Blog post

IAVA Daily Brief 08.10.09
Posted by Michelle McCarthy on August 10

Here are some of today's top stories and happenings at IAVA.  Prefer to receive real-time updates about major stories and legislation that IAVA is tracking?  Follow us on Twitter @iavapressroom.

MUST READS

1) Taliban Now Winning: U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Warns of Rising Casualties 

In a Wall Street Journal interview, Gen. Stanley McChrystal offers today a preview of the strategic assessment on Afghanistan that he is scheduled to deliver to the White House and Congress later this month.  Per McChrystal, the Taliban have gained the upper hand in Afghanistan forcing the U.S. to change its strategy in the eight-year-old conflict by increasing the number of troops in heavily populated areas like the volatile southern city of Kandahar, the insurgency's spiritual home.  In his assessment, recent troop shifts are designed to better protect Afghan civilians from rising levels of Taliban violence and intimidation as the Taliban move beyond their traditional strongholds in southern Afghanistan to threaten formerly stable areas in the north and west.  "It's a very aggressive enemy right now," McChrystal said in the interview Saturday at his office in a fortified NATO compound in Kabul. "We've got to stop their momentum, stop their initiative. It's hard work." In an effort to regain the upper hand, McChrystal said he will redeploy some troops currently in sparsely populated areas to areas with larger concentrations of Afghan civilians, while some of the 4,000 American troops still to arrive will be deployed to Kandahar.  Officials who have taken part in McChrystal's 60-day review of the war effort told the Journal they expect him to ultimately request as many as 10,000 more troops -- a request many observers say will be a tough sell at the White House, where several senior administration officials have said publicly that they want to hold off on sending more troops until the impact of the initial influx of 21,000 reinforcements can be gauged.  In addition, the assessment will call for boosting the Afghan army to 240,000 from 135,000 and the Afghan police to 160,000 from 82,000.  Currently, the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan is costing American taxpayers about $4 billion a month.  In a separate interview Sunday, National Security Adviser James Jones said the White House "won't rule anything out" in Afghanistan but the new strategy  is too fresh for a full evaluation.  "If things come up where we need to adjust one way or the other, and it involves troops or it involves more incentives ... for economic development or better assistance to help the Afghan government function, we'll do that," Jones added.

2) No criminal charges against KBR in soldier's electrocution death 

The Defense Department announced Friday that no criminal charges will be filed against military contractor KBR Inc. in connection with the electrocution of Green Beret Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, 24, who died while showering in his barracks in Iraq in January 2008.  In a statement, Defense investigators said there was "insufficient evidence to prove or disprove" that anyone was criminally culpable in his death.  Per the assessment, both contractors and government employees "breached their respective duties of care," but the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command determined that none of the breaches alone were "the proximate cause of his death." Army criminal investigators also concurred that the manner of death was accidental.  In 2008, Maseth's death was at first ruled an accident. But later, an Army investigator called Maseth's death a "negligent homicide," caused by Houston-based KBR and two of its supervisors, and said it had failed to ensure that "qualified electricians and plumbers" worked on the building where Maseth died, according to an internal document obtained by The Associated Press.  Maseth's mother, Cheryl Harris, said Friday the findings were heartbreaking and disappointing.  "According to the CID there were so many failures on KBR's part that they couldn't assign all of the blame to any one person and therefore told us they were not going to file charges, which tells me that the CID doesn't know or is ignorant to the evidence I do know exists," said Harris, who met with Army criminal investigators on Friday afternoon.  Two weeks ago, the Defense Department's inspector general said that Maseth died when he came in contact with an energized metal shower and hose caused by the failure of an ungrounded water pump located on the roof of the building installed by KBR. The IG said KBR did not ground equipment during installation or report improperly grounded equipment during routine maintenance, nor did it have standard operating procedures for inspections.  Maseth's family has an ongoing lawsuit against KBR though the contractor said in a statement Friday that it was pleased with the DoD's decision not to press charges.

3) Spokane VA Center Miscounted Suicides 

According to a report released late last week the Department of Veterans Affairs, the number of Spokane, Wash.-area veterans who killed themselves in a one-year period is far greater than the Spokane Veteran Affairs Medical Center knew at the time.  The VA's Office of Medical Investigations discovered that from July 2007 through the first week of July 2008, at least 22 veterans in the Spokane VA service area killed themselves, and 15 of them had contact with the medical center.  Previously, the Spokane VA had reported nine suicides and 34 attempted suicides in that time period.  "The methods and sources routinely being utilized by the medical center to identify veterans who have committed suicide may be inadequate," a report by the VA medical inspectors said.  The inspectors' report was released late last week by the Veterans Health Administration to Spokane resident Steve Senescall, after a year spent trying to find out more about the death of his son, Lucas Senescall. The young man's body was found hanging in his Spokane home a few hours after he sought psychiatric help at the Spokane VA.  Although the report was completed on Feb. 4, Senescall did not receive it until late Thursday, hours after The Spokesman-Review called VA headquarters and the office of U.S. Sen. Patty Murray with inquiries about the father's efforts to obtain the information.

