rapes and other violent crimes against women committed by Iraq war veterans at Fort Carson, Colorado. One veteran beat his girlfriend to death. Another raped and murdered a mentally challenged teenage girl.

Some say this rise in veteran violence only reflects the better reporting of crimes and is not a rise at all, but the statistics are too startling for that to be true. Suicide rates are the highest they have ever been in the Army. The number of attempted suicides and self-inflicted injuries among soldiers has jumped six-fold since the Iraq war began and is continuing to rise. The rates of sexual violence against women inside the military are the highest ever seen. Domestic violence among veterans has reached historic frequency. And post-traumatic stress disorder rates appear to be higher among Iraq War veterans than among those who have served in Afghanistan or even, many believe, in Vietnam. One of the symptoms of P.T.S.D. is uncontrollable violence.

Psychologists usually blame the violence committed by Iraq War veterans on the stress of multiple deployments, the loss of close friends and comrades to bombs and bullets, and the military tendency to punish rather than treat G.I.s who break down at war.

These factors certainly all contribute, but the reasons for veteran violence and suicide lie much deeper than these. They begin in the family backgrounds of the troops, and are exacerbated by the nature of military training, the misogyny in military culture, the type of war we are waging in Iraq, and the remorse, fury and self-loathing that comes from fighting a war one doesn’t believe in. None of these factors tend to be much discussed in the press, but they add up to a recipe for veteran violence:

Take the fact that half of all Army soldiers and Marine recruits report having been physically abused as children, while half of the women and about one-sixth of the men report say they were sexually abused, according to two significant veteran studies published in 1996 and 2005 respectively. A lot of people are joining the military to escape violent homes; some bring that violence with them. Most people inside the military know this. Most outsiders don’t.

Now put these people through a sophisticated training program that has been honed over the years to produce highly efficient killers. In World War Two, only 15-20 percent of soldiers were shooting to kill; most were either deliberately missing or not shooting at all. As military psychologist David Grossman explains in his book, On Killing, military historians decided this was because no amount of conventional drill could overcome a human being’s revulsion towards murdering his own kind. So the military concentrated on developing a psychological approach to achieve just this. It seems to have worked. By the Korean War about 55 percent of soldiers were firing to kill, and by Vietnam the rate had risen to over 90 percent. This psychological approach to training is what soldiers call “breaking you down and building you up again.”

Build into this training the military’s age-old bias and resentment of women. Even with a force that now includes women, gays, and lesbians, and rules that now prohibit drill instructors from using racial epithets and curses, drill instructors still routinely denigrate recruits with words like pussy, girl, bitch, lady, dyke, faggot, and fairy, and still portray wives and girlfriends as out to take your money and sleep with your friends. The everyday speech of ordinary soldiers is still riddled with sexist and homophobic insults, and troops still openly peruse pornography that humiliates women and sing the misogynist songs that have been around for decades:

“Who can take a chainsaw
Cut the bitch in two
Fuck the bottom half
And give the upper half to you…”

This hatred of women also comes out in constant sexual persecution and assault of female troops — 90 percent report being sexually harassed and some 30 percent say they were raped or sexually assaulted by their own comrades. The hatred can also be directed at any man who is seen as “weak” or second-rate: recent VA statistics show that 59,345 men have reported sexual abuse in the service

Now, ship these people to a war that is based on lies, as just about every soldier in Iraq and American citizen now knows. There never were any WMDs, there never was a connection to 9/11. Ask almost any G.I., and you will hear that the only noble cause he or she can find in this war is to protect and defend one’s comrades.

Now put this trained killer, who is unable to believe in his leaders’ justifications for this war, into a battle with no front lines, where most of the victims are civilians, where the killing is close-up and gruesome, and where they use automatic weapons so powerful they can mow down an entire market place of women, children and old men in a few seconds.

As early as July 2004, 48 percent of soldiers and 65 percent of Marines in the war had killed, and 95 percent of both had seen bodies and human remains.

Keep these soldier at war for twice as long as was promised, then send them back, over and over. One third of the troops in Iraq have been deployed more than once.

Add in the drugs and drink soldiers take (and are given by their own medics) to numb them to the horror.

Then send them home to face what they have done and how they have been used, while making them wait for months and sometimes years for the medical and mental care they have been promised. It is testimony to human strength of mind that more veterans don’t break down in one way or another.

So what can be done? Obviously the violence cannot be taken out of war or training. But more care can be taken with soldiers before we release them back into the civilian world. The military and the VA must recognize that these people are now trained killers, full of anger, resentment, hurt and trauma. Training and war has ripped away their civilian selves and disabled their ability to live normal lives. We owe them and their families help. Here’s where to start:

* The military must do a better job of recognizing and treating mental distress in the field. Commanders who punish soldiers for seeking help should be dismissed.
* Sexism and sexual violence should be prevented and punished at every level, from verbal harassment on. Rules from the top are not enough. All officers and NCOs need to enforce zero tolerance for the persecution of women soldiers and civilians.
* Improve the debriefing of returning troops. At the moment, most are given no more than a questionnaire about P.T.S.D. and a rote lecture on managing anger and not beating up your wife. An effective psychological approach to counteract war trauma must be developed.
* Last but not least, stop sending our young to unjustified, hopeless wars, whether in Iraq or — President-Elect Obama take note — Afghanistan.

Until these steps are taken, we will be seeing more stories of murder and mayhem and suicide by veterans, like those out of Fort Carson. A lot more.

Helen Benedict, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq , forthcoming from Beacon Press in April, 2009. Her articles on female soldiers won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism in 2008. This article is based on Benedict’s two years of interviewing Iraq War veterans and her research for the book.

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Afghanistan President Karzai Expresses Anger at US Strike Deaths

Posted on January 25, 2009 by Team VCS

January 25, 2009 – Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticised a US military operation which killed at least 16 people in eastern Afghanistan.

Mr Karzai said most of those killed were civilians, adding that such deadly incidents strengthened Taleban rebels and weakened Afghanistan’s government.

Women and children were among those killed, Mr Karzai said.

The strike was the first controversy in Afghanistan involving US troops since US President Barack Obama took office.

In a statement, the president said two women and three children were among the dead in the attack, which the US said targeted a militant carrying a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).

Speaking at a ceremony for newly-graduated officers entering Afghanistan’s armed forces, Mr Karzai said he hoped the country’s own military would soon be able to shoulder more of the burden of fighting the Taleban.

