July 5, 2004
July 12, 2004
July 19 & 26, 2004
Whole Body Health
Occupation Authorities Stash Oil Funds as Iraqi Health Care Dies
Iraqi children perish for want of medicines and equipment in Iraq's under-funded hospitals while U.S. Treasury officials have billions of dollars of Iraqi oil revenues stashed away in secondary "slush funds" and U.S. Treasury bills.
President George W. Bush has repeatedly said that Iraqi oil revenues are to be used solely for the benefit of the Iraqi people. At a White House press conference on April 13, Bush said: "Well, the oil revenues are - they're bigger than we thought they would be at this point in time. . . . And that money is - it will benefit the Iraqi people. It's their oil, and they'll use it to reconstruct the country."
In May, as oil prices soared and Iraqi oil production reached 2.4 million barrels per day, nearly $70 million per day flowed into the coffers of the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI). The DFI funds, administered until June 30 by L. Paul Bremer III and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), are managed in accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
With the approach of the June 30 handover, however, reports suggest that Iraq's oil revenues have been mismanaged and that untold millions have been siphoned off into unregulated "slush funds."
According to CPA accounting, a total cash inflow of more than $20.24 billion filled the DFI since it was created on May 28, 2003. Although nearly all of the "development" funds came from Iraqi oil exports, the Central Bank of Iraq had only $216 million in its DFI account on June 20.
A simple spread sheet of 35 rows lists how more than $11.3 billion of the fund had been disbursed by the CPA. The sheet reveals that the "Commanders Emergency Response Program" received $391 million of Iraqi money, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers got another $367 million, and the CPA Front Office got $2.8 million etc. Details, dates and specifics are not provided.
There has been no monitoring or independent auditing of the fund until April 2004. Until that time disagreements between the CPA and the International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB), an oversight body set up by the UN Security Council, prevented any outside audit of the DFI.
In April, the accounting firm KPMG began a UN-mandated audit of the fund, which it hopes to complete by June 30. In their first interim report, KPMG auditors said they had "encountered resistance from CPA staff" and that the DFI is "open to fraudulent acts."
A member of the former Iraqi Governing Council told The Financial Times, "If the auditors don't finish by June 30, they never will, because the CPA staff are going home."
When the U.S.-appointed temporary Iraqi government takes over on July 1, however, it will be bound by a June 8 UN Security Council resolution to honor the obligations and contracts passed down by the CPA's spending arm, the Program Review Board (PRB).
After what is described as "a last-minute spending spree" by the CPA, it now appears that the Iraqi interim government will have very little money left to use.
The largest Iraqi recipients of DFI money have been the Ministry of Finance ($7.47 billion) and the Ministry of Oil ($2 billion). There is, however, no recorded disbursement of funds to the Ministry of Health.
This apparently troubled Yusaf Samiullah, the British government's representative on the PRB, who, according to the minutes of the board's May 15 meeting, asked: If given the opportunity to revise the 2004 budget, would the disbursements "include other areas such as health and education"?
Of the $2 billion of Iraqi money passed out during the May 15 PRB meeting, much of it was allocated to projects that are already over-funded with money provided by Congress for reconstruction of Iraq. For example, $500 million was marked for Iraqi security forces, although Congress allocated $3.2 billion for the same purpose in 2004. Similar amounts were set aside for the already funded electricity and oil sectors.
In May, when American Free Press asked the Federal Reserve Bank of New York about the Iraqi oil revenues a spokesman for the bank said the money is handled by the U.S. Treasury.
The Department of the Treasury, however, appears reluctant to discuss the status of the Iraqi funds managed by its former deputy general counsel.
The U.S.-dominated PRB, which has a 12-member voting board, is chaired by Treasury Department official, George B. Wolfe. Wolfe stepped down as the deputy counselor to Secretary John W. Snow and was appointed to the Treasury job in Iraq.
Proponents of the war often suggested that Iraqi oil revenues would minimize U.S. costs for the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq. "The cost of the war will be small. We can afford the war, and we'll put it behind us," Snow told the House Ways and Means Committee on March 9, 2003.
However, billions of dollars from the Iraqi oil revenues have been diverted to "a host of poorly planned projects," according to Iraq Revenue Watch, a program of George Soros's Open Society Institute. "The lack of planning and the huge funds on tap for cash give-aways and other highly discretionary programs have paved the way for corruption and waste," the organization wrote in June.
DYING FOR FUNDS
While $7.3 billion from the DFI money is invested in U.S. Treasury Bills and another $1.3 in Overnight Deposits at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the citizens of that occupied nation are dying for want of basic medical supplies. The U.S. occupation and windfall profits from the oil sales have done nothing to improve the miserable conditions at Iraqi hospitals.
The Associated Press reported on June 4: "At Baghdad's General Teaching Hospital for Children, children die each week from diarrhea because of poor sanitation, shortages of medical equipment and poorly trained staff. . . . Even though improved medical care is a stated priority of U.S. occupation authorities, medicine is still costly and in short supply."
The hospital's sewage system has largely collapsed and is working at 10 to 20 percent of capacity. The hospital also lacks air conditioning.
Most hospital deaths - between 15 and 20 a month - are from secondary infection, mainly because of the unsanitary hospital conditions.
On June 19, a three-month old Iraqi boy, known as "Baby
Ali," died of septicemia, a bacterial blood infection that
could have been treated if advanced medical care had been available,
said Dr. Haidar Hadi of Baghdad's General Teaching Hospital for
Children.
