Changes in the wind sometimes feel subtle, but where evident, they are unmistakable. The shift in Congress to Democratic control seems to have emboldened the media to resuscitate its roles as watchdog, investigator and public information source respecting government sponsored programs. The latest evidence of such scrutiny seems to be the firing of Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, who headed military medical facilities for the North Atlantic Command, including Walter reed army hospital. News media reports of the shabby treatment of wounded outpatient soldiers returning from Iraq led to unusually prompt action by the Secretary of Defense. Mold on the inside walls of outpatient housing at Walter Reed, the facility deemed the crown jewel of military medicine, and the misclassification of patients as outpatient resulting in the denial of care that should have been inpatient drew unwelcome attention to the status of treatment that soldiers returning from Iraq receive at military facilities.
Critics of the Bush Administration, including veteran groups, have protested loudly for several years that the returning soldiers were receiving substandard medical attention and treatment, if they were able to get treatment at all. Yet under a GOP controlled Congress, the matter was typically brushed aside. The media buried the stories and treated the ones that were printed on their back pages as anecdotal events, rather than as a sign of systemic problems. Secretary of Defense Gates has ordered a review not only of conditions at Walter Reed, but of military medical facilities in other parts of the country.
Lest this development be mistakenly viewed as a “change of heart” by the Bush Administration, it is useful to examine the context in a bit more detail. The Democratic Congress has threatened to adopt measures that would either cut off military funding for escalation of the Iraq military mission, or impose conditions under which additional US troops can be deployed. While even most Republican legislators acknowledge that the American voters declared last fall that a change of direction in Iraq policy was needed, President Bush seems to have turned a nearly deaf ear to that mandate. He has embarked upon expansion of troop deployments rather than de-escalation of US involvement. The proposals to cut funding for the additional deployments are an attempt to force legislators to decide whether they are aligning themselves with the president or with the electorate.
The proposal by Jack Murtha D-PA, a veteran and longtime stalwart of military program support, to place conditions on the military funding is a subtle but more powerful threat, politically and pragmatically. The conditions that he would impose involve the necessary level of training and equipment that must be provided to troops that the president wishes to deploy. Additional conditions relate to the amount of time soldiers can be deployed in one tour of duty and the resting time required before the soldier can be sent back to Iraq in subsequent deployments. Unquestionably, these measures are intended to protect and support the men and women deployed for the Iraq mission; an adventure that Murtha thinks is being grossly mismanaged.
The static rejoinder from the White House and its supporters is that criticism and resistance to the troop escalation "emboldens the enemy” and signals a lack of desire to “support the troops.” While the logic of these arguments is empty and fallacious, many Americans are attracted to such simplistic sound bites. [Are not the insurgents more emboldened by the deployment of poorly trained and ill-equipped troops who make realitvely easier targets? ] The exposure of the manner in which the troops are actually being treated by the Bush Administration, the lack of proper equipment, back to back and extended deployments, denial of proper medical care and the homelessness and job displacement suffered by the soldiers who have been deployed in Iraq is a national embarrassment. The men and women asked to sacrifice their lives in service to their country deserve better support and treatment when they return home.
Politically, the exposure of these support deficiencies undercuts the attacks by the White House on its critics, and displays the hypocrisy of the “support our troops” argument. The soldiers who already have been deployed in Iraq, based upon authority that Congress has already provided, are without proper training and equipment. They have been forced to endure extended deployments because of a lack of ready troops to relieve them. When they are injured, whether physically or psychologically, they return home to substandard or denied health care. Thus, Murtha’s proposal has a very simple logical appeal. Regardless of where you stand on the level of troop deployment in Iraq, the men and women who are ordered to serve in Iraq should not be mistreated and abused in the manner that the Administration has done since the initial Iraq invasion byUS troops without adequate armor and equipment.
The practical result, however, is that Murtha’s bill would halt the escalation of US troop involvement by the Administration because the military forces are already overextended. The overuse of National Guard units and reserve units has arguably led to many of the deaths and injuries of US troops because the personnel sent lack proper training for the assignment. Given the current unwillingness or inability of the Bush administration to support the troops already deployed in a proper and reasonable manner, it seems perfectly logical for Congress to say that it will not fund a plan to send even more ill equipped and poorly trained troops into the theater of battle and into harm’s way.
All this seems quite logical and rather obvious when the simple facts are examined. And here is where the shift in the wind has come. These facts have been manifest for some time. Yet the mainstream media, whether from laziness, complicity or intimidation, has failed to adequately investigate and publish the objective facts in a manner that informs and educates the public of the problems that exist with the Bush Administration handling of the Iraq conflict. Major media attention was focused upon White House "spin" and what Congress would investigate. Since the GOP Congress would investigate none of the Administration’s actions, most of the public was uninformed of the sham that was being perpetrated. So the argument has unmistakably shifted. Why should Congress fund the deployment of MORE troops, when the Administration has not shown a willingness or ability to support the troops already deployed? Who is really culpable for the charge of failing to “support the troops?”
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