“Our goal is to improve our army and have the ability to defend our country ourselves as soon as possible, and not have civilian casualties anymore as we again had yesterday,” he said.

Delicate issue

The Afghan president has been a frequent critic of the numbers of innocent Afghans killed by military operations by international forces in the country.

Just last week he again called on US-led and Nato troops in his country to do more to reduce civilian casualties.
 
Reacting to the first flare-up since Mr Obama’s inauguration in the US, Mr Karzai said Afghanistan’s defence ministry had sent Washington a plan to give Afghan forces more oversight over US military operations.

The same letter has also been sent to Nato headquarters, the Associated Press said.

A statement from Mr Karzai’s office said continued civilian deaths “will not bear any progress in the war against terrorism”.

In response, a US military spokesman said there were plans to jointly investigate the incident with the Afghan government.

Originally the US said all of the dead, including one woman, had been militants who opened fire after its troops surrounded a compound in Mehtar Lam, about 60km (40 miles) east of the capital, Kabul.

“The people who were killed today were running around, manoeuvring against our forces, and we killed them,” said Col Greg Julian.

Eleven were killed by gunfire; four others by close air support, it added.

However, officials in Laghman have since said there were civilians among the dead, a viewpoint now backed by the country’s president.

The US military insists that it goes to considerable lengths to avoid civilian casualties.

But the BBC’s Ian Pannell in Kabul says that as the US increases its military presence, it will be increasingly difficult to do so.

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NSA Whistleblower: Bush’s Illegal No-Warrant Wiretaps Also Collected Credit Card Records of Innocent U.S. Citizens

Posted on January 24, 2009 by Team VCS

January 23, 2009 – NSA whistleblower Russell Tice was back on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC program Thursday evening to expand on his Wednesday revelations that the National Security Agency spied on individual U.S. journalists, entire U.S. news agencies as well as “tens of thousands” of other Americans.

Tice said on Wednesday that the NSA had vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic.

Today Tice said that the spy agency also combined information from phone wiretaps with data that was mined from credit card and other financial records. He said information of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens is now in digital databases warehoused at the NSA.

“This [information] could sit there for ten years and then potentially it marries up with something else and ten years from now they get put on a no-fly list and they, of course, won’t have a clue why,” Tice said.

In most cases, the person would have no discernible link to terrorist organizations that would justify the initial data mining or their inclusion in the database.

“This is garnered from algorithms that have been put together to try to just dream-up scenarios that might be information that is associated with how a terrorist could operate,” Tice said. “And once that information gets to the NSA, and they start to put it through the filters there … and they start looking for word-recognition, if someone just talked about the daily news and mentioned something about the Middle East they could easily be brought to the forefront of having that little flag put by their name that says ‘potential terrorist’.”

The revelation that the NSA was involved in data mining isn’t new. The infamous 2004 hospital showdown between then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General James Comey over the legality of a government surveillance program involved the data mining of massive databases, according to a 2007 New York Times article.

But there was always a slight possibility, despite the suspicions of many critics, that the NSA’s data mining involved only people who were legitimately suspected of connections to terrorists overseas, as the Bush Administration staunchly maintained about its domestic phone wiretapping program.

“There’s no spying on Americans,” former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell insisted to the New Yorker last year.

But Tice’s assertions this week contradict these claims.

With regard to the surveillance of journalists, Tice wouldn’t disclose the names of the specific reporters or media outlets he targeted when he worked as an analyst for the NSA but said in the part of the program he covered, “everyone was collected.”

“They sucked in everybody and at some point they may have cherry-picked from what they had, but I wasn’t aware of who got cherry-picked out of the big pot,” he said.

The purpose, he was told, was to eliminate journalists from possible suspicion so that the NSA could focus on those who merited further surveillance. But Tice said on Wednesday that the data on journalists was collected round-the-clock, year-round, suggesting there was never an intent to eliminate anyone from the surveillance.

New York Times reporter James Risen, who co-authored that paper’s 2005 story on the warrantless wiretapping program with colleague Eric Lichtblau, suspects he could have been among those monitored, because Bush Administration officials obtained copies of his phone records, which they showed to a federal grand jury. The grand jury is investigating leaked information that appeared in Risen’s 2006 book “State of War” about a CIA program, codenamed Operation Merlin, to infiltrate and destabilize Iran’s nuclear program. Risen doesn’t know if his records were obtained by the FBI with a legitimate warrant or through the NSA program that Tice described.

Risen told Olbermann that the NSA program to monitor journalists was likely intended to be used to ferret out and intimidate possible sources “to have a chilling effect on potential whistleblowers in the government to make them realize that there’s a Big Brother out there that will get them if they step out of line.”

Who else might have been among those targeted by the NSA?

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) said, in a separate interview, that he could very well have been targeted, too.

Rockefeller was speaking to MSNBC host Chris Matthews and gave a cryptic reply when Matthews asked him what he thought about Tice’s spying allegations.

“I’m quite prepared to believe it,” Rockefeller said. “I mean, I think they went after anybody they could get. Including me.”

Matthews replied, “They didn’t eavesdrop on you, did they Senator?”

“No,” Rockefeller said shaking his head, “and they sent me no letters.”

If Rockefeller were among those who were spied on, it would be very ironic, since he was instrumental in helping the Bush administration obtain retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies that are accused of aiding the Administration in its warrantless surveillance program.

Click here to watch the show.

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AFGE Union Congratulates New VA Secretary Shinseki

Posted on January 24, 2009 by Team VCS

January 23, 2009 – Shortly after President Barack Obama took the oath of office, Tuesday, the Senate approved the nomination of retired four-star Army general and 34th Chief of Staff of the Army General Eric K. Shinseki as the new Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. AFGE and its 150,000 members in the VA are eager to work with the secretary to meet the many challenges facing the department. The VA currently provides health care for 5.5 million veterans, processes disability compensation payments for 3.4 million veterans, and must process the educational and training benefits for those covered by the G.I. bill.

As Secretary Shinseki mentioned in his opening remarks during his Senate confirmation hearing the great challenge of the department will be to turn the VA into a 21st century system. “The VA is facing challenges on all sides, but it is a new day,” said J. David Cox, AFGE national-secretary treasurer. “The federal employees of the VA have been waiting for someone with the type of courage and strength of character that General Shinseki has shown throughout his career; to say we are excited is an understatement.”

