http://www.alternet.org/health/147695/witness:_%27cabal%27_at_va_is_killing_veterans/At a hearing last week, experts told Congress that VA staff were "intentionally delaying research and treatment for our veterans."
Despite the recently announced intention by Secretary Eric Shinseki and his Chief of Staff, John Gingrich, to change the “culture” of VA, the agency is in the grips of a rogue bureaucracy that bypasses congressional oversight and sabotages veterans interests and health. This was the claim made by several speakers at last Tuesday's hearing of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to consider Gulf War illness and "Dissatisfied Veterans." Some 250,000 veterans of Desert Storm are disabled from the a multi-symptom, multi-system sickness associated with exposure to toxins during deployment. service. According to Paul Sullivan, Executive Director of the veterans advocacy group Veterans for Common Sense, “a cabal of VA staff” is “intentionally delaying research and treatment for our veterans.”
Anthony Hardie, another Gulf War veteran and advocate, testified that VA bureaucrats “simply disregard the oversight ...created specifically” by Congress to bypass the entrenched bureaucracy in VA and the Department of Defense, which are “at the root” of many of the problems facing Gulf War veterans. While Hardie said that bureaucratic end-runs of both congress and agency programs might be be a matter of old-timers resisting new ways, he did not rule out less benign explanations including officials “having their own agenda.” and undermining reform because of “wanting this Administration to fail.”
More at the link ---
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