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Neo-Conservatives Bitterly Denounced By Retired Brass, Men of Peace
"The uniformed military is in almost open revolt against its civilian masters in the offices of neo-conservatives, Undersecretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz and his deputy, Douglas Feith at the Pentagon. The troops resent the Bush administration hardliners as dangerously ideological."
The eye-opening statement isn't some"anti-Semitic conspiracy theory" cooked up by American Free Press. Instead, That's a direct quotation from the May 31 issue of Newsweek magazine, which is owned by the Washington Post Company. The Washington Post is the most influential daily newspaper in the nation's capital.
While it may be a surprise to the readers of Newsweek it is no surprise to AFP readers, who were told ling ago - before the advent of the Iraq war - that the admirals and generals in the Pentagon were fed up with the hard-lone, pro-Israel policies being pursued by the Bush administration under the guidance of the neo-conservatives. But this news will be a surprise to many Americans, who have labored under the perception that President Bush and his war-hawk handlers are held in high regard by "the troops" when nothing could be further from the truth.
As if to underscore this growing rebellion against the neo-conservatives - whose world view holds that all U.S. foreign policy (whether toward Iceland, Ireland, Indonesia or any other land - a group of distinguished high-ranking former military leaders, diplomats and intelligence figures have gone public and bitterly denounced the Bush administration and the neo-conservative policymakers.
AFP reported in its last issue on this remarkable development that seems to have been largely ignored in much of the major media in America.
Calling themselves the Committee of Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change (DMCC), the group includes such well-known names as: former Joints Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. William Crowe Jr; former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Merrill McPeak; former Central Command Chief Genl Joseph P. Hoar; former CIA Director, Adm. Stansfield Turner; former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union Arthur A. Hartman; former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Donald McHenry; former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations H. Allen Holmes; former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman; former State Department Intelligence Operations Chief Phyllis Oakley; former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Ronald Spiers; and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel William Harrop.
The statement issued by CDMCC specifically scores the American intervention in Iraq, which former Ambassador Ronald Spiers says was "something that wasn't justified," and cites rising anti-American attitudes among young people in the Muslim world that have arisen as a result. The statement also blasts the support by the Bush administration for the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon. Wide-ranging in nature, the CDMCC statement also addresses the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. approach to the international AIDS crisis and the distribution of wealth.
The Washington Post, on June 13, cited the comments of former Ambassador William Harrop: "I really am essentially a Republican. I voted for George Bush's father, and I voted for George Bush. But what we got was not the George Bush we voted for." Harrop said that the so-called war against terrorism "had created terrorism in Iraq. It has made Iraq a very dangerous place."
This is an open "crack" within the ranks of the American military and geopolitical establishment. It is perhaps the first time that an array of big names have gathered together - under on banner - to challenge the direction of U.S. foreign policy.
In the past, a few separate, independent voices, at different times, openly challenged the Israeli lobby in a more direct way, but those voices were easily silenced at election time. This bipartisan honor role includes the following former senator: J. William Fullbright (D-Ark.); Charles Percy (R-Ill.); Adlai Stevenson III (D-Ill.); James Abourezk (D-S.D.); and, bore recently, Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-S.D.).
The list also includes a number of former members of the House of Representatives: John R. Rarick (D-La.); Paul Findley (R-Ill.); Jim Traficant (D-Ohio); Paul N. (Pete) McCloskey (R-Calif.); Mary Rose Oakar (D-Ohio); Gus Savage (D-Ill.); Cynithia McKinney (D-Ga.); and Earl Hillard (D-Ala.).
What will be the ultimate impact of the efforts of the CDMCC
remains to be seen. But it could be the beginning of a turnaround
in the disastrous policies that have made millions of enemies
for America all across the globe.
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The Pentagon has put in place a number of makeshift personnel adjustments to allow for a critical shortage of manpower as the Bush administration continues to overextend America's armed forces around the world in a policy of naked aggression unmatched in American history.
There have been additional announcements of the Pentagon drawing down further the troops stationed in South Korea. Some 3,000 troops have been shifted from there to Iraq, and others are expected to follow.
Currently, the Army has only one active duty division in reserve in the United States, to be deployed if hostilities break out unexpectedly somewhere or to defend the homeland.
The Pentagon has clearly found itself stretched to the breaking point. It has large deployments of troops in Kosovo and Bosnia in the Balkans, dating back to the Clinton administration, and in Afghanistan, where hostilities still occur with remnants of the Taliban forces, and with more than 125,000 U.S. troops fighting remnants of Saddam Hussein's forces and guerrillas in Iraq.
This has led the administration to want to re-institute a national draft, which is expected to be in place by June 15 of next year if approved by Congress, which is unlikely unless suddenly the country experiences another "terrorist" attack. It is unlikely President Bush would start drafting men and women prior to November's presidential election.
Military experts have told AFP it is likely the draft is coming, even if Bush is defeated by Democratic president candidate John Kerry.
Kerry is unlikely to pull troops out of Iraq. He, too, has already hinted at enlarging U.S. forces. With enlistment quotas becoming increasingly difficult to meet, it is unlikely that a major expansion of military manpower can be achieved with an all-volunteer military.
Bush has drawn upon the National Guard and Reserves to the point where emergency measures are now in place to keep troops in the military, including a "stop loss" program. This forces Reservists and National Guard troops to remain in the service for 90 days after a deployment ends. The program has been a band-aid measure to slow the hemorrhaging of manpower from standby forces. But AFP has been told that it also is creating considerable ill will among servicemen and women, guaranteeing that in most instances when the 90 days are up the men and women are gone from the military forever.