AFGE National Secretary-Treasurer, J. David Cox, spoke briefly with General Shinseki after his confirmation hearing, letting him know that the union is eager to work with him as a partner in meeting our veterans’ needs.

AFGE is the largest federal employee union, representing 600,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

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VCS Report for President-Elect Obama: Our VCS Vision for Vibrant VA in 2009

Posted on January 24, 2009 by Team VCS

November 5, 2008 

The Honorable Barack Obama
President-Elect
 
Dear President-Elect Obama:
 
Congratulations on your election.  As our next President of the United States of America, you face a serious challenge in fixing a badly broken Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and improving the delivery of health care and other services to our nation’s veterans and their families.  As a leading national veterans’ organization, Veterans for Common Sense respectfully submits to you our recommendations on how to fix VA and help our veterans and their families.  
 
Our vision is that whenever a veteran comes to any VA facility, his or her medical and benefit needs should be quickly and completely addressed, without red tape, delay, stigma, or discrimination.  For too many veterans this vision is a fantasy, however, because recent VA leadership has failed to put our veterans first and has inadequately funded vital services and programs.
 
VA needs an immediate overhaul to avert a perfect storm of problems threatening to overwhelm VA.  First, the economic recession is forcing more veterans who have lost their jobs and medical care into VA.  Second, VA faces a tsunami of up to one million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans flooding into VA.  And, third, VA faces a surge of hundreds of thousands of additional Vietnam War veterans seeking care for mental health conditions as well as medical conditions linked to Agent Orange poisoning.
 
VCS offers our recipe to overhaul VA that contains three critical ingredients: bold leadership, streamlined policies, and mandatory funding.  When all three elements are combined and enacted simultaneously, reform will be comprehensive for VA’s nearly $100 billion annual budget providing 5.5 million veterans with medical care and 3 million veterans and family members with disability benefits.  These reforms complement the passage of several new laws reforming VA passed by Congress during the past two years.

We look forward to working with you to assist our Nation’s veterans and their families.

Sincerely, Paul Sullivan, Executive Director

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Veterans for Common Sense: Our Vision for a Vibrant VA in 2009

Summary: VA requires significant and immediate reforms to meet our Nation’s obligation to provide prompt and high-quality healthcare and  benefits to our veterans and their families.

Introduction: A Vision for a Vibrant VA in 2009

Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) offers our recipe to overhaul the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that contains three critical ingredients: bold leadership, streamlined policies, and mandatory funding.  When all three elements are combined and enacted simultaneously, reform will be comprehensive for VA’s nearly $100 billion annual budget providing 5.5 million veterans with medical care and 3 million veterans and family members with disability benefits.  These reforms complement the passage of several new laws reforming VA passed by Congress during the past two years.

In 2009, VA’s new leaders will need streamlined policies designed to cut red tape and assure funding to handle the surge in patients and the backlog of claims.  The current system is overwhelmed.  VCS offers these recommendations for reforming VA in a spirit of recognition from two great Americans:

• President Abraham Lincoln said our government has an obligation “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.”
• General Omar Bradley, speaking about VA, said, “We are dealing with veterans, not procedures – with their problems, not ours.”

About Veterans for Common Sense: VCS is a non-profit formed in 2002 by Gulf War veterans.  Our mission, based on the ideals of American patriot Thomas Paine, raises the unique and powerful voices of veterans so our military, veterans, freedom, and national security are protected and enhanced.  VCS regularly testifies before Congress on issues involving veterans’ healthcare, disability benefits, legislation, and voting rights.  Visit our web site for more information: www.veteransforcommonsense.org. 

Section One: Reforming VA’s Leadership

Poor leadership remains a core failure within VA.

VA currently suffers from poor leadership, and many systemic problems were not recognized or addressed during the last eight years.  To make the extensive policy, personnel and funding changes needed for institutional reform, new VA leaders should seek and embrace major improvements designed to put our veterans first.  VA’s new leaders should implement our suggested reforms in a joint and cooperative manner by both the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA).

Dozens of Congressional hearings clearly established there is need for better access to prompt and high-quality healthcare and benefits.  Here is a list of what VA’s new leaders can accomplish in the next 100 days to fix existing problems and prepare for the future.
 
1.1 Listen to Our Veterans

VA leaders should spend more quality time out of their office interacting with veterans and families in order to gain first-hand experience and understanding of their needs and concerns.  VA’s leaders should also spend time at the front desk of a VA hospital, clinic, or regional office and personally interact with veterans and families, some of whom are going to VA for the first time.  VA’s new leaders should regularly meet with advisory panels on subjects ranging from women veterans to Gulf War illnesses to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.  Directors of medical centers and community based outpatient clinics should work closely with VA’s new advocacy councils in an effort to improve the access and quality of mental healthcare.
 
1.2 Rally VA Staff

VA leaders need to recognize and honor the service of VA’s more than 250,000 dedicated, yet overworked, employees, many of whom are veterans.  This means top VA leaders should regularly meet with VA’s managers, VA’s rank and file employees, and VA’s unions to determine what they need to assist our veterans.  This specifically includes building strong relationships with VA employee unions that were nearly irreparably destroyed in the past Administration. 

1.3 Hire More VA Staff

VA currently suffers from a capacity crisis where the demand for healthcare and benefits outpaces VA’s supply of medical professionals and claims processors.  The capacity crisis has eased as Congress appropriated additional money to hire new healthcare and claims processing staff in the past two years.  However, an acute need for additional staff remains in mental health, where VA continues turning away suicidal patients because VA lacks the mental health professionals to assess and treat the psychological wounds of war.  The directors of VA’s more than 1,400 facilities should be asked to provide budget requests designed to meet this simple criterion: how many VA employees are needed so our veterans receive prompt medical care as well as disability benefits within 30 days?  Expanding VA is prudent as more veterans seek care due to a declining economy, more veterans returning home from war, and new scientific evidence linking military service with several serious medical conditions is published.  VA should also look beyond just the number of new employees by offering recruiting incentives for higher quality experienced healthcare providers.  VA leaders should also be monitoring VA mental health staff for signs of distress due to heavy workloads.

