Waiting in the Emergency Room at Walter Reed

President George W. Bush made another grandstanding tour of a disaster area. This time, the “disaster” is the deplorable state of repair of facilities and bureaucratic obstruction to providing quality medical care to US military personnel and veterans at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Walter Reed has long been reputed to be the "crown jewel" of military medical care. Recent reports of how low the actual level of care at that facility has sunk during the Bush Administration, and the disrepair of the buildings as well is cause not only for embarrassment, but for alarm.

The attack of the Bush administration against anyone criticizing the Administration’s war in Iraq is a claim that the critics fail to “support the troops.” How then, we might ask, can Bush maintain any credibility in his position or policies based upon this sancrosanct commitment to support for the troops, when he fails to assure that the young men and women of the armed forces that he sends into harms way are assured decent medical care and attention if they are injured while conducting his "mission"in Iraq? Sadly, follow up reports have confirmed that the deteriorated state of military care and facilities at Walter Red is not an aberration, but instead is truly representative of the general deterioration in Military and VA facilities across the country.

Many will recall that dramatic staged event following Hurricane Katrina in which rescue crews were called away from lifesaving duties to set up and secure the Plaza in hurricane ravaged New Orleans so that Bush could declare before the nation on TV that he would take “immediate and decisive” action to address the problem of slow or non-existent relief efforts following that disaster. Eighteen months later, the media finally got around to checking on the progress of that immediate and decisive action only to find that very little has effectively been accomplished in restoring New Orleans. Much money has been wasted, but little has actually gone to rebuild New Orleans. Temporary measures have been slowly put in place, but no one could suggest with a straight face that the type of action promised by Bush has materialized. Just recently, we learned that a company in which the President's brother Jeb was a former partner received a multi-million dollar no-bid contract to install pumps in the levees of New Orleans. Those pumps are defective and would not function effectively to prevent another disaster if an event approaching the magnitude of Katrina were to recur.

The best advice to the injured soldiers who are hopeful of improved levels of care at US Military facilities, from Walter Reed on down, is not to hold their breath. To place great confidence in a promise from George W. Bush that immediate help is on the way would be unwise, at best. Using the Katrina “fix the problem” time frame of this Administration, one had best be prepared for an extended wait in the emergency room. Former President George W. Bush will likely be sitting with Dick Cheney in Dubai sipping cocktails as guests of Halliburton at its new headquarters long before we see any material improvement in the Military hospitals.