Filling the ranks of National Guard units has become so difficult that some state Guards are taking extraordinary measures to keep their slots filled. For example, the Massachusetts National Guard is offering rewards, ranging from plaques to NASCAR tickets, to members who lure new recruits.
As the military ponders various measures to keep its ranks filled, it is faced with further Reserve and Guard call-ups to provide fresh cannon fodder for Iraq and to fill other global obligations, thus making any personnel shortfalls potentially disastrous.
"It's a slippery slope in the sense that there's a kind of a snowball effect," said Andrew F. Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based think tank that deals with defense issues. "It's very difficult to put Humpty dunpty together again once you break the force."
In 2003, the Army's rate of re-enlistments was 67 percent. Since then, it has dropped to 58 percent.
The Pentagon has also undertaken makeshift arrangements for routine supply and maintenance operations, frequently shifting duties between services.
For example, at the port in Ash Shuaybah, Kuwait, a port utilized for shipping military supplies and equipment in and out of Iraq, the duties of loading and unlading ships has been transferred from the Army to the Navy, the jobs falling to Naval Reserve forces.
The duties at the port were conducted by the 155th Army Cargo
Transfer Company, an Army Reserve unit stationed at Fort Eustis,
Va. They were replaced by the Naval Expeditionary Logistics Support
Force Alpha, based at Williamsburg, Va.
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U.S. Forces Debilitated by Combat Stress
Some 20 percent of U.S. soldiers returning from combat in the ongoing guerrilla war in Iraq have shown signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and have received treatment for it, according to a new study in a leading medical journal.
Nearly 7,000 returning GIs took an anonymous survey distributed by the U.S. military, reports the July issue of New England Journal of Medicine. Nearly one-fifth responded that they were feeling the effects mentally of serving in combat and sought treatment for it.
Symptoms of PTSD include flashbacks, depression, loss of interest in activities, suppressed emotions, anxiety, trouble concentrating, anger and violent outbursts. These can be triggered by sights, smells or general stress of life.
The military is trying to do a better job at identifying the signs of trouble after criticism following previous wars such as Vietnam. As many as 15 percent of Vietnam veterans, who were examined years after the war ended, admitted they still suffered from the ailment.
Doctors have acknowledged that the number of soldiers affected by the mental condition may rise because the survey was conducted shortly after the U.S. troops left the battlefield. Symptoms of PTSD can often develop months or years later, said an official from the Department of Veterans Affairs' National Center in an editorial accompanying the study.
Today, there is concern among the military that PTSD may be a problem, which, if left untreated, can surface years from now and affect how soldiers deal with life in the civilian world.
"We're saying to the world we have nothing to hide,''
said William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for
health affairs. "This is about getting better at something
that is important and that our leadership considers important."
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At a meeting of law enforcement officials in Tampa Bay, Fla., Attorney General John Ashcroft (above) made it clear that he plans to expand the controversial Patriot Act to grant police more freedom to stop and search Americans to help fight the war on terror.
Citing the war on drugs, Ashcroft told police chiefs and other top officials that local law enforcement should be able to employ the same tools for battling terrorism as it does in fighting drugs and combating organized crime.
Ashcroft said he is seeking from Congress the authority to allow judges to impose the death penalty for those convicted of terrorist activities that do not now have death penalty specifications.
Some civil libertarians groups object to Ashcroft's call to expand the contested Patriot Act.
"This legislation will almost certainly have no deterrent effect on suicidal, politically motivated terrorists such as members of Al Qaeda," said the American Civil Liberties Union in a written statement.
In addition, free trade protesters, members of environmental groups, anti-abortion demonstrators and other people attending some types of patriotic rallies could risk being sentenced to death for acts of civil disobedience that the government labels as terrorist in nature.
Democratic lawmakers have criticized Ashcroft, saying the Patriot
Act goes too far and infringes on Americans' constitutional rights.
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During his recent brief visit here in Washington, D.C., historian David Irving predicted that October will bring us the surprise of another so-called "terrorist" attack, which will sweep Bush back into office.
If so, that will be just the beginning. Congress, with enthusiastic GOP backing, will pass a draft law and Attorney General John Ashcroft will invoke his misnamed "Patriot Act," shelving the Constitution, putting America under martial law and throwing dissenters into American gulags for thought crimes.
At that point, Bush and his malevolent backers will have what they want - a completely militarized America comparable to Russia under Stalin. And Bush will be free to extend his God-blessed imperium beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to Iran, Syria, North Korea and whatever geography strikes his demented fancy.
Although the military-industrial-banker complex will love it, it will be tough on taxpayers and cannon fodder, not to mention everyone killed and wounded by our bombs and high-tech weaponry.
Should by some miracle John Kerry (D-Mass.) Be elected, the scenario looks similar.
Even Ralph Nader is starting to look good.
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Because one of the hottest topics
in the country these days is Michael Moore's new movie Fahrenheit
9/11, I decided to take it in on a recent hot and humid afternoon
in Washington. Though be no means a charter member of the Michael
Moore Fan Club, I did like his Roger and Me, the account of his
unsuccessful attempt in 1989 to interview Roger Smith the powerful
chairman of the General Motors Corporation.