1.4 Remove Dead Wood

VA’s new leaders must not hesitate to remove or demote anyone who does not understand VA’s sacred mission or who does not perform to the full level of their job requirements.  There are four responsible steps to removing dead wood so new leaders may emerge.  First, form selection committees to review VA’s existing leadership.  Second, remove prior political appointees who created most of the mess at VA, including executives, Schedule C employees, and those who “burrowed” into civil service positions.  Third, identify potential VA leaders, both within and from outside VA, with demonstrated competence who put our veterans first, regardless of political party.  Fourth, hire these new leaders quickly so they can hire subordinates to assist with implementing much-needed reform.  The sooner the dead wood is cleared, the sooner VA’s new leaders can make significant improvements to VA’s policies and budgets.

1.5 Turn On Radar

New VA leaders must assess the damage done to VA by the out-going Administration and be prepared to respond to current and future VA crises.  VA leaders were caught off-guard by the flood of 350,000 new patients and 300,000 disability compensation claims from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  Even after seven years of war, VA leaders don’t know how many Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have committed suicide.  VA still operates with unreliable and inconsistent data, and that should change immediately so that VA leaders can operate ahead of the curve instead of years behind it.  VA leaders, working closely with Congress and veterans’ groups, should develop and implement a comprehensive plan for our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans as well as plans for other underserved groups, such as women and rural veterans. 

1.6 Share Facts and Reports

VA leaders must prepare and distribute clear and concise reports about VA quickly in a format easily understood by Congress, journalists, and veterans.  VA must respond to Congressional requests, Freedom of Information Act requests, and press requests in a complete, open, and direct manner.  VCS supports the efforts of the National Security Archives to streamline the FOIA process.  The more VA, Congress, veterans, and the public know about the needs and concerns of our veterans, then the better VA is positioned to respond quickly.

1.7 Stop Bonus Abuse

VA leaders should believe public service is an honor.  VA should stop paying millions in bonuses to top executives as more veterans wait longer for benefits.  In a related manner, VA should review existing salary formulas that pay one political appointee $328,000 per year.  Instead, VA’s new leaders should review and reward risk-taking that improves the quality and timeliness of healthcare and benefits delivered to our veterans.  VA should also end production quotas and unreliable performance standards, especially the work credits for processing disability compensation claims that may lead to the improper handling or destruction of veterans’ disability claim records.

1.8 Establish VA-Wide Ombudsman Office

VA should quickly establish the new Ombudsman office, authorized by Congress this year, to handle concerns about VA from veterans and family members.  All of VA’s “Seamless Transition” outreach and publicity efforts should be consolidated underneath this office so that VA’s assistance to both new and existing veterans becomes first-class and consistent. 

1.9 Expand Leadership Training

The various VA branches need to be taught the roles and responsibilities of their fellow branches at VA.  VA should resume mandatory “One VA” training so every employee knows they are empowered to provide simple referrals to veterans and family members.  Some VHA employees interacting with veterans have no concept of how VBA operates, and vice-versa.  Thus, VHA employees are at a loss to explain VBA disability benefit eligibility to veterans, causing confusion and frustration among veterans. 

Section Two: Reforming VA’s Policies
 
VA suffers from two major problems.  First, the claims process is adversarial.  Second, VA lacks the capacity to satisfactorily serve the large number of veterans entitled to its services.  To fix these problems, VA’s policies must be changed in order so VA becomes non-adversarial and so VA maintains sufficient capacity to provide both prompt and high-quality healthcare and benefits.
 
Over the past 70 years, VA’s regulations were written, and reasonably so, with a goal of preventing fraud, waste, and abuse.  Currently, VA applications for healthcare and disability benefits are lengthy and complex.  In order to obtain VA healthcare or benefits, veterans must confront an adversarial system so hostile it requires brain damaged and psychologically wounded veterans to complete a 23-page disability claim form plus stacks of healthcare enrollment forms before receiving assistance.
 
VA’s healthcare capacity crisis was not recognized or addressed completely during the past eight years – with the exception of significant legislative reform enacted earlier this year by Congress.  Four factors have created a perfect storm of increased demand for VA healthcare and benefits.  First, VA was overwhelmed by a massive influx of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, including 350,000 unexpected new patients and 300,000 unexpected new disability compensation claims.  Second, VA was unprepared to accommodate large numbers of veterans from prior wars seeking care and benefits for PTSD.  Third, when scientific evidence began linking more conditions, such as diabetes and prostate cancer, with Agent Orange poisoning from the Vietnam Wars, VA was unprepared for the influx of new Agent Orange claims.   Fourth, our economic recession is forcing hundreds of thousands of veterans into already overburdened VA healthcare and claims systems.
 
Many of the reforms listed here agree with similar proposals originally put forth by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes in their groundbreaking book, The Three Trillion Dollar War published earlier this year.  Here is what VA should do to reform VA’s policies that interfere with the legitimate provision of prompt and high-quality medical care and benefits to veterans and families. 

Mental Health Reforms

2.1 Implement Mental Health Strategic Plan (MHSP)

VA must fully implement its MHSP for existing and new war veterans as well as a broader plan that considers the unique needs of younger veterans, including treatment for PTSD, TBI, and sexual assault among female and male veterans.  VA must name a top executive with broad authority and responsibility to oversee the full implementation of the MHSP with a goal of reducing stigma and stemming the tide of the suicide epidemic.  Implementing the MHSP also means making sure every Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran is examined for PTSD and TBI by experts in those fields, such as psychiatrists and neurologists.  VA should advertise for veterans to seek VA care and information about these conditions.  Directors of medical centers and community based outpatient clinics should work closely with VA’s new Recovery Coordinators and Suicide Prevention Coordinators in an effort to improve the access and quality of mental healthcare.

2.2 End Discrimination Against Mental Health Patients

VA must treat physical and mental conditions equally.  When a veteran arrives at a VA medical facility reporting mental health symptoms, VA must provide prompt and high-quality care.  Ending discrimination is very important because our newer veterans have overlapping symptoms related to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorcer (PTSD).  Never again should VA turn away suicidal veterans.  VA should develop and implement a uniform national policy on handling emergency mental health conditions.  Ending discrimination also means making sure every facility has the capacity to provide physical and mental healthcare services to both female and male veterans.

