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Why Does The Bush Administration Hate Our Troops? |
Current rating: 0 |
by Nathan Newman
(No verified email address) |
12 Aug 2003
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The problem is that it's not the high-tech army taking care of those living conditions, but private industry on contract. For over a decade, the military has been shifting its supply and support personnel into combat jobs and hiring defense contractors to do the rest. And the process has accelerated under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. |
Why are our troops suffering in such filth and discomfort over in Iraq?
That's been an odd puzzle, since where killing of troops by guerillas may be somewhat beyond the control of the military, you would think that delivering decent facilities for daily living wouldn't be such a challenge for this high-tech army.
The problem is that it's not the high-tech army taking care of those living conditions, but private industry on contract. For over a decade, the military has been shifting its supply and support personnel into combat jobs and hiring defense contractors to do the rest. And the process has accelerated under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
And despite the alleged wonders of private enterprise, those companies have left soldiers in filth, heat, and garbage (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0731-09.htm).
Why Private Contractors Fail Soldiers:
While soldiers can be ordered into combat zones, civilians cannot. So U.S. troops in Iraq have had to suffer through months of unnecessarily poor living conditions because contractors hired by the Army for logistics support plain failed to show up. Even mail delivery – turned over to management by civilian contractors -- fell weeks behind.
"We thought we could depend on industry to perform these kinds of functions," Lt. Gen. Charles S. Mahan, the Army's logistics chief, said in one interview.
Woops.
Soldiers have progressed from living in mud, then the summer heat and dust. One group of mothers organized a drive to buy and ship air conditioners to their sons. An Army captain ended up turning to a reporter to have him send a box of nails and screws to repair his living quarters and latrines.
For almost a decade, the military has been shifting support jobs over to the private sector. And the result in Iraq has been a disaster for the troops. Not surprisingly, when the going gets tough, the civilian business folks take a hike.
Enron Accounting on Contracts:
And apparently, the chaos of cost-plus contracts with overlapping deals is a big reason the White House has no idea how much the Iraq Occupation is costing American taxpayers: Thanks to all these overlapping contracts with multiple contracting offices, the Pentagon can’t keep track of which contractors are responsible for which jobs -- or how much it all costs. That's one reason the Bush administration can only estimate that it is spending about $4 billion a month on troops in Iraq.
Rumsfeld has already proposed handing 300,000 additional military logistics jobs over to private contractors, further endangering our troops in any future conflicts. But heck, at least Dick Cheney's buddies at Halliburton are making lots of money. So who cares if the soldiers have to suffer for it? Or that the budget numbers on the war resemble an Enron accounting sheet?
Grunt Soldiers Take a Budget Hit:
And the indifference to front-line soldiers’ needs isn’t restricted to hiring substandard contractors in Iraq. Soldiers and their families have been targeted for nasty budget cuts to help pay for all the goodies handed to Halliburton et. al. These budget cuts effecting military families back home just adds to the general low morale of troops in the Iraqi deployment.
Army Times, has been scathing in its criticism of the cuts and budgeting enacted by the GOP-controlled Congress.
These include:
* Canceling a "modest proposal" to increase the benefit from $6,000 to $12,000 to families of soldiers who die on active duty;
* Rolling back recent increases in monthly imminent-danger pay (from $225 down to $150) and family-separation allowance (from $250 down to $100) for troops getting shot at in combat zones;
* Refusing to consider military tax relief to help military homeowners, reservists who travel long distances for training, or parents deployed to combat zones;
* Passing pay raises for some higher ranks, but capping raises for the lowest ranks at 2 percent, well below the average raise of 4.1 percent;
* Enacting a $1.5 billion cut in the military construction request for 2004
As Army Times wrote: "Taken piecemeal, all these corner-cutting moves might be viewed as mere flesh wounds. But even flesh wounds are fatal if you suffer enough of them. It adds up to a troubling pattern that eventually will hurt morale – especially if the current breakneck operations tempo also rolls on unchecked and the tense situations in Iraq and Afghanistan do not ease."
