House Democrats released the details of their version of the fiscal 2007 emergency supplemental spending bill last week.

Tied to the spending bill is a requirement that would force the President to complete a withdrawal of most U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of August 2008. However, that withdrawal could come as soon as January if the President fails to certify that the Iraqi government has met certain benchmarks for progress that he outlined earlier this year.

The draft supplemental would also require that the Administration deploy only those units that are fully prepared for their mission; limit the length of troop deployments; and require that minimum periods between tours be enforced. However, all of these requirements could be waived by the President if he deems it is in the interest of national security.

President Bush responded by threatening to veto the bill if it contains a pullout timetable.

The Democratic proposal would also:

--provide $2.8 billion for the Defense Health program. The President had requested $1.7 billion. The additional funds would be directed to post-traumatic stress counseling, brain injury care and research, and amputee and burn care, among other programs. The extra funds also would cover a $730 billion shortfall in the Defense Health program.

--add $1.4 billion for pay and benefits to the President’s requested $12.1 billion. The $1.4 billion would be mostly for housing allowances.

--create a new "Strategic Reserve Readiness Fund" and provide $2.5 billion for it. The fund would be for training and equipment shortfalls for forces not currently deployed.

--boost President Bush's request for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles by $311 million, to $1.4 billion - enough to purchase all that likely could be produced in fiscal 2007.

--provide $222 million more than the President requested for infrared countermeasure and air survivability equipment.

-- cut $815 million from the President's request for operations and maintenance as "part of a broader effort to improve…oversight of the use of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan."

--cut the President’s $1.4 billion request for research and development by slightly over $400 million.

The day after the Democrats released the details of their plan, the President announced that he was revising his request and would ask for an additional $6.3 billion to pay for the current troop buildup in Iraq, military base realignment and other urgent military needs.

His revised request also includes $50 million for a new military medical support fund; $150 million for Iraq reconstruction teams; $100 million to restart state-owned factories in Iraq; $110 million for economic assistance to Pakistan’s tribal areas and $510 million to pay for a troop increase in Afghanistan.

The House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee is expected to mark up the bill this week and it could go to the House floor next week.


Walter Reed Fallout Continues

President Bush met with former Sen. Robert Dole and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, whom he tapped to chair an independent commission to examine medical care in the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

At the same time, the Secretary of Defense’s eight-member panel charged with taking a broad look at rehabilitative care and administrative procedures at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the National Naval Medical Center and any other military medical centers they choose to examine, began its work.

The two commissions come in the wake of news reports, first in the Washington Post, about living conditions for outpatients at the Washington Army facilities and bureaucratic encumbrances that the 700 or so outpatients and their families encountered in seeking care. The revelations have led to the commander of Walter Reed, MG George Weightman being relieved of his command, the resignation of Army Secretary Francis Harvey and today’s announcement that the Army’s Surgeon General, LTG Kevin Kiley, had submitted his request to retire.

Undersecretary of the Army Peter Geren has been named acting secretary effective March 9. MG Eric Schoomaker, who had commanded the Army Medical and Research Command at Fort Detrick, Md., was named commander of Walter Reed and MG Gale Pollock, Deputy Surgeon General assumed the duties of Surgeon General.

At a media roundtable March 7, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the panel, co-chaired by Togo West, a former secretary of the Army and Veterans Affairs in the Clinton administration, and John O. Marsh, a former secretary of the Army in the Reagan administration and Virginia congressman, is due in a month. “The deadline is relative short for a reason to make sure we identify flaws in the system and get on with fixing them as fast as possible." He added that the report would be made public, as well as to Congress.

He also said that the Army is to report back to him every two weeks on progress it is making to fix conditions for outpatients at Walter Reed and that the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs “are to conduct a comprehensive review of the department’s medical care programs, facilities and procedures … to ensure that we are providing all our troops the standard of care that they deserve. I have told them that resources are not an issue.”

Secretary Gates added that the department would work in cooperation with the White House’s commission and that he was concerned about what happens when a soldier moves from military care to care as a veteran.

After a Feb. 23 inspection at Walter Reed, Secretary Gates said, “I'm grateful to reporters for bringing this problem to our attention, but very disappointed we did not identify it ourselves. Our nation is truly blessed that so many talented and patriotic young people have stepped forward to serve.

“The men and women recovering at Walter Reed and at other military hospitals have put their lives on the line and paid a considerable price for defending our country. They should not have to recuperate in substandard housing, nor should they be expected to tackle mountains of paperwork and bureaucratic processes during this difficult period for themselves and for their families. They battled our foreign enemies; they should not have to battle an American bureaucracy.”