4) Taliban awaits response on captured soldier 

In the first news of missing-captured Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl since July 18th, a militant commander who is holding the U.S. soldier said Sunday that Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s council is waiting for a response to its demands before deciding the American’s fate.  Maulvi Sangin, an insurgent commander for eastern Afghanistan, said the Taliban’s governing body was awaiting a response to demands it made to the U.S. for his return.  “The American’s fate is in the hand of (leadership), which is waiting until a response from the Americans to its demands,” Sangin told The Associated Press.  Sangin would not elaborate on the demands or say if any deadline had been given. However, a spokesman for Sangin had previously said the soldier would be killed unless the U.S. stops airstrikes in two areas of eastern Afghanistan.  Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a U.S. military spokeswoman in Kabul, would not comment on the status of Bergdahl’s case.  “We do not want to do anything that compromises his safety or efforts to recover him,” she said. “Recovery efforts remain one of the largest ongoing operations, and we are doing everything we can to get him back safely.”

5) EDITORIAL: In policing, too big a bump for military veterans 

In a Sunday editorial, the Boston Globe argued that military veterans in Massachusetts are receiving an outsized boost on the state Civil Service exam by only having to score a 70 to move to the top of the hire list.   - isn’t necessary for the most deserving veterans and serves to push out more suitable candidates.  Of the 269 officers who joined the Boston police since November 2006, the Globe calculates 43 were military veterans - but almost one-third of the 62-member class of May 2008 arrived with veterans preference. The surge, the publication notes, can be seen statewide. From 1986 to 1990, only about 3 percent of the candidates sitting for the Massachusetts police exam were veterans; however, from 2005 to 2008, that figure jumped to 14 percent.  "Giving veterans favorable treatment on police exams is a concrete way to honor those who made sacrifices for the country," the Globe writes. "But setting the Civil Service bar at a relaxed 70 isn’t in the best interest of the public, especially since 2004 - when the Army relaxed recruitment standards and increased the number of recruits scoring in the lowest acceptable range on service aptitude tests."  Citing the incidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and the recent suspension of Iraq veteran and Boston Officer Justin Barrett for a racist e-mail rant targeting Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., the editorial board suggests that providing a few extra points for veterans on the state Civil Service test, which is the practice for police promotional exams, would seem a smarter policy going forward.  Click here to read the editorial in its entirety.

AFGHANISTAN

On Sunday, White House National Security Adviser James Jones said the U.S. is 90 percent certain the Pakistani Taliban’s leader Baitullah Mehsud died in a U.S. air strike last week, and that there now is a leadership struggle within the terrorist group.  “Mehsud was a very bad individual, a real thug,” said Jones, who appeared on three Sunday talk shows.  “If there is dissension in the ranks and if in fact he is, as we think, dead, this is a positive indication that in Pakistan things are turning for the better."  Over the weekend, there were conflicting reports that a major fight had broken out between rival Taliban factions during a meeting, or shura, to select a replacement for Mehsud, and that one or two of the most likely contenders — Hakimullah and Waliur Rehman — had either been killed or wounded.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports today that fifty Afghans believed to be drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban  have been placed on a Pentagon target list to be captured or killed, reflecting a major shift in American counternarcotics strategy in Afghanistan.  According to a Congressional study to be released this week.  In interviews with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is scheduled to release a report on the matter this week, two American generals serving in Afghanistan said that major traffickers with proven links to the insurgency have been put on the “joint integrated prioritized target list.” Translation: They have been given the same target status as insurgent leaders, and can be captured or killed at any time.  Per the Times, U.S. military commanders have told Congress that they are convinced that the policy is legal under the military’s rules of engagement and international law, and that it is an essential part of their new plan to disrupt the flow of drug money that is helping finance the Taliban insurgency.

Separately, a joint report released over the weekend by the U.N. mission and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission cautioned that Insecurity in significant portions of Afghanistan has hindered election preparations and disproportionately affected Afghan women voters.  Per the report, insecurity has already hampered candidates’ ability to run for office and for election officials to prepare polling stations.  Violence has “severely limited freedom of movement and constrained freedom of expression for candidates and supporters, hampering their ability to campaign openly through public gatherings or door-to-door visits,” the joint report said.  “These restrictions have, in turn, created significant limitations on freedom of association and peaceful assembly, and amplified women’s difficulties in participating in the electoral process."  Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said three women provincial council candidates from Kandahar could not even live there because of security threats, and the report noted that only 39 percent of Afghans who registered for the election in 2008 or 2009 are women.  Amid rising violence, Afghans are scheduled to vote for president and provincial councils in a nationwide election Aug. 20, which the Taliban has vowed to disrupt.