All of this makes for the most deadly combination for a solider: an administration that loves war and hates the troops.
Nathan Newman is a labor lawyer, longtime community activist, and author of the recently published book'NET LOSS' (Penn State Press) on Internet policy and economic inequality.
http://www.nathannewman.org
Published in the September 1, 2003 issue of the Progressive Populist
http://www.populist.com/index.html |
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Sick Iraq War Veteran Has To Fight For Medical Treatment |
by Lolita C. Baldor
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Aug 2003
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WASHINGTON After Army Sgt. Vannessa Turner survived a still-unknown illness doctors feared would kill her, she thought her toughest battle was over.
But since a military flight brought Turner home she says she's had to fight to get medical treatment and can't even get personal items returned.
The homefront, she's finding, can be as daunting as the front lines in Iraq.
''It's easier to stay a soldier and be in harm's way than to come home and get care,'' said Turner, her quiet voice quaking with emotion.
Arriving at her mother's home in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood last month after hospital stays in Germany and Washington, the six-year Army veteran says she was told that despite severe nerve damage in her right leg she'd have to wait until mid-October to see a doctor at the local Veterans Affairs hospital.
She sought help from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and eventually got an appointment scheduled this week, but the experience was frustrating for Turner and her family. They look at the hero's welcome given to former prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who was in one of Turner's rehabilitation sessions, and see a double standard.
''Some people are getting scholarships, my sister can't get a doctor's appointment,'' said her sister Nicole. ''To me, they threw her away like a piece of trash. She served her country and now nothing is being done for her.''
Veterans' advocates said Turner's frustration is not unusual. More than 110,000 veterans are waiting six months or more for their initial visit with a VA doctor or to see a specialist, the VA acknowledges.
''Is this what our returning heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq can expect from their elected officials as they seek health care for their painful injuries sustained in the line of duty?'' Veterans of Foreign Wars Commander Ray Sisk said.
VA undersecretary for health Robert Roswell said everyone who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom is entitled to two years of VA health care benefits. And the benefits are available to those wounded in combat as well as those injured in accidents or who suffer illnesses.
He blamed Turner's treatment on errors at the VA's West Roxbury facility. Officials there failed to recognize her as a newly released veteran needing immediate care.
''We made an admitted mistake. But it was caught,'' Roswell said, adding that changes are being made to ensure it doesn't happen again.
Turner's ordeal started in Camp Balad, 42 miles north of Baghdad. One of the more than 150,000 American soldiers dodging bullets and toiling in the searing Iraqi heat, Turner was suffering from severe mosquito bites when she collapsed on May 18.
The next thing she knew medics were giving her shots, cutting off her clothes and rushing her to the hospital. As they wheeled the gurney down the hall, the 40-year-old Army cook could hear the doctor's terrifying words: ''She's not going to make it.''
''I tried to move my hand, I wanted to signal them I was trying to say, 'Hey, I'm alive, don't let me die.' But I couldn't move. I couldn't talk,'' Turner said.
Doctors still aren't sure what caused her illness, though they suspect it could have been a reaction to the ointment she used on the mosquito bites.
Turner's recovery presented a new set of problems for her family. Because of her severe condition, the military quickly classified her as medically retired so her 15-year-old daughter Brittany could get increased benefits.
But because she no longer was an active member of the military, the Pentagon couldn't transport her family to her bedside in Landstuhl, Germany, where Turner had been airlifted for treatment.
''They told me she had no heartbeat, that she wasn't breathing,'' said Turner's mother, Beverly. ''They said she had 36 to 72 hours to live.''
Turner's family couldn't afford airline tickets so they turned to Kennedy and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for help. Through their offices family members got flights to Germany courtesy of the United Service Organizations, and they received lodging and food from the Fisher House Foundation, which provides housing for military families.
Turner's fitness aided her recovery. An avid weightlifter, she began to slowly improve and by the end of May was flown to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where she stayed for about six weeks before going to her mother's home.