2.3 Fight Stigma Against Mental Health Conditions

Studies confirm that some veterans remain reluctant to seek mental healthcare for fear of discrimination or retaliation.  In our July 2007 testimony to the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, VCS asked Congress to implement an anti-stigma campaign aimed at both the public and veterans.  A recent Army study reported stigma remains the number one barrier to veterans seeking treatment.  VA should also implement an anti-stigma campaign that seeks to reduce job discrimination and other challenges for veterans and their families when dealing with employers, the police, and the public.  The Department of Labor’s new web site contains information for employers about the myths associated with TBI and PTSD.

Disability Claims Reform

2.4 Overhaul Disability Laws and Regulations

With the enactment of broad legislative reform written by Rep. John Hall earlier this year, now is the time to significantly streamline VA’s disability laws and regulations.  The root cause of the enormous claims backlog is the reliance upon a patch-work of laws and regulations, some nearly 70 years old.  Although many regulations were intended to expedite claims, the cumulative impact tied VBA into knots, sometimes by increasing demand for VA healthcare and benefits.  Several recent commissions, including the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission, reviewed VA laws, regulations, and manuals and found them complex and burdensome on VA employees.  VA must form a working task force that includes veterans groups and outside academics to begin implementing needed reform. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) transition web site contains investigations and recommendations on VA’s claims backlog.  VBA, Congress, and GAO should consider using the American Medical Association’s “Guide to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment,” released in 2007.

2.5 End Use of “Fast Letters”

VA must end the use of extra-judicial “Fast Letters” and other end-runs around laws and regulations that deprive veterans of due process rights.  The most egregious recent “Fast Letter” created an entire new level of claims review by requiring all approved claims with retroactive benefits more than $250,000 to be re-adjudicated by VA central office without any rights provided to the veteran or surviving spouse.  Previous outrageous “Fast Letters” required two signatures to approve a PTSD claim, yet only one to reject a PTSD claim, a clear form of anti-PTSD discrimination that must end.

2.6 Create a New One-Page Application

As part of the claims reform process, VA’s new leaders should create a one-page uniform application for all VA services, including healthcare and disability benefits.  When a veteran applies for any VA benefit, VA must advise the veteran about all of the benefits they have earned.  A One-Page Application will be possible when VA demands and receives complete medical and military service records for service members.

2.7 Study Automatic Approval of Claims

VA should start a pilot program that automatically approves veterans’ disability claims.   Such a pilot program would then audit a percentage of the claims for fraud.  VA already has the authority to grant temporary disability status in some cases.  Automatic approval of claims should be reviewed closely as a method to expedite disability claims that currently take, on average, more than six months to process.  The review should determine if automatic approval should apply to most new claims since VA has approved nearly 94 percent of all Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans’ disability claims

2.8 Review Personality Disorder Discharges (PDD)

In our July 2007 testimony before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, VCS urged Congress to order the VA to review all denied healthcare and benefits claims involving PDD since September 2001.  As part of the claims reform process, VA should review these claims and assist the veterans involved because the DoD illegally discharged as many as 22,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans with PDD, even though military regulations prohibit it.  Many of the veterans were actually diagnosed with TBI and/or PTSD.   This review is required because an October 31, 2008, Government Accountability Office report (GAO-09-31) confirmed the military continues to improperly discharge veterans with a personality disorder discharge.

2.9 Automatically Approve TBI Claims

According to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, and a recent RAND study, up to 20 percent of our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are at risk for TBI due to roadside bomb blasts.  For the 1.8 million deployed, that means as many as 360,000 recent war veterans may have TBI.  The military does not document all blast exposures.   Therefore, VA remains unable to process accurate and complete disability claims for TBI.  As part of the claims reform process, VA’s new Secretary, under existing rule-making authority, should expand VA’s new TBI regulations so a veteran deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan and diagnosed with TBI may be granted automatic VA disability compensation.

2.10 Automatically Approve PTSD Claims

According to RAND, 18 percent of our Iraq and Afghanistan war service members, or 324,000, are estimated to have PTSD.  In July 2007, VCS urged Congress to pass legislation to automatically approve disability claims for veterans diagnosed with PTSD.  As of late 2008, VA had diagnosed 75,850 veterans with PTSD, yet VA had granted only 38,448 veterans’ disability benefits for PTSD.  VA’s new Secretary can use VA rule-making to promulgate new regulations, similar to those proposed for TBI, to grant a presumption of service connection for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans diagnosed with combat-related PTSD by VA or private psychiatrists or psychologists.  VA recently began automatically approving PTSD claims for new war veterans where DoD diagnosed PTSD.
 
Automatic Enrollment for VA Healthcare and Benefits

2.11 Demand Military Records

VA must demand that DoD provide both VA and service members a full electronic copy of their military and medical records at discharge.  The transition process from service member to veteran is now a mind-numbing maze of overlapping processes and stacks of bewildering applications and paperwork, resulting in an entrenched system that ultimately grinds veterans in an unrelenting sausage machine.  VA leaders currently meet with senior DoD leaders to discuss veterans’ transition from military medical and benefit programs to VA, yet they have failed to resolve this major problem except for a very small number of very seriously wounded Iraq and Afghanistan war casualties.  VA and DoD must immediately implement a plan that transfers DoD records to VA on all veterans in a format that VA can use to provide accurate and timely medical care and benefit decisions. 

2.12 Automatic Enrollment for VA Healthcare

Once the military has provided complete and current medical and service records to VA, then VA should automatically enroll every newly discharged veteran into VA’s healthcare system.  VA wastes time and money verifying veterans’ military service and medical conditions.  This proposal would also eliminate much of the application paperwork now required of newer veterans when enrolling in VA.  DoD and VA must also work together to define the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones so there is no confusion on who is eligible for the five years of free VA healthcare for deployed veterans. 

2.13 Expand VA’s Benefits Delivery at Discharge (BDD)

VA must expand BDD to every service member, especially those ordered to active duty from the Reserve or National Guard.  An expanded BDD should include a review of potential eligibility for Traumatic Servicemembers Group Life Insurance (TSGLI) and all other VA benefits.  The military should comply with the 1998 Force Health Protection law and provide service members with pre- and post-deployment medical exams.  Every new service member receives a complete medical exam when entering the service, yet not all receive an exit medical exam.  VA should insist that DoD conduct all required exams, especially in light of the military’s use of experimental drugs and service members’ known exposures to toxins, such as those from the Balad, Iraq base burn pit.   Full access to military records and an expanded BDD may reduce the enormous disparity in claims activity and outcomes among Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.  According to June 2008 VA data, National Guard and Reserve veterans were half as likely as Active Duty to file a VA disability compensation claim.  However, National Guard and Reserve were twice as likely as Active Duty to be granted VA disability benefits.

