Obama and the Vets say U.S. government officials are obscuring the actual number of wounded

[bigtree]

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2007

Pentagon Underreporting War Injuries?

Veterans Groups: Non-Combat Injuries Being Ignored, Real Number Is More Than Double

(AP) Veterans groups and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama say U.S. government officials are obscuring the actual number of wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars by leaving out of some public documents troops who suffer non-combat injuries.

From the Pentagon Web site to press materials handed out at the opening of an amputee center in Texas last week, the number of wounded in the wars often circulated publicly is around 23,000.

That number only accounts for those wounded in combat. When troops from those wars who were wounded in other ways are counted, the number more than doubles, to about 53,000.

That latter number is not heavily circulated by the Pentagon. Recently, a Defense Department official publicly criticized a researcher who used it and pressured another government agency to change a public document to report the smaller number.

Obama, a presidential hopeful, wants the government to be more straightforward in reporting on the wounded. He has introduced legislation with Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe to require the Veterans Affairs Department and the Defense Department to "start keeping honest figures on our troops and the potential future costs of the war."

"It doesn't make a difference whether you were hit by enemy fire, or injured because your vehicle crashed, or got sick because of serving in a war zone," Obama said in a statement. "The effects on the soldiers and their families are the same. And the impact in terms of the current fighting force and future demands on the VA are also the same."

more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/07/national/main2441466.shtml


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[acmavm]

1. Oh my goodness, we must have a boatload of clairvoyants here

at DU because we've been saying that for a long time.

[bigtree]

3. now it gets the elevation it deserves

with our new majority in control of the agenda

[Monkeyman]

2. They are right

And out of that number vets are being denied care

[bigtree]

4. elevation