IRAQ

At least 43 people were killed and hundreds were wounded early Monday morning when a series of truck bombings struck Baghdad and the village of Khazna outside Mosul.  According to local officials, Khazna is inhabited mainly by Shiite Shabaks, a small Kurdish-speaking minority that lives in northern Iraq; an estimated 30 homes were destroyed from two bombs, which were placed in trucks that had been parked overnight in the village.  In Baghdad, two other blasts were aimed at lines of workers who had gathered to look for jobs as day laborers, one in the El Amal district, the other in Shorta, both of which are Shiite areas.

On Sunday, the U.S. military confirmed 51 American troops in Iraq have been diagnosed with and treated for swine flu, while another 71 soldiers remain in isolation suspected of contracting the potentially deadly virus.  The figures were released as Iraqi health officials confirmed Sunday the country’s first swine flu death.  A woman in the southern holy Shiite city of Najaf died of the disease, raising fears about a possible outbreak among worshippers making pilgrimages to the revered sites.

MILITARY AFFAIRS

In an unusual gesture, Defense Secretary Robert Gates attended the Friday funeral of an Army corporal who died last month from wounds suffered in Afghanistan.  The visit was the second time the defense secretary has attended burial services for a fallen soldier, but is part of his effort "to stay connected to the troops on the ground and especially those who have lost their lives," according to Defense press secretary Geoff Morrell.  Friday's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in the US capital honored Benjamin Kopp, 21, an Army Ranger who died at Walter Reed Army Medical Center on July 18.  Kopp, of Rosemount, Minnesota, was wounded on July 10 when his unit came under small arms fire by insurgents in the southern Helmand province, the Defense Department said.  Gates writes personal notes to the families of soldiers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and asks his staff to provide photographs and local press clippings.

INSIDE WASHINGTON

On Friday, Senator Sherrod Brown  (D-OH), a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, introduced two initiatives to strengthen our nation's commitment to our veterans by improving education reimbursements and expanding employment protection for former service members. Brown's Veterans Education Tuition Support (VETS) Act of 2009 would foster new educational support for service members whose higher education is suspended due to service. In addition, Brown's Wounded Veteran Job Security Act would improve employment protections for veterans in their civilian careers.  The VETS Act would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to enable students to gain tuition reimbursement for the college or university term they withdrew from in order to serve. The Act will apply to all active duty military members, the National Guard and reservists enrolled in higher education institutions. Brown worked closely with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) in developing this legislation, of which a companion bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA).  "IAVA applauds Senator Sherrod Brown for reintroducing the Veterans Education Tuition Support Act," said IAVA Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff said. "No student service member should be punished for answering the call to service.  The VETS bill will ensure that National Guard and Reservists attending school are not left footing their education bills while deployed."

CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE

THE SENATE

The Senate will convene at 9:30 a.m.

FUTURE COMMITTEE HEARINGS of INTEREST

August 28, 2009 - SVAC will conduct a field hearing on the state of VA’s services on Maui, to include an OIG report of the same.  10:00 a.m.; Maui Cultural Center (Vasquez)

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

The House is on recess until September 8^th.

IAVA IN THE NEWS

Outlet: Air America's Ring of Fire 

Title: Helping Vets Navigate New GI Bill

Date: Friday, August 7th

Representative: Paul Rieckhoff

Outlet: Daily News

Title: Real GIs catch and review "GI Joe: Rise of Cobra"

Date: Saturday, August 8^th

Representative: IAVA Member Veteran Don Gomez

Outlet: Asian Tribune

Title: Sri Lanka Provides Housing for War Veterans while U.S. leaves them homeless 

Date: Friday, August 7th

Representative: IAVA, Paul Rieckhoff

WHAT THE BLOGS ARE SAYING

Blog: Bay Newser

Title: Craig Newmark Clarifies that Marines are In Fact Allowed to Poke Each Other on Facebook 

Date: Friday, August 7th

Representative: IAVA Board Member Craig Newmark

Blog: Al-Ghaniyy.com

Title: Paul Rieckhoff on the “Medicated Military” 

Date: Sunday, August 9th

Representative: Paul Rieckhoff

A wide-range of views, positions, and publications are represented in these articles.  These views, positions and publications are not endorsed by nor do they necessarily represent the views of IAVA.