NYT: "Fundamental Responsibility Rests With Bush & Rumsfeld Who Tried To Hide Costs Of Mistakes"

[kpete]

Editorial
The Wider Shame of Walter Reed
Published: March 7, 2007

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But the fundamental responsibility rests with the president and his former defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who stubbornly insisted on going to war without sufficient resources — and then sought to hide the costs of their disastrous mistakes from the American public.

Is it any surprise that the war’s wounded have been hidden away in the shadows of moldy buildings by an administration that refused to let photographers take pictures of returning coffins? Or a White House that keeps claiming that victory in this failed and ever more costly war is always just a few more months away?

The Walter Reed revelations once again put the lie to the president’s claim that everything is being done to support America’s troops. Just as the administration has been shockingly slow to provide the necessary body armor for troops in Iraq and notably complacent about rotating exhausted troops back into the war, so, too, has it been reluctant to confront the large casualty toll from Iraq and Afghanistan. Military doctors have been amazingly proficient about saving lives that would have been lost in earlier wars. But as we now know, the injured survivors too often fall through the cracks.

The new commission’s investigation, supplemented by the military’s own inquiries and by oversight hearings in Congress, must explore all aspects of this scandal. The revelations have flushed out disturbing complaints about shoddy treatment throughout the military and the veterans’ medical system and about a hostile process for determining disability benefits. None of this can be tolerated. The soldiers who have sacrificed their health and limbs to a misguided and mismanaged war deserve the best possible care when they return — for a lifetime, if necessary. And the president needs to learn that the horrors of this war can no longer be denied or hidden away.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/07/opinion/07weds2.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

[rodeodance]

1. Wonderful. Thanks NYTimes:-)

[rodeodance]

2. REC