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New Bosses at Walter Reed Hospital
Independent Online Edition > Americas — Has anyone been following this story? The world press and TV folks are all over it in great detail but it seems to be buried by the US newspapers who are all mostly just running the soft AP wire service report. On the most recent This Week in California TV newscast, a local PBS station summary of the news events affecting the Bay Area it came up in the conversation when a TV reporter mentioned it. All the news folk, including the host, didn’t know what he was talking about. I guess the head of the Army getting fired in the middle of a war isn’t as important as speculation over the last episode of Heroes. Thank god for the Internet or we wouldn’t know crap in this country
President George Bush yesterday rushed to contain a new political scandal sweeping his administration over dire conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the country’s most prestigious military hospital for wounded combat troops.
Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered neglect, bureaucratic intransigence and infestations of rats, cockroaches and mould, it emerged. The scandal has already claimed President Bush’s secretary of the army, who was fired on Friday, as well as Walter Reed’s commander and the deputy who temporarily stepped in to replace him.
Veterans’ groups and the Democratic Party leadership in Congress have voiced considerable anger that the hospital, regarded as the top military medical facility in the country, if not the world, should be allowed to lapse into neglect.
The President, under fire for cutting the health and social security benefits of veterans and failing to provide active combat troops with essential equipment such as body armour, took the unusual step of releasing the text of his regular Saturday radio address early, so it would make yesterday morning’s papers. He vowed to meet the physical and mental needs of soldiers returning from combat.
related coverage
CBS News running the AP piece most people are burying.
Um…don’t know where you get your news at John, but it’s all over NPR and it was front page news on CNNs website…until the guy that dismembered his wife in Michigan and was on the run took over the top story.
It’s pretty far from being ignored, at least at the news sites and media that I read/listen to.
I concurr with Scott – this story is in heavy rotation in the mainstream media. I rarely have anything good to say about anyone in the Bush Administration, but Bob Gates’ decisive action in this matter deserves praise. Quite the departure from the “no one is to blame” attitude of his predecessor.
I don’t see much being said about the ACLU and their support of NAMBLA or the fact that the president of the ACLU was busted of child abuse either. I ask what is the greater crime? Why this is also ignored here?
there’s one aspect of the story I haven’t heard yet. when are work crew and/or inspectors going to the place to provide estimates and/or start the renovations?
For those who haven’t seen it, Oliphant’s take on Walter Reed is a beaut.
I suppose it depends on where you get your information. Faux News and other right-leaning media outlets are burying this issue as it’s harmful to the neo-con’s defense credentials.
The neo-cons like shock and awe and bombs bursting in air but they don’t like paying for cleaning up the mess they made. Support the troops my hiney.
#3 – Let’s see – ACLU, child molesting… yeah, that’s pertinent to the head of the U.S. Army getting fired for ignoring the needs of soldiers wounded in the service of their country. Sheesh.
Uh John,
THE WASHINGTON POST BROKE THE STORY!!!
About that caption, “New Bosses at Walter Reed Hospital” – nothing new about it. We’ve had government by cockroaches since 2001.
#7. Halliburton gets the gold mine, the troops get the shaft.
This story is getting rotation, but no one is digging in to it because it is “owned” by ABC (with Woodruff’s show the other night).
#3, Bob, You are out to lunch. Rust Tierney’s arrest is next to a nothing.
Of course, Bill O’Reilly made a big deal about it but then he wants to compare the leader of 30 million National Evangelical Association to someone who was the president of a state chapter years ago is disingenuous.
BTW, Haggarty admitted his act. Rust-Tierney is innocent until proven guilty.
Hey I’m on the left coast and I can assure you that there is very little coverage compared to what you say you are seeing. It still looks buried to me when I look at the list of outlets on Google. And I’m still seeing mostly the AP reports. But OK, if you say so.
Still a point of contention, is a nation that cant field, or train 1% of the nation….where did all the money go in the LAST 30 years???
I also have to say that Killing roaches is fairly EASY…And somewhat safe… dont know WHY it wasnt done.
Cockroaches, it is said would survive a world-wide nuclear catastraphe or even the world’s destruction by global-warming.
It’s about time we use our technology in developing cockroach’s brains so that they can somehow be able to transfer our intelligence into a future generation of man in case we are all destroyed.