Pentagon Reports Omit Non-Combat Injuries (AP)

[Eugene]

Pentagon Reports Omit Non-Combat Injuries

By SUZANNE GAMBOA
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 7, 2007; 2:39 AM

WASHINGTON -- Veterans groups and Sen. Barack Obama say government officials are obscuring
the actual number of wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars by leaving out of some public
documents troops who suffer non-combat injuries.

From the Pentagon Web site to press materials handed out at the opening of an amputee center
in Texas last week, the number of wounded in the wars often circulated publicly is around 23,000.

That number only accounts for those wounded in combat. When troops from those wars who were
wounded in other ways are counted, the number more than doubles, to about 53,000.

That latter number is not heavily circulated by the Pentagon. Recently, a Defense Department
official publicly criticized a researcher who used it and pressured another government agency
to change a public document to report the smaller number.

-snip-

Full article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/07/AR2007020700179.html

[Captain Hilts]

1. It should read "political appointees at the Pentagon are obscuring....." nt

[fed-up]

2. glad to see other papers picking up this story-"gov keeps two sets of books"

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/30/us/30wound.html
Agency Says Higher Casualty Total Was Posted in Error
By DENISE GRADY
Published: January 30, 2007

About 1.4 million troops have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and more than 205,000 have sought care from the veterans’ agency, according to the government. Of those, more than 73,000 sought treatment for mental problems like post-traumatic stress disorder.

No one disputes that more 50,000 troops have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan or that nonhostile injuries can be serious. Of the more than 3,000 deaths that have occurred, 600 have been listed as nonhostile.

The Pentagon generally directs reporters to www.defenselink.mil, which lists counts of the wounded and dead. The deaths are divided into hostile and nonhostile, but the injuries include just those “wounded in action.” Another site on the Web, http ://siadapp.dior.whs.mil/personnel /CASUALTY/castop.htm, shows diseases and nonhostile injuries. It is the source of the higher counts.

“The government keeps two sets of books,” said Paul Sullivan, director of research and analysis for Veterans of America. Until last March, Mr. Sullivan was a project manager in the Veterans Affairs Department who monitored the use of disability benefits by Afghanistan, gulf war and Iraq veterans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/02/us/02wounded.html
U.S. Reconfigures the Way Casualty Totals Are Given
By DENISE GRADY
Published: February 2, 2007

“If public affairs people at the V.A. misunderstood, we thought the public would misunderstand it, too,” Dr. Kilpatrick said.

Both Web sites were changed.

Paul Sullivan, director of research and analysis of Veterans for America, said the changes actually meant the Pentagon was trying to conceal the rising toll of injuries and illness.

Mr. Sullivan, formerly a project manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs,
also said that the department was not prepared to provide the health care that returning veterans would need for mental and physical disabilities.