"Mistakes
Accomplished" by President Bush - Failing our Veterans
April
20, 2004
The
SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from
Illinois (Ms.
Schakowsky ) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms.
SCHAKOWSKY . Mr. Speaker, in the last press conference, the President was
asked if he had made any mistakes and what lessons had he learned. And what the
President said was, I wish you had given me this written question ahead of time
so I could plan for it. I am sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he
could have done it better this way or that way. I am just not sure something
will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference with all the
pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it has not yet.
So
kind of as a public service, a number of us are coming down to the floor to
offer, for the President's consideration, a list of some mistakes that he might
want to call up so he does not have to fumble around for an answer at the next
press conference, if he has another public press conference.
One of
the things that actually is surprising to me that this
mistake happened at all, given what we know now, is the long lead-up to
the war in Iraq, that they actually had been planning, and bases were being
built, and air space to land was being constructed, was a failure to provide the
troops with the protection they needed when they were put into harm's way. It
surprises me that that
mistake was made.
In
some cases mistakes have been somewhat corrected, we think; so it would not even
hurt the President to mention the fact that as recently as last October, a
quarter of our troops in Iraq were lacking in the ceramic-plated body armor that
would deflect the bullets that were coming their way. We are told that that has
been corrected, although as recently as just a few weeks ago, families are still
buying those at about $1,500 a crack for their soldiers just to make sure that
they are well equipped. But we know that still the Humvees do not have the
proper armor, some of them still do not have the proper armor. A helicopter was
shot down that did not have the missile detector that helicopters are supposed
to have in order to be fully equipped.
[Time: 13:45]
I met
the aunt of one of the soldiers who died in that last Sunday. She would think
that that was a
mistake that the President made and something he might want to mention.
He
could have talked about a
mistake making soldiers pay for their travel home when they would come on
rest and recreation, R&R. In order to get to their homes once they were landed
in the U.S., they were paying their own way. That, I understand,
has been corrected.
Or we
just heard yesterday from the 333rd Military Police Unit in
Freeport that was supposed to be coming home this week, that in fact they got
redeployed; but all their equipment, their personal foot lockers, had been sent
home, and now the families, at their own expense, are shipping the equipment
back to their soldiers. They are having to buy all new uniforms. It seems that
was a
mistake in planning, according to some of the families. Maybe they could
have planned better. That is a
mistake , and it could be corrected somewhat, at least to reimburse the
families that are having to ship back.
But it
is not just those soldiers that are in harm's way, who are losing their lives
now, unfortunately, sadly, horribly, in record numbers in the last little while;
but it is the
veterans . Again, it is astonishing that this President would not make
sure that at the very least those who come home are well taken care of.
There
was a
mistake , and it has been corrected. He could cite that. Our wounded
soldiers were being charged for food at the hospitals when they came home.
Incredible. Now that has been fixed; they are not being charged for that food.
But many were languishing with inadequate care in Army barracks when they came
home.
Then,
right now, this minute, 30,000
veterans are waiting 6 months or longer for appointments at VA hospitals,
new increases are proposed in the cost of
veterans health care for up to 1 million
veterans , and long-term care funding has been slashed. It is really
incredible.
What
the
veterans organizations are saying is that actually the amount of money
allocated to
veterans is millions of dollars short of what it needs to be. The
gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Edwards) actually has a proposal that would add $2.5 billion for
veterans health care. The President could acknowledge that it is a
mistake to mistreat our
veterans , and he could support the bill of the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Edwards) to restore that
money.
He
could do something about the fact that he has been refusing to end the survivor
benefit penalty. There are a lot of things, a lot of mistakes. We think the
President ought to acknowledge some of them and fix them up.
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