Maybe I'm a bit biased toward Moore because, like Moore, I grew up in Michigan where the automobile reigned supreme. His home town is Flint, mine is Detroit. In years gone by just about every family had some gainful connection with the gigantic auto industry. As we all know, America's heavy industrial base, most notably steel, has shifted operations out of the country.
As for Fahrenheit 9/11, I have mixed emotions and reactions. This film is classified by some as a documentary. Yet others could see it as a highly charged polemic by a left-wing Democrat against President George W. Bush and the Republican Party.
Everyone who sees it will recognize people and scenes from the newscasts over the last three years. Certainly subscribers to AFP will recall the highlights of those years especially as presented in the AFP special report on 9-11.
Recall an emotionless Bush reading to the schoolchildren and being told twice by Chief of Staff Andrew Card about the attack on New York's World Trade Center. There are scenes of Bush on the golf course and on his ranch ignoring reporters' serious questions.
Moore allows the viewer to conclude that Bush knew that the attack had happened and in fact welcomed it. It gave him the opportunity to go all-out in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Concerning the United States' aggressive attack on Iraq, Moore has it right that this war did not simply happen but was planned as all wars are. He spends a lot of time on the role of young Saudis in 9-11, but never mentions likely Israeli foreknowledge.
The Patriot Act, Attorney General John Ashcroft's weapon by which the Bill of Rights can be suspended for Americans believed to the subversive, is mentioned by Moore. He also mocks the "Coalition of the Willing" noting that most of the countries are small are hardly have military establishments.
Of course, he correctly notes that the United States is the big player and the bulk of the allied casualties, dead and wounded, is sustained by the world's lone superpower.
On closer reflection on Fahrenheit 9-11, this reviewer suddenly realized that he had watched a blatant pitch for multiculturalism.
The film opens with an accounting of the certifying of the 2000 presidential election in a joint session of Congress. Black members of the House, especially from Florida, protested the outcome of the vote. Al Gore, as out-going vice president and presiding as president of the assembly, announced that, since there was no objection from any senator about the outcome of the Electoral-College vote protests by members of the House were meaningless.
Lila Lipscomb the grieving mother of a son killed in Iraq, calls attention to the "multicultural" cross she is wearing. She proudly affirms that her family is multicultural, and so they appeared. Her husband is black.
Moore dwells on the condition of blacks and other multiculturalism he promotes the destruction of western civilization. He is calling for the annihilation of the primary movers of western civilization, the white race, and for anarchy, but as a liberal he cannot see this. No critics that this reviewer has read have pointed out this fact. Nor would they dare.
There is a lit of money being made from this film. Opening
days in California and New York broke records. Sometimes in the
heartland, too. No one knows the final impact this film will have
on the electorate or the country. Like everybody else, we'll be
waiting and watching.
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Throughout history, the recording of battle deaths has graphically illustrated the terrible cost of war. But those who want a more accurate portrayal of that awful price should instead look to the wounded - those brave men and women who return home from combat with debilitating injuries to find that the battle, for them, has not ended.
In some wars, a deliberate effort was made to maximize the number of enemy soldiers maimed, not killed - on the logical understanding that one or more others on the opposing side would be tied up caring for the wounded, while the dead need minimal care.
From World War II to present, there have been 612,875 Americans, mostly young, who have lost their lives in the service of the nation. An additional 928,900 returned to their homes suffering from wounds they received on the battlefield.
In the war in Iraq, as of July 9, 882 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen have been killed, and, according to the Pentagon, in Iraq the ratio is estimated to be about six wounded for every battle death. But the Pentagon is not telling the whole truth.
Calling upon various resources, in and out of the military, American Free Press estimates that as many as 30,000 American servicemen have been sent home from Iraq and Afghanistan as a result of battle wounds, accidents and illnesses.
On May 1, President George W. Bush declared that the war was over in Iraq. It's been more than a year since that time, and, every week, large transport planes are still arriving at Andrews Air Force Base loaded with wounded soldiers, all unseen by most Americans.
According to experts AFP consulted, among those 30,000 airlifted from Iraq and Afghanistan are an unknown number of seriously wounded, who, like thousands of others before them in previous wars, are hidden from the public.
No one knows - or at least no one has been able to find out - just how many of these men still exist in underfunded Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities throughout America, and possibly abroad, as the U.S. government maintains no public accounting of the "living dead."
As this scenario of America's "living dead" plays out during the Iraq war, the irony is that, according to recent reports, "Kevlar helmets, body armor equipped with ceramic panels, field improvisations to personal and vehicle armor all have contributed to better protection against [often fatal] bullet and shrapnel wounds but have left the extremities vulnerable."
Some have had their faces blown away or suffered irreparable brain damage. Some have no limbs, and some are totally paralyzed.
Somewhere in the many facilities run by the VA, these men exist, hidden away in the department's 163 hospitals, 135 nursing homes, 43 domiciliaries and 73 "comprehensive home-care programs."
How many of these men are there?
The American Legion doesn't know. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) doesn't know. The Disabled American Veterans (DAV) doesn't know. Not even the Purple Heart Association admits knowledge, and they should be aware of every soldier wounded in combat.
American Free Press contacted the VA, which didn't respond to our repeated inquiries. Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also chose not to reply.
For Iraq and Afghanistan, it has been almost impossible to get an accurate accounting of the number of wounded.
In the February 16 issue, American Free Press first reported on the untold story of the thousands of injured U.S. military personnel being treated in a German military hospital. Reporting from the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, military officials told AFP that 12,000 U.S. servicemen and women had been brought to that one facility to receive treatment before being sent to military hospitals in the United States.
