Posted on 04/20/2005 8:44:51 PM PDT by TexKat
U.S. Army Sgt. Pleszko, assigned to the Tactical Psychological Operation Team 1583, hands out psychological operations material to children while conducting a mission with Bravo Company, 130th Infantry Battalion, in Baqubah, Iraq, April 12, 2005. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Eddie L. Bradley
A U.S. soldier assigned to Bravo Company, 130th Infantry Battalion, attached to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, provides security while other members of Bravo Company search for weapons and possible insurgents near Baqubah, Iraq, April 12, 2005. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Eddie L. Bradley
By Terri Lukach
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 20, 2005 – Three soldiers wounded in Iraq sparked new legislation to provide low-cost “traumatic injury” insurance for members of America’s armed forces. The legislation was announced April 19 at a Capitol Hill press conference by its sponsor, Idaho Sen. Larry Craig.
The three soldiers, Staff Sgts. Heath Calhoun and Ryan Kelly and Sgt. Jeremy Feldbusch, were all seriously wounded in Iraq. They each underwent extensive medical treatments and periods of recuperation that resulted in severe financial hardships for their families. All wanted to do something to help alleviate similar hardships for those wounded in the future.
Craig said the soldiers visited his Senate office last week to discuss the need for this type of benefit. “It was their idea,” he said.
The legislation will be offered as both an amendment to Emergency Supplemental legislation currently being debated in the Senate and a stand-alone bill. It would add a low-cost traumatic injury insurance benefit to the Servicemembers Group Life Insurance now provided to military members. In the event of traumatic injury, the benefit would provide an “immediate” lump-sum payment of $25,000 to $100,000 for certain catastrophic injuries incurred on active duty.
Traumatic injuries covered will include blindness; loss of limbs, speech or hearing; paralysis; burns greater than second degree covering 30 percent of the body or face; and certain traumatic brain injuries, according to a press release from the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.
The cost of the benefit would be covered by an insurance premium of about $1 per month for each servicemember. The coverage would also be available to members of the National Guard and Reserve. Family members would not be included in the benefit.
During the press conference, David S. C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, expressed the Defense Department’s support for the legislation and praised the soldiers for their efforts to make the legislation a reality.
“These young men and their families have already nobly served their country in the theater of operations in the global war on terror,” Chu said. “And they serve us again by bringing forward an important effort to help ensure that the transition back to civilian life will be as smooth as it can be.”
Chu said the department recognizes there is no way to anticipate every expense, every challenge severely wounded veterans will face as they recuperate. “That is why we support this legislation and hope it will go on to a successful conclusion and become the law of the land,” he said.
The three soldiers responsible for the legislation were also present at the press conference to lend their support for the bill. Feldbusch, an Army Ranger, was severely wounded when a piece of shrapnel entered his brain during an intense Iraqi artillery barrage, leaving him blind in both eyes. Calhoun lost both legs in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack, and Kelly lost his right leg to a roadside bomb.
“It was during my recovery process that I noticed there were some gaps in the financial coverage,” Kelly said. “It wasn’t a lack of support by DoD or the (Department of Veterans Affairs), but just a gap in the system.
“I can’t stress enough the effect this will have on our brothers and sisters in the services,” he said. “The difference it will make on the family unit during covalence is tremendous. The financial stress far outweighs the physical stress.”
He said a soldier learning to walk on a prosthetic leg shouldn’t be “wondering how long they can continue to make a payment on their home or how long their family can continue to visit.”
Kelly urged the Senate to pass the legislation quickly. “Every day we wait,” he said, “is a day another soldier and his family will have to deal with the recovery process without this insurance.”
Maurice Strong, one of Canada's most influential entrepreneurs, acknowledged Monday his ties with South Korean Tongsun Park, suspected of bribing two U.N. officials in the oil-for-food scandal. But Strong, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special adviser for North Korea, said in a statement he had 'no connection whatsoever with the U.N.'s Iraq oil-for-food program or any other of its Iraqi activities.' Strong is pictured in this January 18, 2003 photo. Photo by Reuters
Top UN Aide Steps Aside During Oil-For-Food Probe
By Evelyn Leopold
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Canadian Maurice Strong, an influential entrepreneur, withdrew as U.N. envoy for Korea on Wednesday while investigators probed his ties to a lobbyist suspected of bribing U.N. officials with Iraqi funds.
Strong, who has served in a variety of U.N. posts since 1947, was a part-time adviser to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the six-party talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.
"He is suspending himself with the secretary-general's approval," Mark Malloch Brown, Annan's chief of staff, said in an interview with two journalists. "Given the controversy, I think he's doing absolutely the right thing."
Some diplomats said Strong acted only after senior U.N. officials suggested he resign.
