C.I.A. Is Said to Have Bought and Destroyed Iraqi Chemical Weapons
New York Times
By C. J. CHIVERS and ERIC SCHMITT
FEBRUARY 15, 2015
Not long after Operation Avarice had secured its 400th rocket, in 2006, American troops were exposed several times to other chemical weapons. Many of these veterans said that they had not been warned by their units about the risks posed by the chemical weapons and that their medical care and follow-up were substandard, in part because military doctors seemed unaware that chemical munitions remained in Iraq.
United Nations workers prepared for the destruction of Iraqi nerve-agent weapons by sealing leaks in the rockets. BRITISH MINISTRY OF DEFENSE
The Central Intelligence Agency, working with American troops during the occupation of Iraq, repeatedly purchased nerve-agent rockets from a secretive Iraqi seller, part of a previously undisclosed effort to ensure that old chemical weapons remaining in Iraq did not fall into the hands of terrorists or militant groups, according to current and former American officials.
United Nations workers prepared for the destruction of Iraqi
nerve-agent weapons by sealing leaks in the rockets.
The extraordinary arms purchase plan, known as Operation Avarice, began in 2005 and continued into 2006, and the American military deemed it a nonproliferation success. It led to the United States’ acquiring and destroying at least 400 Borak rockets, one of the internationally condemned chemical weapons that Saddam Hussein’s Baathist government manufactured in the 1980s but that were not accounted for by United Nations inspections mandated after the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
The effort was run out of the C.I.A. station in Baghdad in collaboration with the Army’s 203rd Military Intelligence Battalion and teams of chemical-defense and explosive ordnance disposal troops, officials and veterans of the units said. Many rockets were in poor condition and some were empty or held a nonlethal liquid, the officials said. But others contained the nerve agent sarin, which analysis showed to be purer than the intelligence community had expected given the age of the stock.
In some cases, victims of exposure said, officers forbade them to discuss what had occurred. The Pentagon now says hundreds of other veterans reported on health-screening forms that they believed they too had been exposed during the war.
Aaron Stein, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the belated acknowledgment of a chemical-rocket purchases, as well as the potentially worrisome laboratory analysis of the related sarin samples, raised questions about the military’s commitment to the well-being of those it sent to war.
“If we were aware of these compounds, and as it became clear over the course of the war that our troops had been exposed to them, why wasn’t more done to protect the guys on the ground?” he said. “It speaks to the broader failure.” read more here
Former POW Lt. Bill Tschudy recalls captivity in Vietnam on anniversary of his freedom
News Observer
By Paul A Specht
February 15, 2015
Retired Navy Cmdr. Bill Tschudy was a prisoner of war in Vietnam for more than seven years.
PAUL A. SPECHT
CARY — Until July 18, 1965, Navy Lt. Bill Tschudy was focused on performing his duty as a bombardier-navigator during the Vietnam War.
Tschudy remembers that mission shifting a bit, though, after he was shot down over a heavily defended bridge over the Ma River. As he abandoned the doomed A-6A Intruder jet, his parachute floated toward the middle of an enemy-controlled village.
“Your war now is survival,” he thought to himself.
His landing spot, an enemy trench, didn’t inspire confidence.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, I landed in a burial site,’ ” recalled Tschudy, with a laugh, in an interview at his Cary home.
Tschudy, then a married 30-year-old with a 6-month-old son, was captured quickly by North Vietnamese forces.
Then-Cmdr. Jeremiah Denton Jr., the late Alabama senator, was Tschudy’s pilot and also was captured. The two were imprisoned together and tortured for 7 1/2 years. The 42nd anniversary of their release was Thursday.
Time Magazine reported part of Tschudy’s story in a December 1970 issue that featured his face on the cover, and various national news outlets wrote stories after his release. read more here
Honesty is Hardly Ever Heard
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 16, 2015
When did it become acceptable to have less serving translate into more suicides? Less serving in the military, less facing combat but suicides didn't go down enough?
On the senate floor on Feb. 3, Blumenthal said his motivation for reintroducing the bill after it was blocked in December 2014 came from 31-year-old Waterford resident Justin Eldridge, whom he had befriended before he died by suicide in 2013. When Eldridge returned from combat in 2008, he had PTSD and a traumatic brain injury. According to Blumenthal, he “slipped through the cracks” of his local VA facility, not getting the treatment he needed, and he later took his life.
It has happened far too many times and will keep happening unless we get drastically honest.
What he didn't say was that there were other bills just like this one, named after different veterans and soldiers after they committed suicide, before Eldridge killed himself.
What was just released in West Virginia is an indication of what the actual outcome will be.
As of the end of September, about 9 percent of West Virginians were military veterans, according to U.S. Census data. But veterans made up about 23 percent of state suicides from 2000-2013, according to the Department of Health and Human Resources’ Health Statistics Center.
Figures from the DHHR’s Health Statistics Center show that, from 2000 to 2013, 983 veteran deaths were documented as suicides. Of those, 881 were people 35 or older, and 413 were people over age 65.
