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| 5/23 |
| 2007/3/2-3 [Politics/Domestic/911, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:45859 Activity:moderate |
3/2 Returning Honor and Dignity to The White House:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070302/pl_nm/bush_veterans_dc_5
\_ but.. but... privatization fixes everything! invisible hand!
invisible hand!
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2gan3z (cnn.com)
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/03/months-before-media-reports-memo.html
\_ Goddamn unions...
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33462&ref=rellink
\_ I will not be mocked. --The Invisible Hand |
| 5/23 |
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| news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070302/pl_nm/bush_veterans_dc_5 Pentagon overseeing the army, was announced a day after the head of the Walter Reed Medical Center hospital was fired. Gates said problems at the Washington hospital were due to leadership. "I am disappointed that some in the Army have not adequately appreciated the seriousness of the situation pertaining to outpatient care at Walter Reed," Gates said. "Some have shown too much defensiveness and have not shown enough focus on digging into and addressing the problems." Gates said a new permanent chief of the medical center would be announced later on Friday. The Bush administration has put Army surgeon-general Lt. Kevin Kiley, a former commander of Walter Reed, in temporary charge but that decision was criticized by some who noted Kiley had been accused of ignoring earlier complaints about outpatient care. Problems at an adjunct building of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington were brought to light by a Washington Post investigation published last month. It found that recuperating soldiers were living in a dilapidated building infested with mice, mold and cockroaches. President George W Bush and defense officials have repeatedly visited the wounded in the hospital to show their concern for those who served in battle. Bush, scrambling to respond to the outcry over shoddy health care and the complex bureaucracy facing US soldiers, said he would name a bipartisan panel to review medical care for military veterans. "This is unacceptable to me, it is unacceptable to our country and it's not going to continue," Bush said in his weekly radio address, taped on Friday and released ahead of its usual Saturday morning delivery. Bush, who learned of the problems by reading the newspaper, said he was deeply troubled by the reports. He said while most of the people working at the hospital are dedicated professionals, "some of our troops at Walter Reed have experienced bureaucratic delays and living conditions that are less than they deserve." Members of the presidential commission are to be announced in coming days and will be given a deadline to report back. They will conduct a comprehensive review of the care that the US government is providing the wounded. The White House said the bipartisan panel's review would be separate from a similar investigation ordered by the Pentagon. More than 10,000 US troops in the Iraq war and more than 600 involved in the Afghan conflict have been wounded so seriously they were unable to return to duty within 72 hours, according to Pentagon statistics. Francis J Harvey delivers the keynote address at the opening ceremony of the Association of the United States Army convention in Washington, in this October 9, 2006 file photo. Harvey has resigned after reports that troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were being poorly treated at the Army's top hospital, Walter Reed Medical Center, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on March 2, 2007. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. |
| preview.tinyurl.com/2gan3z -> www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/03/months-before-media-reports-memo.html CNN Exchange Friday, March 02, 2007 Months before media reports, memo warned Walter Reed 'at risk of mission failure' A former hotel that is part of Walter Reed Army Medical Center reported to be in serious disrepair. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly five months before media reports detailed abysmal conditions in parts of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, an internal memo from the commanding officer expressed concern that care provided there was suffering because of the Army's decision to privatize support services. A September 2006 memo was signed by a deputy to the medical center's commander, Maj Gen. George Weightman, and was sent to the Army's Medical Command. A copy was obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It describes in detail concerns about the loss of "highly skilled and experienced personnel" at Walter Reed and the center's increased workload. It concludes that "WRAMC Base Operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure." Tierney also suggested that the decision to hire IAP, despite the company's higher bid for the five-year, $120 million contract, could have been "ideologically driven" -- IAP's CEO is a former Halliburton employee. Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-California, sent a letter to Weightman on Friday asking him to explain the 2006 memo at Monday's hearing. It also sent a subpoena requesting him to appear, a step made necessary because Weightman was relieved of his command of Walter Reed on Thursday and, Tierney said, the committee was notified by the Army that it would no longer make Weightman available even though he briefed committee staff earlier this week. Waxman's letter to Weightman stated that the committee discovered that prior to awarding IAP the contract for support services at Walter Reed there were 300 federal employees working there. Yet instead of hiring additional personnel, IAP apparently replaced the remaining 60 federal employees with only 50 IAP personnel," the letter says. Waxman also notes in the letter that "IAP is one of the companies that experienced problems delivering ice during the response to Hurricane Katrina." com Blogs SUBSCRIBE CNN Comment Policy: CNN encourages you to add a comment to this discussion. You may not post any unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material that would violate the law. Please note that CNN makes reasonable efforts to review all comments prior to posting and CNN may edit comments for clarity or to keep out questionable or off-topic material. All comments should be relevant to the post and remain respectful of other authors and commenters. By submitting your comment, you hereby give CNN the right, but not the obligation, to post, air, edit, exhibit, telecast, cablecast, webcast, re-use, publish, reproduce, use, license, print, distribute or otherwise use your comment and accompanying personal identifying information via all forms of media now known or hereafter devised, worldwide, in perpetuity. |
