Thursday, March 01, 2007

Walter Reed commander is fired

This is all over the news wires--Yahoo, MSNBC, ABC News, and even The Washington Post. But we're going to start off with CNN here:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The top general at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was fired Thursday, the military announced, following revelations of poor conditions in the building where troops who were wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq are treated.

Maj. Gen. George Weightman's firing was the first major military staff change after reports surfaced last month about substandard conditions in a building that is part of the facility.

Army Secretary Francis Harvey, who removed Weightman from his post according to an Army statement, had blamed a failure of leadership for the conditions, which were first reported by The Washington Post.

According to the Army statement, "Maj. Gen. Weightman was informed this morning that the senior Army leadership had lost trust and confidence in the commander's leadership abilities to address needed solutions for soldier-outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center."

Well, since the Walter Reed scandal was growing, the Army needed to punish those who were responsible for causing this scandal. Right?

Well, not exactly. First, let's go to the ABC News site on this story:

Weightman was head of Walter Reed for only about six months. He came to the hospital in late August, after serving as commander of the U.S. Army Medical Department Center and School at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

Weightman was only at Walter Reed for six months. Now, let's look at the succession of commanders at Walter Reed for the past three years. According to the March 1, 2007 WaPost story titled Hospital Officials Knew of Neglect:

A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.

[....]

Kiley, his successive commanders at Walter Reed and various top noncommissioned officers in charge of soldiers' lives have heard a stream of complaints about outpatient treatment over the past several years. The complaints have surfaced at town hall meetings for staff and soldiers, at commanders' "sensing sessions" in which soldiers or officers are encouraged to speak freely, and in several inspector general's reports detailing building conditions, safety issues and other matters.

Retired Maj. Gen. Kenneth L. Farmer Jr., who commanded Walter Reed for two years until last August, said that he was aware of outpatient problems and that there were "ongoing reviews and discussions" about how to fix them when he left. He said he shared many of those issues with Kiley, his immediate commander. Last summer when he turned over command to Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman, Farmer said, "there were a variety of things we identified as opportunities for continued improvement."

So before Weightman took command of Walter Reed, there was General Ken Farmer--who is now retired from service. And before Farmer, there was Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who commanded Walter Reed. And Kiley is now the Army's top medical commander. Does this mean that Weightman didn't know about the conditions at Walter Reed? No, Weightman knew there were problems there, and was probably trying to fix them. Weightman should be held responsible for the problems at Walter Reed that took place under his six months of command. But what is really happening here is that Weightman is being blamed for the three years worth of deplorable conditions of this Walter Reed scandal--conditions that occurred even before Weightman took command of Walter Reed. In other words, Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman has become the scapegoat to blame this entire Walter Reed scandal on, thus allowing the Pentagon, the Bush administration, and even Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley to wash their hands of this scandal.

But this story is not over yet. According to the CNN story on Weightman's firing:

"The commanding general of U.S. Army Medical Command, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, will be acting temporarily as Walter Reed commander until a general officer is selected for this important leadership position," the [Army] statement said.

So Lt. General Kevin Kiley will go back to Walter Reed and act as an interim commander before a replacement can be selected. Yes, it is the same General Kiley who knew of the conditions there, as the WaPost reported:

Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, said he ran into Kiley in the foyer of the command headquarters at Walter Reed shortly after the Iraq war began and told him that "there are people in the barracks who are drinking themselves to death and people who are sharing drugs and people not getting the care they need."

"I met guys who weren't going to appointments because the hospital didn't even know they were there," Robinson said. Kiley told him to speak to a sergeant major, a top enlisted officer.

[....]

Kiley lives across the street from Building 18. From his quarters, he can see the scrappy building and busy traffic the soldiers must cross to get to the 113-acre post. At a news conference last week, Kiley, who declined several requests for interviews for this article, said that the problems of Building 18 "weren't serious and there weren't a lot of them." He also said they were not "emblematic of a process of Walter Reed that has abandoned soldiers and their families."

[....]

In 2004, Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) and his wife stopped visiting the wounded at Walter Reed out of frustration. Young said he voiced concerns to commanders over troubling incidents he witnessed but was rebuffed or ignored. "When Bev or I would bring problems to the attention of authorities of Walter Reed, we were made to feel very uncomfortable," said Young, who began visiting the wounded recuperating at other facilities.

Beverly Young said she complained to Kiley several times. She once visited a soldier who was lying in urine on his mattress pad in the hospital. When a nurse ignored her, Young said, "I went flying down to Kevin Kiley's office again, and got nowhere. He has skirted this stuff for five years and blamed everyone else."

Young said that even after Kiley left Walter Reed to become the Army's surgeon general, "if anything could have been done to correct problems, he could have done it."

[....]

On Feb. 17, 2005, Kiley sat in a congressional hearing room as Sgt. 1st Class John Allen, injured in Afghanistan in 2002, described what he called a "dysfunctional system" at Walter Reed in which "soldiers go months without pay, nowhere to live, their medical appointments canceled." Allen added: "The result is a massive stress and mental pain causing further harm. It would be very easy to correct the situation if the command element climate supported it. The command staff at Walter Reed needs to show their care."

I don't see Lt. General Kevin Kiley being fired for his incompetence and lack of leadership while he was commanding Walter Reed--Kiley gets to go back to Walter Reed as the interim commander. If anyone should be fired for the Walter Reed scandal, it should be Lt. General Kevin Kiley. But Kiley got out of Walter Reed long before the WaPost story was even started. Kiley got promoted for being a good little soldier-boy. Weightman was a bad little soldier-boy. Weightman allowed those evil WaPost reporters to gain access to Walter Reed, to interview the veterans there, and publicize his scandal on the front pages of the Post, thus providing ammunition to those evil Democratic congresscritters and their congressional hearings into the Army, the Pentagon, and even the Bush administration. Weightman was a bad little soldier-boy because he has allowed investigation and oversight into this problem, rather than keeping it a dirty little military secret.

And the PR-game to blame goes around, and around, and around.

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