An Outrage: V.A. Official Who Covered Up Veterans' Suicides Won't Lose Job

A week of hearings in Washington on the alarming spike in suicides among veterans of the Iraq war, and an official cover-up of the numbers, has ended with both the Veterans Affairs chief and the V.A. mental health director whose advice on the matter was "Shh," still holding their jobs.

Meanwhile, the returning soldiers "are dropping like flies." That's how one soldier characterized the spike in suicides among servicemen coming home from war, according to Greg Dobbs, who is completing a documentary on PTSD for HDNet and wrote an op-ed today for the Rocky Mountain News of Denver.

Dr. Ira Katz, the mental health official who ordered "Shh!" on revelations of the alarming number of suicides among U.S. veterans, won't lose his job over it, his boss told Congress. The poor fellow, like all of us from time to time, just wrote without thinking in an e-mail, V.A. Secretary James Peake testified.

Katz agreed that it was just a bad choice of words when he sent his colleagues an e-mail about suicide data that started out with "Shh!" in the subject line. The e-mail (which I covered in-depth last week) went on to admit that 12,000 veterans a year attempt suicide while under department treatment -- but this number should be kept from CBS News, which was studying the issue. "Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" the e-mail asked.

Dr. Katz told the House Veterans Affairs Committee that the e-mail had a poor tone -- even though the body contained "appropriate, healthy dialogue" about the data. "I deeply regret the subject line," Katz said. "It was an error and I apologize for that."

After the hearing, Peake told reporters he did not plan to fire Katz or other officials over the e-mails. He said everyone has sent an embarrassing e-mail at some point. "It truly was an unfortunate set of words," Peake said. Peake said the reason the data discussed in the e-mail about the number of suicide attempts was not released was because of concerns about its accuracy.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said President Bush has "full confidence in Secretary Peake and believes that he is handling it appropriately."

The committee's chairman, Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) accused Katz of being more concerned about how data was interpreted than the health of veterans. He also said Katz -- as well as others involved -- should be fired. He accused the agency of criminal negligence in the handling of data about the number of veterans who have committed suicide, and of having a history of cover-ups.

Dobbs, in his op-ed today, reveals that in his HDNet documentary he interviewed one young infantryman who went to Iraq from Fort Carson, and had seen friends blown up and himself crushed by "survivor's guilt." He "came home diagnosed with PTSD. But when I asked him to describe his treatment, he laughed and said, 'Didn't exist.' Even when he got 'mental health' appointments, his line commanders made him work so he'd miss them. Eventually, he took a kitchen knife and cut his wrists. He was saved, but six hours after being released from the psych ward, he was sent back to his unit to train for redeployment to Iraq.

"A Marine out of Camp Pendleton told us he came back with PTSD and was put on overnight guard duty - armed. He called his mother one night with a gun in his mouth, telling her he had killed so many innocent Iraqis, he didn't deserve to live. She kept him on the phone, praying neither battery would die, as she drove six hours to save him."

Greg Mitchell's new book has several chapters on the suicide issue. It is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits -- and the President -- Fails on Iraq. It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and a foreword by Joe Galloway.

Comments

[CocteausTwin]

"It truly was an unfortunate set of words?"

More like a sad and unpatriotic mindset.

Thank you Mr. Mitchell for your excellent, revealing work and article.

Will anyone in the Bush administration ever suffer any consequences for what they have wrought?

[GiggidyGeshmoygen]

The poor fellow, like all of us from time to time, just wrote without thinking in an e-mail, V.A. Secretary James Peake testified.

After the hearing, Peake told reporters he did not plan to fire Katz or other officials over the e-mails. He said everyone has sent an embarrassing e-mail at some point. "It truly was an unfortunate set of words," Peake said.

==========­==========­==========

so it was "just an unfortunate set of words." ???

THAT'S IT ??????????????

I CALL IT INHUMANE & CRIMINAL NEGLECT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[LiberTLover]

I am sitting here in tears. I wish I could sit with each of those victims and hold them and tell them it was not their fault. They were put in an untenable and horrendous situation by men who didn't care about them, who cared only about their reputations and enriching themselves and their friends. To all of those families who lost their loved ones in Iraq and back at home, I am so very sorry. Words fail me in trying to say how much my heart aches for you.
I always thought it disrespectful that flag draped coffins of fallen heroes could not be shown so that they could be remembered and stay in our thoughts. These poor men and women were sent to hell and then blamed themselves because they were decent people,(unlike those that sent them) brutally overwhelmed by horror and death. First they got no help, and then their deaths were hidden away to protect those who were complicit in them.
There are no excuses that are good enough, and the American people must ensure that those responsible are held accountable. Clearly it will not happen with this President so it must be the next one. They cannot get away with this. Not this time, and never ever again.

[TakeSake]

It's healthiest for them to stay within the military system and to not return to general society. It's best that they keep their experiences locked inside, where nobody else will know. It's safest for them to work things out alone, without friends or family helping with it.

For the administration.

However, when they come home their experiences and situations will become known, one at a time, until their individual stories converge so that the general patterns can be clearly seen. The stories of the soldiers are kept quiet in the same way that photographs of the flag-draped coffins are kept out of view - to restrict, as much as possible, any sense that there are costs or suffering associated with the war.

