Bush Doesn't Care!!!

This is from last Tuesday's (1/9/2007) Progress Report:

VETERANS -- VA 'BUCKLING' UNDER RISING DEMAND CREATED BY IRAQ WAR: "As the Iraq war approaches its fourth anniversary," wrote Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government and Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, "the Department of Veterans Affairs is buckling under a growing volume of disability claims and rising demand for medical attention." So far, more than 200,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been treated at VA medical facilities -- three times what the VA projected, according to a Government Accountability Office analysis. "More than one-third of them have been diagnosed with mental health conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, acute depression and substance abuse. Thousands more have crippling disabilities such as brain or spinal injuries. In each of the last two years, the VA has underestimated the number of veterans who would seek help and the cost of treating them -- forcing it to go cap in hand to Congress for billions of dollars in emergency funding." The VA medical system "has a reputation for high-quality care," but the high volume of new claims has created waiting lists that "run as long as several months," understaffed Vet Centers, and a "bureaucratic nightmare" for those receiving disability checks. In a report written earlier this year, "The Economic Costs of the Iraq War," Stiglitz calculated the true costs of the Iraq war would exceed a trillion dollars, assuming all U.S. troops were home by 2010. The cost estimate included "expenditures not in the $500bn CBO projection, such as lifetime healthcare and disability payments to returning veterans."