According to Army Col. David Hackworth (retired), speaking more than six months ago, on Dec. 30:
"Even I . . . was staggered when a Pentagon source gave me a copy of a Nov. 30 dispatch showing that since George W. Bush unleashed the dogs of war, our armed forces have taken 14,000 casualties in Iraq - about the number of warriors in a line tank division."
That means "we've lost 10 percent of the total number" of available personnel - 135,000. That 10 percent "has been evacuated back to the United States," said Hackworth. In other words, our forces have effectively been decimated.
It gets worse.
Lt. Col. Scott D. Ross of the U.S. military's Transportation Command revealed to Hackworth that as of last Christmas his "outfit has evacuated 3,255 battle-injured casualties and 18,717 non-battle injuries, a total of 21,972 servicemen and women." Ross conceded that some of the personnel involved might have been counted more than once.
A poignant reminder of the cost of war was well portrayed in the 1946 motion picture, The Best Years of Our Lives, which showed the impact of war on the young men who must leave home to fight for their country's politicians and bankers.
The movie portrayed a young man who had lost both arms in battle, a part played by a genuine wartime double-amputee, Harold Russell.
Russell won an Academy Award for best supporting actor and won accolades throughout the nation for his courage, bravery and patriotism.
It is sad to reflect that he ended his years on Earth after having been forced to sell his Oscar to survive.
On a warm day last June, a young American soldier, standing, erect, proud and unbowed, was caught by a Fox News camera as he raised the stub of his arm to salute his dead commander in chief, former President Ronald Reagan, laying in state in front of him.
Like Russell, the unidentified soldier was young and obviously very dedicated to his country.
Little has changed between 1946 and 2004, with the best years of the life of the young soldier from Iraq's battlefront, who is now destined to live out his life having gone off to fight when his country called but then coming home leaving a part of him behind.
But this young soldier and Russell are not the soldiers of this article. They can be seen. We are writing about those who cannot.
For some 30 years this writer has written about soldiers, the nation's missing in action and prisoners of war, who have been written off by official Washington, in many instances with our leaders knowing of their existence alive in enemy captivity.
Now it occurs to this writer that he is again writing about POWs and MIAs. These are men who are prisoners of their wounds of war. They are missing from sight due to the concerns of government military and veterans service establishments, which fear that by allowing them into the light of day, it would reveal the real cost of America's ventures into globalism, international corporate greed and now - as in Iraq - oil.
Furthermore, the stress of battle has taken its toll on our soldiers' minds. Many have been driven to suicide.
Better records have been kept in Bosnia. From them, Defense Department officials have determined 15-16 percent of medical evacuations were for mental health reasons.
"Stress is not something you just have in that foxhole," said Bernard Rostker, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. There is evidence that unchecked stress plays a major role in changing behavior, such as increasing substance abuse, including alcoholism, and in the most extreme cases, suicide, he said.
Over the past 12 months there has been an unusually high number of suicides among U.S. troops in Iraq. Hundreds of soldiers experiencing psychological problems have been evacuated from the country. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's announcement authorizing the extension by at least three months of the tours of duty of some 20,000 soldiers set to return home, and the possibility of intensified guerrilla warfare, may add to the stress suffered by GIs in Iraq.
In response, the government has increased the use of "combat stress control teams," established a toll-free crisis hotline for service members having problems dealing with stress and set up recuperation centers where soldiers can rest for a few days before returning to the front lines. But questions about whether these actions are too little too late, and how the soldiers will be treated when they return home, remain unanswered.
Twenty-five soldiers have taken their lives during the past year in the Iraq occupation. In addition, there have been seven suicides among newly "State-sided" troops, including two soldiers who killed themselves while patients at Walter Reed Army Hospital, The Toronto Star recently reported.
No information is available on how many returning soldiers might become murderers as a result of their wartime experiences.
The New Yorker (July 14) interviewed a returned soldier named Carl Cranston.
Cranston and his men had to establish roadblocks - notoriously dangerous duty. "People would approach with white flags in their hands and then whip out AK-47s or rocket-propelled grenades," he told the magazine. So Cranston's group adopted a policy: if a driver ignored signs and the warnings and came within 30 yards of a roadblock, the Americans opened fire. He said, "A couple of times - more than a couple - it was women and children in the car. I don't know why they didn't stop." Cranston's squad didn't tow away the cars containing dead people. "You can't go near it," he said. "It might be full of explosives. You just leave it." He and his men would remain at their posts alongside the carnage. No wonder some soldiers go insane in this kind of war.
At Walter Reed Army Medical Center, in Washington, D.C., some 3,000 amputees from the Iraq war and occupation have been treated to date. Each prosthetic arm or leg can cost U.S. taxpayers up to $100,000.
Veterans know the price of war, and many are willing to talk about it.
"George W. Bush is the only president to delight in posing
for photographs, in combat gear, with real soldiers as one of
`the boys,' " a WWII vet told AFP. "However, he knows
absolutely nothing about war and its costs. If he were to take
a tour through a veterans hospital and see some of the devastated
young men his belligerency has produced, he might have a different
view of his record."
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In a move that is sure to anger the Russians, the Pentagon has been secretly exploring possible sites in two former Soviet bloc countries for the setting up of a defensive missile shield.
Pentagon experts have been negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic to house future sites for advanced radar and interceptor missiles as part of a Bush plan to implement a new "Star Wars" program. There is speculation that a third site could be located in Bulgaria, regarded as the gateway from the Middle East to the Balkans.