These numbers have gone up in the veterans population after all the other bills had been passed and all the speeches were delivered. After all the headlines congratulating politicians, more families made headlines talking about how their beloved veterans paid the price of these "efforts" with their lives.
With troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, this is what they faced as veterans, less VA Service Reps
Veterans groups maintain that the backlog amounts to official negligence. Since the launch of the Iraq war more than four years ago, the number of people charged with reviewing and approving veterans' disability claims has actually dropped. According to the American Federation of Government Employees, the VA employed 1,392 Veterans Service Representatives in June 2007 compared to 1,516 in January 2003.
For U.S. President Barack Obama, the military pullout is the fulfilment of an election promise to bring troops home from a conflict inherited from his predecessor, the most unpopular war since Vietnam and one that tainted America's standing worldwide.
In Washington, a senior military official said the deal has been accepted by the U.S. side, short of formal approval by President Bush, but is subject to final acceptance by Iraqi leaders. Some members of Iraq’s Cabinet oppose some of the provisions.
Also completed is a companion draft document, known as a strategic framework agreement, spelling out in broad terms the political, security and economic relationships between Iraq and the U.S., the senior military official said. The official discussed the draft accords on the condition that he not be identified by name because the deals have not been publicly announced and are not final.
In addition to spelling out that U.S. troops would move out of Iraqi cities by next summer, the Iraqi government has pushed for a specific date — most likely the end of 2011 — by which all U.S. forces would depart the country. In the meantime, the U.S. troops would be positioned on bases in less visible parts of the country, and would be ready to assist Iraqi forces as needed.
Troops leaving combat in Iraq didn't lower the rate of suicides. Troops leaving Afghanistan didn't lower the number of suicides. Between the end of so many deployments into combat zones and the reduction of forces within the military due to sequestration, these numbers are shockingly high and is reflected in this report from McClathcy in 2013.
Currently, there are about 535,000 Army personnel, 182,000 Marines and 11 Navy carriers. The review suggests cutting that to as few as 380,000 Army personnel, 150,000 Marines and eight Navy carriers.
Within all of this, they made more veterans they no longer have to count. There will be more veterans fighting to heal in a system that has not been able to keep up with their increased numbers. We're all going to complain about the VA not being up to the challenge without once considering that Congress has not done anything to fix anything veterans have faced for decades. Sure, they've done a lot but nothing that has fixed any of the issues reported over and over again.
We need to start having honest discussions about what has really been going on if anything will change for the better and live up to what we actually owe our veterans.
The other part that is missing is that while we waste time on what has failed, they are prevented from discovering what works and can help them heal.
We’re all asking a lot from the Veterans Affairs right now. And we should be.
After all, a lot was asked of Montana veterans like Jim Kerr, who served our country bravely on a Navy river patrol boat during Vietnam. Jim and all Montana veterans deserve access to quality, timely care at the VA. Anything less is unacceptable.
But unfortunately, the VA has been falling short.
Last summer, after reports surfaced about veterans not getting the care they earned, I traveled across Montana asking them what I could do to address their problems.
Veterans gave me some great ideas, and I went back to Washington to draft and help pass a VA reform bill that improves the care veterans like Jim receive.
The VA is now implementing many of those reforms, while at the same time trying to meet the needs of those who have returned home from war.
There is a lot of pressure on the department right now and it continues to grow as folks return home from the Middle East with injuries both seen and unseen. And with some calling for more U.S. troops on the ground to fight ISIS, pressure on the VA may rise even higher.
VA Montana is having its own issues, as the eight-month search for a permanent director continues and Fort Harrison struggles to keep medical professionals from leaving.
Last week, Acting VA Montana Director Johnny Ginnity told me that there aren’t enough staff to keep a wing of Fort Harrison’s mental health facility open. Veterans in immediate need of care will have to look elsewhere.
That’s completely unacceptable.
The VA was falling short before he was sent to the Senate and not much has changed since then. What makes it "unacceptable" still after all these years?
MISSOULIAN EDITORIAL: Veterans are speaking; VA isn't listening
The Missoulian
February 15, 2015
Once again, veterans are the victims of bureaucratic machinations beyond their control.
Montana veterans continue to face unacceptable obstacles to health care services. It is a national disgrace that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency responsible for ensuring our veterans receive the care they so undeniably deserve, is oftentimes to blame.
This is painfully apparent in Montana, which has one of the highest rates of veterans per capita in the nation.
Consider:
The Montana Veterans Administration facilities at Billings, Fort Harrison and Great Falls were among the 110 centers - out of 1,700 sites - flagged for followup audits after a federal audit last year revealed unacceptably long wait times for medical appointments.
Facilities across the state continue to be understaffed and under-equipped for the number of veterans they serve. The clinic in Missoula, in particular, is woefully inadequate and overdue for expansion.
Montana VA does not employ a single certified medical examiner, whose certification is necessary for veterans to obtain a commercial driver's license.