[desthmoneses]

And to think you guys called me every name in the book, when I said the troops felt guilty about their deeds in Iraq.

[newshawk14]

I for one would not have, killing other human beings, carries a psychic price unless you're a
sociopath or psychopath. My father, and all my uncles took part in WWII, and were quite
reluctant to talk about it.

[kawika]

Remembrances of smells and actions remain with you for the rest of your life...No amount of therapy, can remove the pain of loss and sorrow...I know...
I wish we could mandate a month in country to every one of these Chiken Hawks!

[egal]

I don't know who did, but I know a lot of soldiers who deal with worse than guilt over their actions in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere. Some convince themselves it was right, as human minds are esigned to do, but most just have to close off that part of themselves in often-failing efforts to rejoin a real world that gives them no honor for what good they have done, no treatment for the scars they bear, and no preparation for a future they will probably face alone because families fell apart.

It's hard enough to take the brunt of public outrage for a war that they didn't want, to suffer through inadequate equipment and criminal negligence of their living conditions and medical treatment, but then they also have to face the betrayal by their president, the man who sent them--with numbers cut and funding diverted to the contractors--into hell.

A leader who quietly cut funding for all the military hospitals, for psychiatric treatment, and for the VA as a whole simply because he didn't want to divert money from his war towards helping those who had to suffer because of it. They're left without sufficient assistance, treatment, money, families, firends, support chains, jobs, and means by which to live through all of that. I honestly hope this president is tried and sentenced for war crimes, if not for his other actions, then for Treason to the soldiers he consigned to death and devastation.

[CatfishJohn]

...as a front line VA doc for a quarter of a century, i am glad to have the anonymity on this site to react to the truly Orwellian atmosphere imposed on the VA since this war started - for one example, the fact is that when the VA head, Mr . Nicholson, (former head of the Republican National Committeee,) had the opportunity to implement a new computer system costing just a few million dollars in a nearly 30 billion dollar budget to speed up our first wave of war returnees disability claims, he refused to purchase it.......the fact that it is the Republicans in congress blocking this new ( and hardly overly generous) GI Bill speaks to this - and for - itself....

[newshawk14]

I think one of the worst things that dubya has done to us, is his appointment of incompetent, but
loyal Bushies, to run our government. It truly has been a disaster. He has done his damn best to
prove Reagan's thesis that government is the problem, not the solution. I consider both of them
to be low grade morons.

[08timefortruth]

This is just one more "Chapter of Shame" regarding the ways our vets and soldiers get treated. I do not understand how these guys can look people in the face. They should have been fired but even more important something needs to be done about the way the soldier gets treated.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

.".... that he had killed so many innocent Iraqis....." I just don't know what to say to that.

[desthmoneses]

Don't worry your the only one who will notice, everyone else here will just ignore it. People here are indoctrinated the same way the republicans are and think the troops are a bunch of heroes, my sentiments differ however.

[pcplz]

Oh My God! What has happened to The United States of America? Where do these top level evil people come from. Why have WE allowed this to happen? The total insanity of it all boggles the mind. And still they go on.

Why are they still in power. WHY CANNOT WE STOP THIS!!!!!!!

[Quaoar]

Katz obviously knows where the bodies are buried. I wonder if the info he has is on Peake or on someone higher up in the administration.

[gbht12]

As a mother I can't even imagine what that mom went through. Our government treats these kids like they are toy soldiers, they are dispensible. You sew them up and send them back to Iraq. This sickens me so much. I am so sorry for every mother that has to go through Mother's Day tomorrow without her child . I am so sad and I feel so useless that I can't stop this pain for you.

As President Bush enjoys his weekend in Crawford with HIS daughter Jenna there are millions that will never see their child walk down the aisle, never see their kids get married and have children. I hope that that weighs on HIM and his administration but I highly doubt it , that would mean they have hearts.

[gbht12]

This does not surprise me, Bush will not go down in history as being the most intelligent president. His record is one of the Worst EVER! So, he lets another criminal get away with yet another crime. They are all war criminals in my eyes.

McCain wants the same thing , he embraces all his policies. The Republican party is the Insane party. It is all about them and to h*ll with all us little people. They disgust me!

[TXfemmom]

Anyone who has that kind of obnoxiousness involved when discussing the suicides of young men and women who have served our country, does not have the professional, medical, and ethical foundation to be in such a position. There are things which can be apologized for having happened and for e-mails in poor taste, but such subject matter, and from a physician, no less, who is in charge of mental health affairs for veteran affairs, isn't one of them. The guy should not only loose his job, but should loose his medical license, as well.

[jmndodge]

Is it possible that death benifits are less costly than health care? If the war was for economic reasons, (an illusion of cheap oil) what makes us think that we will not cut corners at home. We already know that we are willing to talk of cut backs on road repairs, on education, health care, and benifits for needy families. Why not permanently remove those war hero's who have difficulty upon returning home.

It's time for real change. I don't know how good the details of Obama's presidency will turn out. There is no doubt that in these dark times, the hope he offers, shines like a bright light in a dark land.