So far, no agreement has been reached on the locations of the missiles and whether sites, once established, could be deemed to be U.S. territory.
Leaks about the Pentagon talks, have caused a stir in some sections of the East European media and have led to claims that there should be a public debate before any agreement is reached with the United States.
The plan for Eastern Europe is thought to be based on a future danger that might arise from countries like Iran that possess a missile capability and a secret nuclear program. However, Russia, which has seen NATO expansion across what was formerly the Soviet Union may well object to the move and withdraw from arms reduction talks.
Separate sites are planned for Alaska and California in an effort to protect against an attack from the unpredictable and heavily armed North Korean military.
The Pentagon has been careful to indicate to East European NATO members that the new Star Wars plan is not aimed at preventing future attacks against the United States and its western allies from Russia and China, though that must be considered in future military planning.
So far, Russia and China have not officially reacted to the leaked Pentagon plan though Russian and Chinese officials told a Canadian news agency that the plan would either lead to a new arms race or the weaponization of space.
Senior Polish defense experts have indicated that Russia will
have to be consulted before a site is established on Polish soil.
It has therefore not escaped the notice of some Poles that a missile
shield in Poland would only be there to protect against one potential
enemy - the Russians.
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The cover-up of the scandal of wounded soldiers who will languish the rest of their lives in underfunded veterans hospitals is a big story that has been neglected by the controlled media.
It was just last year that the veterans Administration (VA) cut health benefits to "higher-income veterans," which apparently amounted to those who make over 30,000 annually. Ironically, officials cited the rising numbers of those seeking to enroll in the VA system as the reason for the cuts. The tragedy here is that, as veterans of wars in Korea, Vietnam and Iraq get older, more and more will be seeking what was originally promised to them - serve your country, and you will receive a lifetime of free, quality healthcare.
As American Free Press reporters found, it is nearly impossible to get an accurate accounting of how many wounded servicemen and women are fighting another battle, to get decent healthcare in America. According to our estimates, from World War II on, nearly 1 million U.S. soldiers returned home, suffering injuries, some of which prevent them from working or functioning in the world. How many of these brave men and women continue to suffer in silence, forgotten by the country they were told they would be defending?
Worse still, the United States will surely be facing a rise in the number of sick and wounded GIs with the new generation of weaponry, particularly the use of toxic depleted uranium, and the military's system of forced vaccinations. To this day, the VA refuses to admit that Gulf War Syndrome is a real and devastating, illness. Estimates range in the hundreds of thousands of gulf wars I and II vets and their children who silently suffer from this disease.
Most knowledgeable veterans' advocates blame Congress for its failure to adequately fund the VA system. If the country can afford to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan - much of which ends up in the pockets of the military-industrial-banking complex - why can this country not afford to live up to the promises it made to those who fought in wars started by the politicians and the bankers?
If the military-industrial-banking complex wants to send young
Americans to war to risk their lives, we must be willing to honor
our promise that we will take care of them if they do not come
back in one piece. It is no less than criminal that the federal
government is sending hundreds of thousands of men and women to
war with the full knowledge that there is no funding to take care
of them when they come home sick or injured.
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Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader, pictured right,
in a statement made available in Washington July 6, called 
U.S.-based multinational corporations "unpatriotic."
"These companies were formed in the United States, rose to their large size with the sweat of American workers went to Washington for bailouts, subsidies or other forms of corporate welfare and, when in further trouble, asked for the U.S. armed forces or regime overthrows to come to their rescue overseas," Nader said.
"U.S. corporations, with your taxpayer subsidies, are selling weapons of rapid destruction to regimes all over the world - many of which are dictatorships or oligarchies oppressing their people and reshipping their weapons wherever they please," Nader said.
"Wal-Mart systematically pushes wages, standards and benefits downward in the United States - below the level required by western countries where Wal-Mart is operating," Nader said. "It treats American workers wage workers on how to quality for federal welfare, like food stamps."
U.S. multinationals "export industries and jobs to oppressive regimes utilizing an assortment of governmental incentives and promotions," Nader said. "Attempts in Congress to end these subsidies for fleeing America - and establishing tax havens in Bermuda - have been defeated by corporate lobbyists and President Bush. They lose no sleep over this callous behavior hollowing our communities and leaving American families in desperate straits - while some worry about their loved ones in the Iraq quagmire."
Pentagon and General Accounting Office audits "have repeatedly found Halliburton and other companies ripping off Uncle Sam under cover of Pentagon contracts - including, for example, large overcharges for troop meals," Nader said. "More gouges and profiteering will be disclosed by further audits and - it is hoped - congressional investigations." Halliburton was headed by Dick Cheney before he became vice president; he retains a financial interest.
"For many decades corporate polluters have been relentlessly using our air, water and soil as their private, toxic sewers," Nader said. "Their despoiling, poisoning and ruining of the natural beauty of our country has made large swathes of America uninhabitable,"Nader said. "Year after year, lobbyists with campaign cash oppose and undermine the laws, regulations and enforcement mitigation these sources of cancer, respiratory ailments, genetic damage and other diseases."
In another development in the Nader campaign, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chastised Nader for saying the White House and Congress are puppets" of the Israeli government and the Israeli lobby.
At a hearing in late June titled "The Muslim Vote in Election 2004," Nader told a gathering of Muslims on Capitol Hill: "I don't think there is any prospect of the two parties differing en any significant way on the Middle East.
