It has since come out that two soldiers were nearly killed two weeks before in an electrical fire in a nearby building to that Maseth was electrocuted in. Other reports have also come to light. One Army study found that in a single 6 month period from August 2006 to January 2007, there were some 283 electrical fires in Iraq which destroyed or damaged buildings, including the Army’s largest mess hall in the country. A February 2007 survey listed electrical problems as the single most important non-combat hazard in Iraq. Put simply, politically connected contractors like KBR put the lives of American soldiers in danger, escape blame or close scrutiny, and continue to be paid and win new contracts despite a long and deplorable history of shoddy work.

Following the posting of a $50,000 reward by Montgomery County, the laptop was recovered on June 28, 2006. Apparently, it had been resold on the street and when the new owner compared serial numbers and found out about the reward, it was quickly returned. On August 5, 2006, two 19 year olds were arrested for the theft. They said they did not know it contained the VA data until they read about it in the newspapers.

The cost of the theft? Various lawsuits by veterans. $25 million for the VA to set up a call center and send alerts to veterans about the theft and its potential risks. A request by Bush for an extra $160.5 million for free credit monitoring for veterans. And the cost to avoid this mess? Nothing but a little common sense.

Oh and then it happened again. On August 3, 2006, a VA contractor Unisys reported a computer had gone missing from its offices in Reston, Virginia. It contained information on up to 38,000 veterans treated in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. According to the VA, the information included patients’ names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, insurance carriers and billing information, dates of military service, and claims data that may include some medical information.

On August 14, 2006, VA head James Nicholson announced that all VA computers would receive encryption upgrades effective immediately.

You would think they would learn. On February 23, 2008 a laptop from the National Institutes of Health was stolen. It contained 7 years of clinical trial data on 2,500 patients, including names, birthdates, and medical reports. The data were not encrypted as they should have been. Acting responsibly, the appropriate review board was quickly notified on February 29, 2008 and it was immediately put on the agenda of the next meeting scheduled for March 4, 2008. Working at breakneck speed, the review board had a draft letter to patients ready by March 18. It took only two more days for board members to give it their final approval, nearly a month after the original theft. This is not so much closing the barndoor after the horse has bolted but more like doing it after the horse has died of old age. Government officials simply do not take the private information of American citizens seriously.

In the period 2001-2007, the military discharged 22,500 service people from the armed forces for a “pre-existing” personality disorder. Those who were so discharged lost healthcare and disability benefits and in some cases were forced to repay re-enlistment bonuses. In fact, many of them were suffering from problems they acquired during their service, such as PTSD and traumatic brain injury.

A study* in the November 14, 2007 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) compared a health questionnaire given to service people immediately after leaving Iraq and again at a median of 6 months later. 88,235 Army soldiers were found to have responded to both questionnaires in the time period between June 1, 2005 and December 31, 2006. The cohort obtained contained both active duty and National Guard and Reserve. Marines were not included because few had completed both questionnaires. Both active duty and reserve soldiers reported similar rates of traumatic combat experiences (69.6% vs 66.5%). Based on the two questionnaires, clinicians identified 20.3% of active duty and 42.4% of reserve/National Guard who required mental health treatment. Increasing problems between the two questionnaires included:

• Intrapersonal conflicts: active duty 3.5% to 14.0% and reserves 4.2% to 21.1%
• PTSD: active duty 11.8% to 16.7% and reserves 12.7% to 24.5%
• Depression: active duty 4.7% to 10.3% and reserves 3.8% to 13.0% Overall mental health risk: active duty 17.0% to 27.1% and reserves 17.5% to 35.5%

Of those who reported a high rate of PTSD symptoms on the first questionnaire 59.2% of active duty and 49.4% of reserves reported improvement by the second questionnaire. However, twice as many new cases of PTSD showed up on the second questionnaire.

While the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans recite endlessly the mantra of supporting the troops, the reality is that beyond using them in their wars they have no interest in them.

As a March 2007 story in Salon relates, women in the military in Iraq also faced physical and psychological injury from rape and sexual assault by fellow soldiers.

A March 2008 Army study based on 2,295 anonymous surveys completed in October/November 2007 of NCOs (sergeants also known as the backbone of the Army) on their third and fourth tours in Iraq found that 27.2% of them reported mental health problems. 11.9% reported such problems after a first deployment and 18.5% after a second one. Soldiers also reported significant problems with relationships, morale, and effectiveness.

A RAND study “Invisible Wounds of War” released April 17, 2008 estimated that 300,000 of the 1.64 million US military personnel who have served tours in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or major depression. Based on a survey of 1,965 of these from 24 communities, only 53% had sought medical help in the last year. About half of those that did received minimally adequate care. This represents a grossly underserved population and a costly long term public health problem. Additionally, the report found 320,000 troops have experienced a probable traumatic brain injury during their deployments with as yet unknown health consequences.

An April 21, 2008 CBS story uncovered a February 13, 2008 email by Dr. Ira Katz the VA’s head of mental health entitled “Not for the CBS News Interview Request.” It read “Shhh! Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying 1,000 suicide attempts per month among veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?” Katz wrote his email a few days after the VA had given CBS data showing that there had only been 790 suicide attempts in all of 2007. Katz had previously criticized a November 2007 CBS story (see above) which had suggested that the VA faced an epidemic of suicide. In the story, CBS estimated some 6,200 suicides in 2005. Yet in a December 13, 2007 email Katz stated that the VA was seeing 18 suicides a day in its facilities or 6,570 a year, in keeping with the CBS numbers. The VA appears more interested in avoiding its own embarrassment than in seriously addressing what is an acute healthcare problem.

A March 2008 study by the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team based on anonymous questionnaires (so likely underreporting the numbers) found 12% of combat troops in Iraq and 17% in Afghanistan were on either an anti-depressant or a sleeping pill. The split was about 50-50 between the two medications.

In a March 20, 2008 email obtained through a FOIA request by CREW and VoteVets.org and released May 15, 2008, Norma Perez, a psychologist in a PTSD program at the VA hospital in Temple, Texas wrote

Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I’d like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder, R/O [Rule out] PTSD.

Additionally, we really don’t or have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD.

Also, there have been some incidence where the veteran has a C & P [Compensation and Pension exam], is not given a diagnosis of PTSD, then the veteran comes here and we give the diagnosis, and the veteran appeals his case based on our assessment.

This is just a suggestion for the reasons listed above.

In testimony on June 3, 2008 before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Perez said her “suggestion” was meant “unequivocally to improve the quality of care our veterans received.” As the email makes clear, however, Perez’s concern was not with care (which the email does not address) but with reducing the number of PTSD diagnoses and compensation claims associated with them.

*Milliken, Charles, Auchterlonie, Jennifer, and Hoge, Charles. Longitudinal assessment of mental health problems among active and reserve component soldiers returning from the Iraq War. JAMA. (November 14, 2007) pp. 2141-2148.