2.14 Automatic Enrollment for Life Insurance

When entering the military, all new service members should be automatically enrolled for the maximum amount of life insurance available through Servicemembers Group Life Insurance (SGLI).  While on active duty, Reserve, or National Guard status, the military should pay the premium as an employee benefit.  The VA has denied SGLI benefits to at least one National Guard service member on the grounds that the service member did not pay monthly premiums while on inactive status shortly after serving in the Iraq War.  Upon discharge, VA should automatically enroll all new veterans in Veterans Group Life Insurance (VGLI), and the military should pay the first year of life insurance premiums as a transition benefit. New research shows an increase in deaths among returning veterans.

Other Important VA Reforms

2.15 Zero Tolerance for Homelessness

VA must seek to end homelessness among our veterans by increasing capacity and increasing per diem payments.  VA estimates there are 150,000 homeless veterans.  VA Grant per diem program funds just 8,500 beds, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development funds another 10,000 rental vouchers.  These numbers are unacceptable.  Further, VA must increase the $34.50 per diem payment to meet the realistic costs of housing, food, and assistance.  And VA should eliminate deductions for supportive services provided by others.  Stabilizing homeless veterans remains a key goal, as many are chronically homeless and have co-occurring mental health, substance abuse and physical challenges.  VA should be prepared to house additional homeless veterans due to the economic recession and the return of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans with PTSD and TBI.

2.16 Expand Capacity for Women Veterans

VA should expand its healthcare capacity for women veterans.   Recent reports documenting fifteen percent or more of female service members were sexually assaulted while in the military.  This tragic epidemic of rape in our military is leading to more women seeking VA healthcare and disability benefits for physical and emotional trauma.   For the first time in history, a large number of female combat veterans are returning home from war.  According to July 2008 DoD data, nearly 200,000 women have deployed to the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones.  In addition to the trauma of rape by fellow service members, our women veterans also face the same level of combat stress that can lead to PTSD.  In addition, our women veterans may suffer different adverse health outcomes than men when exposed to battlefield toxins.

2.17 Expand Capacity for Priority 8 Veterans

VA’s new Secretary should work with Congress to grant access to VA for all eligible veterans, including the Priority Group 8 veterans excluded by the past Administration.  VA needs a detailed plan to implement this significant policy change.  VA must identify the number of existing and potential new veteran patients, the types of care the veterans would need, and the locations where veterans can be expected to seek care.  VA needs to determine if there are any economies of scale for treating more veterans for a wider array of conditions.  This recommendation may have the greatest impact on VA’s capacity because as many as two million veterans may utilize VA medical care if VA changes this policy.

2.18 Mandatory Voting Assistance

In recognition of their dedication to protect and defend our Constitution, veterans residing in VA medical facilities should be given voter registration and voting assistance.  In early 2008, VA issued an unconscionable ban on voter registration and voting assistance from election officials and non-partisan groups.  After a tremendous outcry from veterans, the public, and Congress, VA lifted the ban in September 2008.  In 2009 and into the future, VA must allow elections officials and non-partisan organizations into VA facilities for the purpose of registering voters and assisting with absentee voting, with reasonable restrictions on time, place, and manner.  VA should take pro-active steps so that all new nursing home residents are registered to vote when they move into a VA facility.

2.19 Phase Out Faith Based Programs

VA must cease violating our Constitution by funding religious groups, no matter how well intended some may believe these programs to be.  Faith Based organizations, under new rules recently pushed through by the exiting Administration, may now openly discriminate in their hiring, and that is wrong.  The discrimination in employment may eventually extend to discrimination in the provision of services to veterans and families.  No veteran should ever be placed in a position of wondering if the assistance provided to them may require participation in or conversion to a religion.  Faith Based programs should be reviewed, and then programs should be incorporated into existing non-religious programs or eliminated.
 
2.20 Follow the Law

VA must abide by the current laws and common sense.  VA should adhere to rulings made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.  Furthermore, veterans who believe they were denied or delayed healthcare should be given clear written guidance on how to file appeals.  Currently, there is no national policy, and most veterans are unaware they may appeal a denial or delay in care.

2.21 Enact a Veterans’ Bill of Rights

The late VA Secretary Jesse Brown got it right: he led the charge that VA should put our veterans first.  Expectations should be higher.  VA should quickly adopt a Veterans’ Bill of Rights so everyone knows VA puts our veterans first (the proposed text is located at the end of this report).

Section Three: Reforming VA’s Budget
 
VA’s budget and appropriations must be removed from the current system of discretionary spending resulting in unpredictable and incomplete funding.

VCS believes Veterans’ health care is an entitlement.  Full mandatory funding for the Veterans Health Administration is critical for the health of our veterans and for the long-term stability of VA.  With mandatory full funding, VA will then have the trained and dedicated staff to streamline policies and reduce the claims backlog and patient waiting lists.
 
How bad is VA’s funding problem?  In early 2005, VA leaders testified before Congress that it had adequate resources. A few months later, VA leaders came, hat in hand, to request billions of dollars in emergency funding due to incomplete budget projections caused in part from a surge in casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.  In 2007 and 2008, VA leaders testified before Congress that only five percent of veterans waited more than one month to see a VA doctor.  In sharp contrast, VA’s internal watchdog, the Office of the Inspector General, found that a quarter of VHA patients waited more than one month for an appointment.  Similarly, even after hiring thousands of more VBA claims processors, hundreds of thousands of our veterans still wait on average more than six months for an initial decision about a disability compensation claim.  If a veteran appeals a VA decision, three or four more years are added to the wait.

The best way to eliminate the healthcare and benefit delays is full mandatory funding.  The choice is clear: VA can treat and compensate emerging symptoms of brain damage and post traumatic stress now, when it is more effective and less expensive, or our veterans, VA, and our nation can face a significant social catastrophe among veterans and their families years down the road.