A new VA Montana director still has not been named. One was supposed to be selected by the end of 2014.
Incredibly, this past week brought even more bad news.
Starting at the end of this month, Missoula veterans who reside at two assisted-living centers that have canceled contracts with the Montana VA will have to find some other way to pay for their housing and care – or some other place to live.
At the same time, VA Montana is "temporarily" closing its eight-bed acute care mental health unit in Helena because of "chronic workforce shortages." The shortage apparently came about after two mental health providers retired and a third resigned to take a different job. It speaks volumes that the VA has been chronically unable to hire and retain a sufficient number of workers to provide essential health services.
It's just one more sign that the VA isn't getting the message.
Missoulian editorial board: Publisher Mark Heintzelman, Editor Sherry Devlin, Opinion Editor Tyler Christensen. read more here
WASHINGTON — Sen. Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, took officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs to an auditorium at the Montana State University-College of Technology campus in Great Falls last summer to talk about the best way to provide health care to veterans in the region's vast rural areas.
The director of the VA region that includes Montana, Colorado, Utah and Wyoming detailed all that the agency was doing to provide for veterans' health needs — physical and mental.
"Comprehensive mental-health care is one of the top priorities for Network 19," Glen Grippen said, referring to the multi-state Rocky Mountain region. He said that mental health staff had been added recently, specifically for treating post-traumatic stress disorder.
Each medical center now has a suicide prevention coordinator, he said, and the VA's medical centers "actively collaborate with state National Guard and Reserve components to ensure that no returning soldier slips through the cracks."
2008
Senator Tester, fix Montana's VA problem sooner
Tester, VA chief hear from veterans Agency chief says help is on way; senator, vets tell of inadequate services
By TOM LUTEY
Of The Gazette Staff
Limited by staff and space, veterans' health care services in Montana fall short, said U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who brought U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake to Billings to meet with local veterans.
"What I'm getting at is the staff and the square footage is a big issue," Tester said Wednesday.
"That's not just here. It's the same in Great Falls and other places."
Tester and Peake got a firsthand look at the tight cramped quarters of the Veterans Affairs Primary Care Center in Billings. Roughly a decade old, the facility at 2345 King Ave. W. is no longer big enough to accommodate services for Billings-area veterans. Plans to relocate to a larger facility are in the works, but the VA Primary Care Center is also short on staff members.
Veterans speaking to Tester and Peake said phone calls to the VA Primary Care Center sometimes go unanswered for half an hour. Getting in to see a counselor about war-related stress can take days.
There's a debate about how many claims will still be made by veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration estimates that 33,690 new veterans will enter the system, but the majority of staff for the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, on which Tester serves, expects 200,000 claims by veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
If the committee is correct, the president's budgeted amount for new claims could leave funding short for about 150,000 veterans.
This is Suicide Prevention Week, and the suicide rate among veterans is reported to be two times higher than the civilian population.
Registered nurse Kellie LaFave of the Montana VA in Helena explained, "Veterans are at greater risk because they're exposed to such extremes and where they do their service. They may be injured physically or emotionally. They may be suffering from traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress syndrome. "
That's why the VA has stressed mental health as a key priority in its healthcare system.
The VA Montana system recently added the 24,000 square foot mental health facility that will house up to 24 veterans.
The PTSD program, which opened in July, is set up in six week outpatient sessions.
While the VA awaits hiring a full time psychiatrist, they are not taking inpatients at this time. However, veterans can still be referred.
Troubled Veterans Get Treatment, Not Jail
Hartford Courant
Peggy McCarthy
February 16, 2015
Mary Kate Mason, a spokesperson for the state mental health department, said, "The average cost of these services is about $420 per person per month" compared with the $2,895 monthly cost for incarceration.
Two programs that connect arrested veterans to treatment – rather than jail – report that many are getting their lives back on track.
Some 81 percent of veterans in the program run by the Veterans Health Administration have not been arrested again. And one run by the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services shows a 36 percent drop in illegal drug use among its veterans and a 44 percent decrease in symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
"So many people are getting what they really need, which is treatment and not incarceration," said Laurie Harkness, the VA program director. "It's making such a difference in so many veterans' lives."
The programs, designed to help veterans with mental health and substance abuse problems, operate in courts statewide, where social workers reach out to arrested veterans to let them know about treatment options for PTSD, anger management, and addictions, among other illnesses.
If a veteran agrees, the social worker will recommend treatment options to the court, and will guide veterans through the process. A judge decides whether to sentence the veteran to a treatment program instead of jail or other penalties, such as fines. The crimes committed range from motor vehicle violations to domestic violence charges to car thefts. read more here
The Veterans Treatment Court originated in Buffalo, NY in January of 2008 and is presided by Judge Robert Russell and the assistance of court coordinator Marine Vietnam Veteran Hank Pirowski. There are several veteran mentors with varying degrees of experience who play an integral role in the function of the court. By giving defendants the opportunity of being guided by someone with whom they can relate to, these veteran mentors provide an essential function to the treatment court