| www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/03/months-before-media-reports-memo.html CNN Exchange Friday, March 02, 2007 Months before media reports, memo warned Walter Reed 'at risk of mission failure' A former hotel that is part of Walter Reed Army Medical Center reported to be in serious disrepair. WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly five months before media reports detailed abysmal conditions in parts of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, an internal memo from the commanding officer expressed concern that care provided there was suffering because of the Army's decision to privatize support services. A September 2006 memo was signed by a deputy to the medical center's commander, Maj Gen. George Weightman, and was sent to the Army's Medical Command. A copy was obtained by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. It describes in detail concerns about the loss of "highly skilled and experienced personnel" at Walter Reed and the center's increased workload. It concludes that "WRAMC Base Operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure." Tierney also suggested that the decision to hire IAP, despite the company's higher bid for the five-year, $120 million contract, could have been "ideologically driven" -- IAP's CEO is a former Halliburton employee. Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-California, sent a letter to Weightman on Friday asking him to explain the 2006 memo at Monday's hearing. It also sent a subpoena requesting him to appear, a step made necessary because Weightman was relieved of his command of Walter Reed on Thursday and, Tierney said, the committee was notified by the Army that it would no longer make Weightman available even though he briefed committee staff earlier this week. Waxman's letter to Weightman stated that the committee discovered that prior to awarding IAP the contract for support services at Walter Reed there were 300 federal employees working there. Yet instead of hiring additional personnel, IAP apparently replaced the remaining 60 federal employees with only 50 IAP personnel," the letter says. Waxman also notes in the letter that "IAP is one of the companies that experienced problems delivering ice during the response to Hurricane Katrina." com Blogs SUBSCRIBE CNN Comment Policy: CNN encourages you to add a comment to this discussion. You may not post any unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic or other material that would violate the law. Please note that CNN makes reasonable efforts to review all comments prior to posting and CNN may edit comments for clarity or to keep out questionable or off-topic material. All comments should be relevant to the post and remain respectful of other authors and commenters. By submitting your comment, you hereby give CNN the right, but not the obligation, to post, air, edit, exhibit, telecast, cablecast, webcast, re-use, publish, reproduce, use, license, print, distribute or otherwise use your comment and accompanying personal identifying information via all forms of media now known or hereafter devised, worldwide, in perpetuity. |
| www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=33462&ref=rellink com The Government Accountability Office earlier this week dismissed a protest filed on behalf of employees at the Army's Walter Reed Medical Center, ruling that the employee group had no standing to challenge the outcome of a public-private job competition initiated prior to January 2005. decision, announced on Wednesday, concluded that Alan King, Walter Reed's deputy garrison commander, was not an "interested party" with standing to pursue the protest on behalf of the federal employee group bidding in the competition. The dismissal means that GAO will not consider King's challenge of a contest for base operations support services at Walter Reed. King's protest, filed on behalf of the employee group that bid to perform the work as a "most efficient organization," claimed that he had standing to represent the group before GAO as the "functional and legal equivalent" of an agency tender official. The ATO is authorized to represent federal employees in internal agency appeals under 2003 revisions to Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76 rules governing public-private competitions. The previous version of A-76 rules, under which the solicitation was issued, does not recognize appeal rights for in-house employee teams; neither version of the rulebook addresses GAO appeal rights. In dismissing the protest, GAO General Counsel Anthony Gamboa concluded that it was not A-76 rules, but the 1984 Competition in Contracting Act, that permits officials representing in-house teams to file protests with GAO. was amended in 2004 to allow such protests from ATOs, effective with A-76 studies initiated after Jan. King's protest, therefore, was not covered under the amendment and could not be considered. The American Federation of Government Employees, which provided funding to back the protest, said the impetus to appeal came from Walter Reed managers who were disappointed to see how the competition process played out. While the initial employee bid was $7 million less than that of IAP Worldwide Services, a mid-stream solicitation change resulted in a recalculation of the bids by all parties and in IAP's bid coming in $7 million lower, said John Threlkeld, a lobbyist for AFGE. Threlkeld said the process for recalculating the employee bid was flawed, resulting in the inflation of the estimate that rendered it uncompetitive with IAP's bid. In addition to challenging the validity of the cost recalculation process, the employee group argued that the competition lasted longer than is allowed, and should be canceled. The fiscal 2006 Defense appropriations act, like previous appropriations acts, stipulates that an A-76 competition should last no more than 30 months. Because the appeals route has been closed, the union will lobby Congress to see if the award can be canceled and the competition started again from scratch if judged necessary, Threlkeld said. IAP did not respond to questions about the protest in time for publication, but a press release announcing the January award decision on the company's Web site quotes Chief Executive Officer Al Neffgen as saying, "IAP is pleased to continue its relationship with the US Army and provide critical support services at the nation's pre-eminent Army medical center." The entire five-year contract is valued at more than $120 million, according to the IAP press release, and includes support and environmental services, transportation functions, community activities, information management, logistics and public works. |
| cnn.com -> www.cnn.com/ About 250 prisoners freed from Abu Ghraib The United States today freed about 250 detainees from Abu Ghraib prison, site of alleged abuses that prompted global outrage and led to days of hearings on Capitol Hill. Today marks the first mass prisoner release since the abuse scandal broke several weeks ago. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had visited the prison Thursday. |