VA Budget Recommendations

3.1 Enact a Two-Year Budget

VA needs advanced planning. There should be a two-year budget cycle that allows VA to plan at least one year in advance.  In addition to reforms suggested by other veterans’ groups, VCS strongly urges VA to retain seasoned academic experts to advise VA on long-range economic and actuarial forecasts for healthcare and benefit use.  VA should also retain academic experts to implement the overhaul of VA’s broken disability compensation system, especially for benefits dealing with the diminished quality of life for disabled veterans.

3.2 Create a Veterans Benefit Trust Fund

Congress should set up a Veterans Benefit Trust Fund, as proposed by Harvard Professor Linda Bilmes.  The Fund should be set up and “locked,” so that veterans’ health and disability entitlements are fully funded as obligations occur.

3.3 Bottom-Up Budgeting

VA’s budget process must become bottom-up, where hospitals and clinics advise VA headquarters about their needs.  This would eliminate the top-down political interference from the White House and Office of Management & Budget (OMB) with VA’s budget.  As mentioned earlier, this means VA budgeting and appropriations should include a detailed plan to phase in care for all Priority Groups, including Priority Group 8 veterans excluded in the past Administration.  This also includes asking all VA facility directors to advise VA Central Office of their full staffing requirements to provide prompt healthcare and benefits. 

3.4 Training, Training, and Training

VA’s planned growth and overhaul require new thinking, and this means more funding for nationalized and standardized training for all employees.  For example, a primary goal at VBA would be to eliminate large differences in rating outcomes at offices processing disability compensation claims.  Similarly, all new political appointees need a broader understanding about all of VA’s healthcare services and benefits, and existing employees need training in the new streamlined policies that put our veterans first.  In a related manner, VA should prepare succession plans as employees retire.  VA should also offer incentives for VA employees to improve their skills, remain at VA, and seek promotions.  There should also be strong incentives for non-VA employees to enter the VA workforce at all levels.

Section Four: A Final Word – Transparency
 
Beyond the three key elements needed to reform and modernize VA – pro-active leaders, policy reform, and mandatory funding – our new VA leaders must be transparent in their on-going work as well as their plans. 
 
In early 2008, CBS Evening News revealed that top VA officials deliberately withheld information from reporters about the serious suicide epidemic among our veterans.  VA’s leading mental health official wrote an e-mail with the words, “Shh!,” suggesting that VA keep the enormous suicide epidemic under wraps.   VA had told reporters that less than 800 veterans under VA care attempted suicide each year.  However, the real number of attempted suicides each year was 12,000 – 15 times higher than what VA originally told reporters.  VA knew, but did not confirm to Congress or reporters, that more than 5,000 veterans complete a suicide each year.

Many other highly disturbing facts about VA were revealed during the trial in our lawsuit, Veterans for Common Sense v. Secretary James Peake.  VCS has incorporated many lessons learned from that lawsuit and our extensive Freedom of Information Act campaign into this report.

Transparency means that all VA employees, especially those at the top, follow ethics laws and do their utmost to provide all of the relevant accurate information requested by Congress, veterans, veterans’ groups, the press, and the public.
 
VA is now embroiled in a serious nationwide scandal over the improper shredding of up to 500 veterans’ claims files and supporting documents at dozens of VA regional offices.  The full extent of the crisis remains unknown, as top VA leaders have not held a press conference or released documents about the situation.  When serious problems emerge, top VA leaders should pro-actively address the problem with staff, Congress, and the public.

In conclusion, the transition period from November 5 through January 20 provides ample time for a new President to organize an expert team to implement the massive overhaul VA desperately needs so fewer veterans fall through the cracks.  Our bottom-line goal as a nation must be to honor the “Square Deal” President Teddy Roosevelt promised and that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt enacted with his “GI Bill” so our veterans receive prompt and high-quality medical care and benefits.

VA can and should evolve – VA can no longer do “business as usual” with only marginal changes.  When we pull together as a Nation, we can learn from the mistakes of the past and we can offer hope and recovery to our veterans and their families.

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A Veterans’ Bill of Rights
 
Preamble:  It is the intent of U.S. Government to honor the service and personal sacrifices of our veterans and their families by ensuring that they have fair and timely access to all the benefits to which they are entitled, including medical care, death and disability compensation, educational assistance, job training, housing, and pensions (“VA Benefits”).  To this end,
 
1.      Congress recognizes that all veterans and their families now have and always have had a Fifth Amendment property interest in the receipt of all VA Benefits.
 
2.      Veterans and their families shall have an unfettered access to retain attorneys at their own expense, and the Fee Prohibition, 38 U.S.C. § 5904(c)(l), shall be abolished.
 
3.      Veterans and their families should have full rights to judicial review in Article III courts, and the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims should be abolished, with a transition plan for implementation.
 
4.      Veterans and their families shall have the right to full disclosure of all information affecting their claim for benefits.  This includes the right to subpoena documents or records from all federal agencies, and all federal agencies shall treat veterans’ document or record requests expeditiously and shall produce all responsive documents within 60 days.
 
5.      Veterans and their families shall have the right to call any VA employees as witnesses at any regional office hearings related to veterans’ benefits, including treating physicians or other medical personnel and anyone else who has made any determination in connection with a claim.
 
6.      Congress and the Courts shall take all necessary measures to insure that the VA delivers on its commitments to provide health care to veterans, and the VA’s practice of denying care to veterans based on Priority Group is abolished.
 
7.      The VA shall adopt remedies and procedures to timely address cases of alleged denial of or unreasonable delays in providing health care, including notice, an opportunity to call witnesses, and a hearing to any veteran contesting such denial, as well as an expedited procedure in cases of emergency.
 
8.      The VA shall award interest at the federal rate on all retroactive awards of any form of death or disability compensation or pension.
 
9.      Congress shall guarantee and appropriate all funds necessary to provide all veterans benefits in accordance with the VA’s budgets.

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Defense Department Announces Expedited Disability Evaluation System Process for Combat Wounded

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Team VCS

January 23, 2009 – The Department of Defense announced today, in collaboration with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a process designed to expedite a service member seriously injured in combat from military to veteran status, by waiving the standard Disability Evaluation System (DES), resulting in receipt of benefits in three to four months, compared to a recovery and standard DES process that would normally take much longer.
 
“This new policy should allow service members and their families to focus on the essentials of recovery, reintegration, employment and independent living, with the combined assistance from DoD and VA,” said Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Michael L. Dominguez. “The policy supports our belief that there must be a distinction for those who incur devastating disabilities in combat.”
 