"The Israeli puppeteer travels to Washington and meets with the puppet in the White House. He then goes down Pennsylvania Avenue and meets with the puppets in Congress," said Nader. The Israeli leader then "brings back millions of dollars" in aid to Israel.
The ADL, in a letter signed by Barbara Balser, national Chairman,
and Abraham Fox, national director, told Nader: "We write
to object to your characterization of the White House and Congress
as "puppets" of the Israeli government....The image
of the Jewish state as a ‘puppeteer' controlling the powerful
U.S. Congress feeds into many age-old stereotypes."
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Congress spent one evening last week debating a token measure to reduce government spending by implementing very slight caps on some future entitlements. Not surprisingly, even this exceedingly modest bill failed overwhelmingly. The process behind the spending problem really is.
House leaders knew the spending
control bill had little chance of passing. In fact, that's why
they allowed the vote to happen. The real goal was to appease
fiscal conservatives in Congress, some of whom have become increasingly
uncomfortable with the unrestrained spending contained in the
proposed 2004 budget. Some of these conservatives supported an
alternative budget that merely spent about 1 percent less than
the proposed budget, and even that nominal act of rebellion earned
them the ire of House leadership.
The spending control measure considered last week was merely a symbolic gesture designed to quash their complaints and ensure cooperation when the final budget vote is cast later this year. After all, those members now can tell their constituents they voted to keep a lid on spending, even as they please their party bosses latter.
The pressure to go along with the herd in Congress is intense, regardless of which party is in control. Every member knows that thwarting his party's leadership, particularly on budget matters, is risky. Any opposition to spending bills can result in veiled or even outright threats to cut funding for the member's district, to limit the member's committee assignments, and to bury the member's legislation.
Some members who buck the system find themselves facing primary opponents in the next election as a result. The desire to win reelection is paramount, and those who go along get plenty of help from their party's fund-raising.
Predictably, almost all members of the House Appropriations committee - the committee initially responsible for every nickel of federal spending - voted against the bill. This simply highlights the institutional problem that plagues Congress and government in general: no politician ever boluntarily relinquishes power.
In Congress, control of the nation's purse strings represents the ultimate power. Appropriators can reward some lawmakers and punish others with the stroke of a pen, by adding or eliminating federal projects in any congressional district. No amount of talk about spending can change the reality that government power naturally grows.
COMPLAINS
Everybody complains about pork, but members of Congress keep spending because voters do not throw them out of office for doing so. The rotten system in Congress will change only when the American people change their beliefs about the proper role of government in our society.
Too many members of Congress believe they can solve all economic problems, cure all social ills, and bring about worldwide peace and prosperity simply by creating new federal programs. We must reject unlimited government and reassert the constitutional rule of law if we hope to halt the spending orgy.
The words of H.R. Gross, the great libertarian-conservative congressman from Iowa, ring as true today as they did during a budget debate in 1974:
"No amount of legislation will instill in a majority of
the members of the House the ingredient, the element that has
been missing. That is fiscal responsibility. Every member knows
that he or she cannot for long spend $75,000 a year on a salary
of $42,000 and remain solvent. Every member knows this government
cannot forever spend billions beyond tax revenue and endure. Congress
already has the tools to halt the headlong flight into bankruptcy.
It holds the purse strings. No president can impound funds or
spend unwisely unless an improvident, reckless Congress makes
available the money. I repeat, neither this nor any other legislation
will provide morality and responsibility on the part of members
of Congress."
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Texas Congressman Says Food & Drug Administration Biased, Violating Rights of Americans, Suppressing Alternative Healing.
For most of the 20th century the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has derided dietary supplements and supported the allopathic medical and drug monopoly with vigor. But new legislation, sponsored by a maverick Republican congressman who is also a medical doctor, could change all that.
In early March, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), pictured here, introduced the Helath Information Independence Act (H.R. 4000), which would establish a system independent of the Food and Drug Administration for the review of health claims, to define health claims, and for other purposes. It has been referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Health.
Item number six in the "findings" which serves to introduce why the law is needed, sums up that need succinctly:
"To ensure that health claims are evaluated rationally, fairly and in compliance with constitutional requirements and the intent of Congress, the federal government must be denied authority to deny the public access to health information absent probable cause that the claims are untrue, misleading or pose a danger to human health; and jurisdiction over health claims evaluation must be removed from the Food and Drug Administration and placed in the hands of independent scientific reviewers who do not harbor a bias against food and dietary supplement health claims."
"(1) Access to accurate information at the point of sale concerning the effect of nutrients on disease is indispensable to the exercise of informed consumer choice in the market place and to the health and welfare of the American people.
"(2) In 1999, 2002 and 2001, federal courts have held that Food and Drug Administration suppression of nutrient-disease information is a violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
"(3) Despite these holdings and despite the court's orders, the Food and Drug Administration continues to suppress nutrient-disease information that could improve public health, reduce the costs of health care, and promote the welfare of the American people.
"(4) The history of the Food and Drug Administration review of nutrient-disease relationships reveals a strong and unscientific bias against food and dietary supplement health claims in direct violation of the constitutional mandates of federal courts and the intent of Congress.
"(5) The Food and Drug Administration favors suppression of health claims over disclosure, despite court imposed constitutional requirements to the contrary.
