By IPS Correspondents
TAMPA, United States, Mar 28 2007 (IPS)

As a nine-member commission prepares to investigate allegations of ineptitude at the United States’ largest and most prestigious military hospital, politicians in Washington are waiting to see if any more colleagues associated with the scandal will lose their jobs.

Numerous problems at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre – including mouse feces, dead cockroaches and mould in the residential outpatient buildings, and an often-numbing level of red tape – first came to national attention in February when the Washington Post published a series entitled “The Other Walter Reed.”

Reporters Anne Hull and Dana Priest spent approximately four months investigating the living conditions and standards of care for soldiers recuperating from horrific injuries sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan at Walter Reed AMC in Washington DC – without the permission of the administrators there.

What they found was neglect and incompetence in the outpatient facility, triggering several investigations and the departure of three high-ranking military officers.

On Mar. 1, the Army fired Major General George Weightman, the commander of Walter Reed AMC. A day later, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates fired Army Secretary Francis Harvey.

Lieutenant General Kevin C. Kiley, then the Army’s Surgeon General and also the officer in charge of Walter Reed AMC from 2002 to 2004, announced his resignation from military service on Mar. 12.

When Dole was in Miami on Sunday to give a speech, he met with Shalala, who is now the president of the University of Miami, and the two informally spent 90 minutes at the Miami Veterans Affairs Medical Centre, taking a tour of the facility and talking with recuperating veterans.

“The bottom line here is that we know we have problems and we’re going to fix them, no matter what it takes and how much it costs, as soon as possible,” Army Lieutenant Colonel Bob Tallman, a Pentagon spokesman, told IPS.

He said the Army is addressing four related issues: soldier accountability, health and welfare, administrative processes and information dissemination.

“The Army has committed more case workers to speed up the physical evaluation that soldiers go through when they come back from the battlefields,” he said. It has also “put ombudsmen in different hospitals and these people will listen to and record any complaints that people have.”

Army Public Affairs Officer Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Arata told IPS that a new hotline has been set up to assist wounded soldiers and their families. “In the first three days that the hotline was open, we got 201 calls and we determined that 64 of these calls were really about issues that we could immediately address,” he said.

Members of veterans’ organisations were incensed when the Washington Post investigative series was published.

“The universal feeling among our members is that things need to be done and our military personnel deserve better,” said Jerry Newberry, spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. “When you stop and consider how fast things usually go in Washington, which is quite slow, it’s pretty remarkable how fast things have moved since these stories in the (Washington) Post began.”

“Our members couldn’t believe what they were reading in these newspaper stories,” admitted Dave Autry of the group Disabled American Veterans. “For many days it was the only thing that people talked about here.”

Washington is a town full of partisan strategists always looking for a chance to taint their political opponents and, unsurprisingly, the Walter Reed AMC scandal presents just such an opportunity.

Democrats are now targeting Rep. C.W. “Bill” Young, a Republican from St. Petersburg, Florida who was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee from 1999 to 2005 and a 36-year member of the U.S. Congress, for not objecting more strenuously to the conditions at Walter Reed AMC.

Both Young and his wife Beverly frequently did volunteer work at Walter Reed, but stopped in 2004 when they said their complaints to the Army about problems there were ignored.

The Florida Democratic Party is now vetting possible candidates to run against Young, who was just reelected last year. “In the end, Congressman Young could have done something about all of this when he was (House Appropriations) chairman, such as call public hearings, but he did not,” said Mark Bubriski, a Florida Democratic Party media relations spokesman.

Repeated requests for an interview with Congressman Young were not granted.

One of the most knowledgeable members of the U.S. Congress on these issues is Steve Buyer, an Indiana Republican and ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. He was one of the first politicians to meet with members of the Dole-Shalala Commission.

“I think that one of the issues that the commission will pick up on is information technology. If we move to a seamless IT system, we can improve the quality of our care (and eliminate unnecessary paperwork in the various military and governmental medical care systems),” said Rep. Buyer.

“My counsel to them (the Dole-Shalala Commission) was that they have only four months and (to) pick several topics and go deep,” said Rep. Buyer.

The Dole-Shalala Commission is slated to have its first formal meeting on Apr. 13 and will then formulate its plans to investigate the numerous allegations made in “The Other Walter Reed” stories. The commission also plans to examine the workings of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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