The expedited process applies to service members whose conditions are designated as “catastrophic” and whose injuries were incurred in the line of duty as a direct result of armed conflict. A catastrophic injury or illness is a permanent, severely disabling injury, disorder, or disease that compromises the ability to carry out the activities of daily living to such a degree that a service member or veteran requires personal or mechanical assistance to leave home or bed, or requires constant supervision to avoid physical harm to self or others.
 
Service members who participate in the expedited process will be rated by DoD at a combined rating of 100 percent, and the VA will identify the full range of benefits, compensation and specialty care offered by the VA.   Dominguez emphasized that the new process is optional for qualifying service members.
 
“Service members and their families will be empowered to decide, after counseling on the options and potential concerns and benefits, the most appropriate choice for their situation,” said Dominguez. 
 
The policy provides special consideration and exception for members who retire under the expedited DES process to reenter the service with a waiver, should they subsequently request reentry to the service after recovery and rehabilitation.
 
The expedited policy differs from the DES pilot program, currently underway to test a new process design eliminating the duplicative and time consuming elements of the current standard disability processes at DoD and VA.  Key features of the DES pilot include one medical examination and a single-sourced disability rating. To date, more than 1,000 service members have participated in the pilot during the last 14 months.

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Obama Tackles Afghanistan and Mideast Conflict

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Team VCS

January 23, 2009 – Taking on two of his toughest foreign policy challenges, President Barack Obama pledged to find a new course in Afghanistan and to help Israel achieve a broad peace with the Arab world.

On his second full day in office, Obama on Thursday also sought to reverse one of the most contentious policies of the Bush administration by signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorist suspects while leaving undecided how to dispose of unresolved war crimes cases there.

The new commander in chief visited the State Department to underscore a major theme of his young administration: that diplomacy will play a more central role in American foreign policy – not just in seeking peace in the Middle East but also in defending the United States against global terrorist threats.

He struck a tone designed to contrast with that of his predecessor, saying a new approach is overdue.

“The inheritance of our young century demands a new era of American leadership,” Obama said. “We must recognize that America’s strength comes not just from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from our enduring values. And for the sake of our national security and the common aspirations of people around the globe, this era has to begin now.”

He said there would be no lasting peace in Afghanistan unless “spheres of opportunity” are expanded for Afghans and their neighbors in Pakistan, where al-Qaida and other extremist groups have found haven.

“This is truly an international challenge of the highest order.” Obama said.

Obama offered no new formula for success in the struggle against Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, nor did he commit to a specific increase in U.S. troop strength there. He named former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as a special coordinator of U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In an appearance with Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at the State Department, Holbrooke said he would be working on the Afghan problem with a range of military leaders, including Gen. David Petraeus, who is responsible for combat operations there, as well as Gen. David McKiernan, the on-the-ground commander in Afghanistan, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman.

“If our resources are mobilized and coordinated and pulled together, we can quadruple, quintuple, multiply by tenfold the effectiveness of our efforts there,” Holbrooke said.

Inheriting a war with no end in sight amid rising Taliban resistance, Obama said his administration was undertaking a “careful review” of policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan and would refocus attention on that region – a veiled reference to getting U.S. troops out of Iraq to enable a bigger commitment in Afghanistan.

He painted a grim picture of Afghanistan’s situation and raised the specter of future al-Qaida attacks.

“The Afghan government has been unable to deliver basic services,” he said. “Al-Qaida and the Taliban strike from bases embedded in rugged tribal terrain along the Pakistani border. And while we have yet to see another attack on our soil since 9/11, al-Qaida terrorists remain at large and remain plotting.”

On the Middle East, Obama struck themes familiar from his predecessor’s administration. He backed Israel’s right to defend itself, decried rocket attacks on Israel by the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, lamented “substantial suffering” and loss among civilians in Gaza and favored an international effort to develop a durable and sustainable cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

“Lasting peace requires more than a long cease-fire, and that’s why I will sustain an active commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and security,” the president said, referring to Israel and a Palestinian state.

He said George J. Mitchell, the retired Senate majority leader, will be his special envoy to the Middle East to carry forward a U.S. commitment to solidify the cease-fire in Gaza “as well as the effort to help Israel reach a broader peace with the Arab world that recognizes its rightful place in the community of nations.”

Obama stressed the importance of international humanitarian relief for Gaza.

“Relief efforts must be able to reach innocent Palestinians who depend on them,” he said. “The United States will fully support an international donor’s conference to seek short-term humanitarian assistance and long-term reconstruction for the Palestinian economy. This assistance will be provided to and guided by the Palestinian Authority.” He notably mentioned no such role for Hamas.

Osama Hamdan, a Beirut-based spokesman for Hamas, dismissed Obama’s remarks as nothing new.

“Obama is still on the same path as previous leaders and also will make the same mistakes as Bush that ignited the region instead of bringing stability,” Hamdan told Al-Jazeera television.

On her first day at the State Department, Clinton made a round of calls to foreign leaders, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

The Jordanian monarch pledged to work with the new administration to launch “serious and effective Mideast peace negotiations to reach the two-state solution as the only means to achieve security and stability in the region,” according to a statement issued by the royal palace in Amman, Jordan.

Clinton’s call to Abdullah followed a call from Obama on Wednesday, who also expressed his commitment to achieving peace between the Arabs and the Israelis, the statement said.

By ordering that the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay be closed by the end of the year, and by closing any remaining CIA secret prisons overseas and banning harsh interrogation practices, Obama said he was signaling that the U.S. would confront global violence without sacrificing “our values and our ideals.”

“First, I can say without exception or equivocation that the United States will not torture,” he said. “Second, we will close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and determine how to deal with those who have been held there.”

Congressional Democrats welcomed the moves.

“President Obama is ushering in a new era of smart, strong and principled national security policies, and Congress stands ready to work with him each step of the way,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, outgoing chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

But there was skeptical questioning from GOP leaders.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said it “would be irresponsible to close this terrorist detainee facility” before important questions are resolved. Boehner said these include where will the detainees go when Guantanamo is closed and how will they be secured? The Bush administration was unable to persuade other countries to accept any of the several dozen detainees who have been cleared for repatriation but remain in limbo at Guantanamo. Others there are deemed too dangerous to be released but were not facing war crimes trials because of complications with the evidence against them.

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