Other leadership changes have been announced. Gen. Richard Cody, the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army called the changes an important first step in correcting administrative and bureaucratic challenges wounded soldiers face during recovery.

BG Michael S. Tucker will serve as the deputy commanding general of Walter Reed, under MG Schoomaker. Col. Terrence J. McKenrick will lead the newly formed Wounded Warrior Transition Brigade, and Army CSM Jeffrey S. Hartless will be the brigade’s top enlisted man.

BG Tucker, a combat-arms officer who most recently was deputy commander of the U.S. Army Armor Center and Fort Knox, Ky., goes to fill a new position at Walter Reed, created to deal with the sometimes confusing administrative process wounded soldiers face, Gen. Cody said.

“He’s going to be the guy that we look to to be the soldiers’ and families’ advocate as they go through inpatient and outpatient, but also he’s going to be the ‘bureaucratic buster’ … and take on this bureaucracy that at times frustrates our soldiers,” Gen. Cody said of Tucker.

Col. McKenrick and CSM Hartless also come from combat-arms backgrounds, and Hartless spent time recovering at Walter Reed after being injured in Afghanistan. Gen. Cody said that combat-arms soldiers were chosen to fill these key leadership positions because the challenges facing soldiers in outpatient care have more to do with administrative issues rather than medical issues, and combat-arms leaders are in the business of taking care of soldiers.

“There is the medical piece to it, but it’s more about first sergeant duties, platoon sergeant duties, and we have people that know how to do that,” Gen. Cody said. “We have depth in our Army right now to be able to put combat-arms noncommissioned officers and officers to do that duty, to free up our medical service corps professionals … to take care of the medical side of this.”

The medical holdover units did not have the right ratio of leaders to soldiers or the right type of leaders, he said. McKenrick and Hartless, who are already on board, will be revamping the organization and ensuring soldiers’ health, welfare, morale and administrative issues are taken care of.

“(Wounded soldiers) need to have good, caring leadership to help them make these transitions either back to their units or back to their civilian jobs or back to being regular citizens of this great Army and this great nation,” Gen. Cody said.

To help address problems at Walter Reed, the Army also has set up a one-stop family and soldier assistance center in the hospital and a toll-free hotline for soldiers to report problems, Gen. Cody said. The Army also has increased the number of caseworkers, personnel specialists and financial specialists at the hospital, he said.

In addition, Gen. Cody said he has deployed a team from Army Medical Command to medical facilities across the country to evaluate conditions, and he is holding a video teleconference today with Army hospital commanders worldwide to talk about eliminating problems for wounded soldiers.

“There is no higher priority in our United States Army, and in our nation for that matter, than the well-being of our soldiers, whether that well-being is down range in combat, back at home camps and stations preparing to go to combat, and certainly, those soldiers that have borne the burden of combat and have come back to our medical system,” he said.

The most daunting task facing Army leaders is fixing the system so that wounded soldiers don’t have a battle when going through the process of establishing their duty status and transitioning out of the medical treatment facilities, Gen. Cody said. He pledged that he and other leaders are working hard to fix that system and to restore trust in a medical system that has lost credibility with its most important customers, the service members.

“This national dialogue we’re having right now, I think, is very helpful,” he said. “It’s a national dialogue as to what this country owes to these servicemen and women who have raised their right hand during war and enlisted, or raised their right hand again during war and re-enlisted, and said, ‘America, in your time of need, I will go forward and defend you.’

“What does this country owe them when they do get wounded? Certainly not a bureaucratic system that makes them have to argue or stay longer so they get the right benefits and the right financial security for the sacrifice that they have given.”

Congress Holds Hearings

After hearings held by the House and Senate last week, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle vowed to consider all options to fix a broken system of caring for the wounded troops. "The war in Iraq has divided our nation but the cause of supporting our troops unites us," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who chairs the Armed Services Committee. "We will do everything we can possibly do - not as Democrats or Republicans -but as grateful Americans to care for those who have served our nation with such honor and distinction."

At the House hearing, Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said, “I'm afraid this is just the tip of the iceberg, that, when we (get) out into the field, we may find more of this.”

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., said that Congress might need to revisit an earlier decision to close Walter Reed. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., agrees. She introduced a bill to prohibit the closing of the base. The "Preserve Walter Reed Hospital Act of 2007" would reverse the 2005 recommendation of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) to close Walter Reed and merge it with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

Rep. Norton said that the disruptions that have surfaced call for this rare reversal "to stop the proverbial bleeding of staff and talent...and to stop the madness of closing the nation's most vital and best military hospital in the middle of a shooting war and the war on terrorism." She said that Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, had assured her the necessary language to ensure that Walter Reed does not close will be in his bill and that the appropriate authorizers had agreed to the necessary language.