International Herald Tribune Editorial - Warriors in Washington

International Herald Tribune Editorial - Warriors in Washington
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: April 8, 2007


The House has acted swiftly to deal with some of the shameful conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were discovered foundering in slum-like billets and bureaucratic neglect as outpatients. A measure creating a stronger system of case managers, counselors and advocates for the wounded received unanimous approval from lawmakers.

But so far there has been no comparable action in the Senate. There can be no higher home-front priority.

The House bill is a good start, particularly in its mandate to end the bureaucratic divisions between the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs in managing the wars' 25,000-plus wounded troops. The chaotic way that medical records are transferred from one to the other, for instance, is unconscionable.

A presidential study commission is to report by midsummer on what is wrong with the armed forces' medical care system. But the Senate should not wait to act on some of the obvious shortcomings already begging for repair, particularly with the flow of wounded troops continuing unabated from the battlefields.

Purging the chain of command of two generals and the army secretary was a bromide solution compared with the visceral needs of those suffering the traumas of war.