For Turner, the work to rehabilitate the damaged nerves in her leg is compounded by confusion over her benefits, her quest for a doctor, and the Pentagon's initial assertions that she go back to Germany herself to get her belongings.
Turner is hesitant about the future. A year from now she'll go before a military board to see if she should be retired permanently or if she's well enough to be reinstated.
''Half my brain says yes, half my brain says no,'' she said. ''But, ma'am, I'm a soldier. I love being a soldier. This is what I do.''
© Copyright 2003 The Asscociated Press
http://www.ap.org |
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Thanks For The M.R.E.'s |
by Paul Krugman
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Aug 2003
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A few days ago I talked to a soldier just back from Iraq. He'd been in a relatively calm area; his main complaint was about food. Four months after the fall of Baghdad, his unit was still eating the dreaded M.R.E.'s: meals ready to eat. When Italian troops moved into the area, their food was "way more realistic" — and American troops were soon trading whatever they could for some of that Italian food.
Other stories are far worse. Letters published in Stars and Stripes and e-mail published on the Web site of Col. David Hackworth (a decorated veteran and Pentagon critic) describe shortages of water. One writer reported that in his unit, "each soldier is limited to two 1.5-liter bottles a day," and that inadequate water rations were leading to "heat casualties." An American soldier died of heat stroke on Saturday; are poor supply and living conditions one reason why U.S. troops in Iraq are suffering such a high rate of noncombat deaths?
The U.S. military has always had superb logistics. What happened? The answer is a mix of penny-pinching and privatization — which makes our soldiers' discomfort a symptom of something more general.
Colonel Hackworth blames "dilettantes in the Pentagon" who "thought they could run a war and an occupation on the cheap." But the cheapness isn't restricted to Iraq. In general, the "support our troops" crowd draws the line when that support might actually cost something.
The usually conservative Army Times has run blistering editorials on this subject. Its June 30 blast, titled "Nothing but Lip Service," begins: "In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap — and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately." The article goes on to detail a series of promises broken and benefits cut.
Military corner-cutting is part of a broader picture of penny-wise-pound-foolish government. When it comes to tax cuts or subsidies to powerful interest groups, money is no object. But elsewhere, including homeland security, small-government ideology reigns. The Bush administration has been unwilling to spend enough on any aspect of homeland security, whether it's providing firefighters and police officers with radios or protecting the nation's ports. The decision to pull air marshals off some flights to save on hotel bills — reversed when the public heard about it — was simply a sound-bite-worthy example. (Air marshals have told MSNBC.com that a "witch hunt" is now under way at the Transportation Security Administration, and that those who reveal cost-cutting measures to the media are being threatened with the Patriot Act.)
There's also another element in the Iraq logistical snafu: privatization. The U.S. military has shifted many tasks traditionally performed by soldiers into the hands of such private contractors as Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary. The Iraq war and its aftermath gave this privatized system its first major test in combat — and the system failed.
According to the Newhouse News Service, "U.S. troops in Iraq suffered through months of unnecessarily poor living conditions because some civilian contractors hired by the Army for logistics support failed to show up." Not surprisingly, civilian contractors — and their insurance companies — get spooked by war zones. The Financial Times reports that the dismal performance of contractors in Iraq has raised strong concerns about what would happen in a war against a serious opponent, like North Korea.
Military privatization, like military penny-pinching, is part of a pattern. Both for ideological reasons and, one suspects, because of the patronage involved, the people now running the country seem determined to have public services provided by private corporations, no matter what the circumstances. For example, you may recall that in the weeks after 9/11 the Bush administration and its Congressional allies fought tooth and nail to leave airport screening in the hands of private security companies, giving in only in the face of overwhelming public pressure. In Iraq, reports The Baltimore Sun, "the Bush administration continues to use American corporations to perform work that United Nations agencies and nonprofit aid groups can do more cheaply."
In short, the logistical mess in Iraq isn't an isolated case of poor planning and mismanagement: it's telling us what's wrong with our current philosophy of government.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com |
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