The new law is clear in its statement about the "authority for making health claims":
"(a) Limitation on Agency authority to restrict distribution, notwithstanding any provision of federal law, the Federal Government shall have no authority to restrict the distribution of any dietary supplement or other nutritional food on the basis that the manufacturer is making claims unapproved by the Food and Drug Administration if:
"(1) the product has a label clearly stating that its health claims are not FDA approved; and
"(2) Such Administration lacks evidence establishing probable cause that the claims contain misleading information posing a threat to the safety and well-being of those who use such a product.
"(b) Independent review of Agency determination of existence of probable cause. In the event that the FDA determines there is probable cause that the claims for a dietary supplement or other nutritional food contain misleading information posing a threat to the safety and well-being of those who use such a product, such administration shall, before acting against the product carrying the allegedly offensive claims, submit the claims to review before an independent review board as described in the following sections of the act."
The team behind the writing of this law seems to be well aware of the "revolving door" so they defined the term "independent scientific reviewer" with care by amending the present law as follows:
"The term ‘independent scientific reviewer' means a person who:
"(1) Holds a PhD, a MD or both, and has been employed full time for at least the past five consecutive years as a professor or assistant or associate professor in a department of medicine, biochemistry, epidemiology, pharmacology, pharmacognosy, or nutrition at a university that is accredited by an organization recognized by the Department of Education of the United States;
"(2) Has never been employed by, and has never been contracted to do work for, the FDA or any other agency or office of the Department of Health and Human Services;
"(3) Has never been employed by, and has never been contracted to do work for, the health claim petitioner;
With that definition in place, the new law then makes sure the present law is amended to include "dietary supplements" in key places where it now only refers to "food" and to assure that the secretary of the FDA cannot relegate responsibility or delay action on an approved health claim.
The new legislation also outlines the duties of the independent scientific reviewers in the same terms as the definition with on key addition.
If the review finds no credible scientific evidence supporting the claim; and no disclaimer that could accompany the claim might eliminate any potentially misleading connotation conveyed by the claim, then refusing to allow the claim is acceptable.
However, a blanket disclaimer to cover chicanery by the dietary supplement sellers is also avoided:
"Recommended disclaimers must be accurate and concise. Disclaimers should reveal the extent of support for the claim by stating whether in support of the claim is less than conclusive, such as evidence in support is preliminary and inconclusive, suggestive but not conclusive, or generally accepted but not yet proven to a conclusive degree."
Not only does this law address the arbitrary and capricious
decisions made against dietary supplement claims by the FDA in
the past but it assumes a modicum of intelligence and individual
responsibility on the part of the consumer.
Even though the Republicans control the White House and Congress, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) bureaucrats continue to maintain their stranglehold over the nation's production of innovative drugs for combating cancer and other dread diseases.
The FDA's denial of new life-saving drugs to desperate patients began with the 1962 Kefauver-Harris amendments to the Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act of 1938. These changes by Congress granted sweeping powers to FDA bureaucrats by adding a "proof of efficacy" requirement to the more traditional "proof of safety" standard concerning new drug applications (NDAs) and by removing time restraints on the FDA drug-approval process.
Consequently, the FDA became a gatekeeper for critical life-saving drugs.
The end result of boosting the FDA's power over the introduction of new medicines has been a disaster - today suffering patients are getting access to an average of only 16 new drug treatments each year, as compared to pre-1962 average of 41 medicines introduced annually.
A brilliant analysis of this situation, complete with insights on how Congress and the White House might fix it, can be found in the April 2002 edition of the Washington-based Consumers Research magazine - which demonstrates clearly that FDA-caused delays in new medicine approvals do not contribute to public safety.
Consider these facts about the situation that the media doesn't want you to know:
* A study by University of Chicago economist Sam Pelzman establishes that the number of ineffective drugs introduced since the FDA took over drug approvals in 1962 has not declined. Notes Pelzman: "Penalties imposed by the Marketplace by sellers of ineffective drugs prior to 1962 seem to have been enough of a deterrent to have left little room for improvement by a federal agency."
* a 1985 analysis by the respected Cato Journal suggests that tens of thousands of patients have lost their lives due to bureaucratic delays in new drug development and approvals. Decades of limited FDA activity prior to 1962 shows that even with the faster drug approval rate in the pre-1962 system, high levels of accountability were maintained by legal torts and through collaborative information-sharing between doctors and hospital. In short the less coercive drug review process did an excellent job of keeping unsafe drugs out of the marketplace, and without excessive delays.
* A comparison of drug availability and safety between the United States and other developed countries strongly suggests that FDA obstructionism costs lives without improving safety. Consumer Research finds that despite much shorter new drug approval periods in countries such as Great Britain and Spain, the United States has a similar percentage of approved drugs that have to be recalled due to adverse side effects.
The FDA-caused drug approval lag clearly causes suffering. Prior to the FDA's becoming a national medical gatekeeper in 1962, the average approval time for new drugs was seven months. By 1967 it had increased to 30 months. Today, it takes about eight years to get a new drug developed, approved and delivered to market.
Competitive Enterprise Institute researchers find the FDA bureaucrats have delayed the release of new medicines (including Interleukin-2, Taxotere, Vasoseal, Ancrod, Glucophage, Lamical and many others) despite successful usage in European countries.
Worst of all is what cannot be quantified: Medicines that have never been made available to suffering patients due to the artificially high, government-driven cost of development and approval (now about $800 million per new drug). In short, the FDA has tilted the competitive playing field to favor giant pharmaceutical companies to the detriment of smaller, innovative firms that are more capable of spearheading major breakthroughs.
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