What Caused the Walter Reed Debacle

[babylonsister]

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=21783

What Caused the Walter Reed Debacle
Gary Ater

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Background:

First, let's look at the focus of the administration and the directions that have been issued to the top management personnel of our current military. As most people are aware, the Bush administration has been in the process of privatizing as many functions of government as is possible. This is a basic covenant of the Republican Party that has been applied wherever possible, whether it is for a government program or a military support function. Actually, the concept of outsourcing the support of the military medical facilities was originally started by the Clinton administration and led by Vice President, Al Gore. The focus then was to have cost comparisons with private contractors that would then compete with the government workers to determine which could provide the best services at the best cost. The program implementation at Walter Reed dragged on for years and was eventually taken over by the Bush administration's military operations. The battle between the private contractor and the government employees on who provided the best services was eventually settled in favor of the government employees in 2002. Unfortunately for them, the Army Audit Agency then under the leadership of the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, overturned that decision. Because the cost proposal from the private contractor was substantially less than that of the government employees, the decision to overturn was also supported by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Please note however, the final decision was not based on providing equal or current service levels, it was only based on the lower cost comparison. What was not understood was that the Walter Reed Medical Center had previously been serviced by 350 government employee service providers. And this was the number of service employees prior to the beginning of the War in Iraq. The new private contractor replaced those 350 government employees with only 100 private contractors. From the beginning of that decision, the services offered and maintenance of the facility began to head down hill. When the war in Iraq began increasing the needs and numbers of wounded at the medical center, the situation quickly became critical.

The Contractor:

The chosen support contractor for Walter Reed is International American Products, Inc. (IAP). This is the same contractor chosen to deliver ice in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Their trucks were responsible for what became known to everyone as the "FEMA Ice Follies Fiasco". They delivered very little ice and cost the US tax payers tens of thousands of dollars. As with most situations during the previous Republican led congress, there has been no oversight of IAP's services. Today, management of IAP is currently in the hands of Al Neffgen and David Swindle. Both of these individuals were previously former executives of a Halliburton subsidiary; Kellogg, Brown & Root (KBR), a giant of a military outsourcing company. (KBR is currently under allegations of overcharging the government for their services.) Former Vice President Dan Quayle is on the IAP Board of Directors along with a former Commandant of the Marines and a former Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force. IAT's business with the US government has grown from $222 Mil. in 2000, to $1.2 Bil. in 2005. IAP currently has contracts with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for providing 4 wheel drive vehicles and cell phones at Camp Doha in Kuwait. They are also supplying power supplies and support in Afghanistan; electrical systems for a 5,000 man base and a 10,000 man base in Iraq. In addition, IAT is providing a prime emergency power generator, at a cost of $6.5 Million for down town Baghdad. This is only a small list of IAT's total business w/ the US Military.

The IAP / Walter Reed Contract:

The Army originally awarded IAP a contract for $120 Million for administrative, managerial and operational services at Walter Reed. Last October, a Walter Reed commander had warned of "possible mission failure" at the medical center. Skilled government workers were beginning to leave in droves as the workload of wounded vets increased to an overwhelming level. Henry Waxman - D-Calif, new Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee has said: "IAT didn't do a good job delivering ice and from what we now see, they didn't do a very good job at Walter Reed either."

The Walter Reed Patients:

The top military officials have been concerned that the Walter Reed problem was starting to get out of hand. In order to deal with the many complaints from the wounded patients at the Walter Reed Medical Campus, the military patients have been ordered to be up every morning at 6:00AM, have their room ready for inspection by 7:00AM and that they must not speak to any of the media. The soldiers think that this is a form of punishment due to the trouble caused by their previous talks with the media. Cite>(After Basic Training, there are seldom daily inspections.) All media reporters must now be accompanied by Army personnel or Walter Reed public affairs personnel.

The Pentagon is reviewing and clamping down on media coverage at all Defense Department and Veteran's medical facilities. They are also suspending planned projects at Walter Reed by CNN and the Discovery Channel until further notice. Many medical personnel are being re-assigned and Walter Reed's First Sergeants and Platoon Sergeants are being moved to other positions.

Heads That Rolled:

It is appropriate that the commander of the facility, Major General George W. Weightman and the Secretary of the Army, Francis Harvey have been the "heads-to-roll" for these problems at Walter Reed. Secretary Harvey had earlier said; "We had some NCO's (non-commissioned officers) who weren't doing their jobs, period." This issue was his overall responsibility and it was a major cop-out to throw the blame at the sergeants and non-com teams. Where were the officers that were supposed to be over-seeing whether the non-coms were or were not "doing their jobs"? The real issue is, what is being done to make sure that these issues don't resurface and that the transition from in-patient, to out-patient, to medical support at their homes and through the local Veteran's Hospitals are as transparent to the troops as possible. These young Americans deserve the very best, no-matter how long it takes to get their day to day living standards back to normal. It's now up to the citizens, to demand the proper oversight and the continuous support of our troops coming back from harms way. It is their right as loyal American troops and for their dedication to the US military to expect no less from their country.

[Ian David]

1. I think it's worse than that. After watching the hearings, I think the army did this deliberately.

I think the conditions at Building 18 were deliberately made intolerable in an effort to coerce wounded veterans into accepting a lower disability rating before being discharged.