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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: SCANDAL: V.A. chief lied about U.S. soldier suicides SCANDAL: V.A. chief lied about U.S. soldier suicides by GregMitch [Subscribe] As I have posted here previously -- perhaps numerous times -- I have followed the scourge of U.S. soldier suicides ever since the start of the Iraq war more than five years ago. At times, I was fairly alone in this, at least in the media, and have written dozens of articles about it for E&P and the issue features strongly in my new book on Iraq and the media. But a new development really should sicken all of us. Yesterday, in federal court In San Francisco, attorneys for veterans' groups accused the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs of a shocking cover-up in lying about the epidemic of suicides among veterans. Internal emails written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA's head of Mental Health, seem to bear this out. Much of this stemmed from a CBS probe of suicides late last year, perhaps the first major media pursuit into this matter, which I had called for repeatedly, along with my friend Paul Reickhoff. * * "There is no epidemic in suicide in VA," Katz told CBS last November. He had informed CBS that there were only 790 suicide attempts for all of 2007. And he attacked CBS numbers that suggested otherwise. But in a February 2008 e-mail to his top media adviser, Katz wrote: "Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities." CBS notes today, "it appears that Katz went out of his way to conceal these numbers." How's this: Katz titled his e-mail: "Not for the CBS News Interview Request" and opened it with "Shh!' Beautiful. The e-mail ended: "Is this something we should (carefully) address … before someone stumbles on it?" On Monday, CBS News showed the e-mail to Rep. Bob Filner ( D-Ca.) who chairs the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. "This is disgraceful. This is a crime against our nation, our nation's veterans," Filner replied. "They do not want to come to grips with the reality, with the truth." Gordon P. Erspamer, an attorney for the veterans groups, said they V.A. was keeping the truth hidden because it was "embarrassed." The San Francisco Chronicle reports today: "U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti is presiding over the nonjury trial, scheduled to last two weeks. Conti, a conservative jurist and World War II veteran appointed to the bench by former President Richard Nixon, ruled in January that the case could go to trial. In doing so, he rejected the government's argument that civil courts have no authority over the VA's medical decisions or how it handles grievances. If the advocates can prove their claims, Conti said in his ruling, they would show that 'thousands of veterans, if not more, are suffering grievous injuries as the result of their inability to procure desperately needed and obviously deserved health care.'" As I have noted before, several hundred U.S. military personnel have killed themselves in Iraq -- and many more than that back here at home. And, of course, the mental/brain injuries and trauma go well beyond that, with a Rand Corp. study just last week indicating that more than 300,000 vets suffer from some sort of mental distress or injury. * Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits--and the President--Failed on Iraq It has been hailed by Daily Kos's own SusanG, Glenn Greenwald, Bill Moyers, Paul Reickhoff and and others.
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#1. To: aristeides (#0)
This is beyond treason.
It'd be news if they told the truth.
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