Annan was also considering a policy that would force part-time employees like Strong to disclose their finances to avoid conflicts of interest, Malloch Brown said. Only full-time staff now have to do so.
Known worldwide for his work on the environment, Strong, 76, acknowledged this week he had business dealings in 1997 "on a normal commercial basis" with the lobbyist and businessman Tongsun Park, a South Korean born in North Korea.
But he denied any involvement in the oil-for-food program, which is being investigated by federal prosecutors and former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who was appointed by Annan to probe wrongdoing.
Strong, engaged by the United Nations because of his global network of contacts, may not have known any joint investment with Park involved Iraqi money. "Business people don't ask where the money comes from," said on diplomat.
U.N. officials said Strong's part-time position gave him diplomatic immunity during periods he was actually working for the world body.
Park, a central figure in an influence-peddling scandal in Washington in 1977, was charged last week with being an unregistered agent for the Iraqi government before President Saddam Hussein was overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Despite the Washington scandal, Park was known to visit former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali at U.N. headquarters in about 1993, Gillian Sorensen, a former U.N. assistant secretary-general, told Reuters.
Strong, who worked at the United Nations as an adviser for reform in 1997, said Park had proved extremely helpful in dealings with North Korea.
The criminal complaint said Park accepted millions of dollars from Iraq. An informant told U.S. authorities some of the money was funneled to two high-ranking U.N. officials, one in 1993, the second one in 1997 or 1998.
Malloch Brown said prosecutors in the Southern District of New York had not given any hint of who the U.N. officials might be. The United Nations has asked the State Department for information.
Park, the complaint said, also invested about $1 million in an unidentified Canadian company established by the son of the second U.N. official. Park said that money was lost because the company failed.
Strong's son Frederick Strong is a Canadian businessman who has worked in the energy industry. He could not immediately be reached for comment but the federal complaint did not mention Strong or anyone from his family.
The oil-for-food program, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003, was set up by the U.N. Security Council to ease the impact of sanctions imposed after Saddam's troops invaded Kuwait in 1990. Baghdad was allowed to sell oil to buy basic goods and could negotiate its own contracts.
After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, Iraq disclosed a who's who of political groups and individuals around the world from whom Saddam wanted to buy influence to get the sanctions lifted.
By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Sample, USA American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 20, 2005 – Funding for recruiting, retention and equipment were among the items National Guard leaders today brought before a Senate subcommittee examining budget requests today. The administration is seeking approval for its $419.3 billion fiscal 2006 budget request and $81.9 billion fiscal 2005 supplemental budget request.
Army Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, told the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee that recruiting has been a “special challenge” for the National Guard, which, he added, “is not resourced for high levels of readiness that today’s environment demands.”
“We are a recruited force, so we’ve been scrambling to make sure we had the authorities and the resources to actually compete head to head in an environment where we’ve had to be an operational force,” he explained.
Blum noted that over half the Army’s combat power in Iraq today is comprised of Army National Guard units. He pointed out that eight of the Guard’s brigade combat teams are on the ground there, including the 42nd Infantry Division, the storied “Rainbow Division,” stationed in Baghdad.
He told the committee that Guard units in Iraq are “shouldering over half of the load and they are doing exceedingly well.”
Blum said the Guard had a “very good” recruiting month in March, but added, “We are not yet out of the woods, but we are starting on the road to recovery.”
To help meet recruiting goals, he said, the service had to increase enlistment bonuses and add some 1,400 more recruiters to the field, actions that made a significant difference in the recruiting numbers.
Blum also asked the committee for support of an “affiliation bonus” that would pay $15,000 to active duty soldiers transitioning into the National Guard.
He said the bonus would help the service “immeasurably” in recruiting prior-service troops, which are the Guard’s “most experienced recruits and the ones who are most valuable to us.”
Lt. Gen. Roger C. Schultz, director of the Army National Guard, also present for the hearing, told the subcommittee that while the Guard has reached 97 percent of it’s end strength, what the service really needs is “recruiting performance, more enlistments.”
“Today, both in the prior service and non-prior service marks, we are off our objectives by something major,” he said. Schultz told the committee he felt more incentives would help the service reach its recruiting goals.
By comparison, he said, incentives Congress passed last year enabled the Guard to enlist “three times” the number of recruits as it did a year ago. “So those items, in terms of incentives, are making a difference,” Schultz noted.
The subcommittee also asked if the $190 million it had appropriated for equipment in the fiscal 2005 defense bill would fulfill Army and Air National Guard requirements for the year. Each service was given $95 million.
Schultz replied that though the “money filled a critical need for us,” most of the Army National Guard’s appropriation was used to buy equipment that “you will find in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan today.”
“We bought critical items of need for our units deploying, and of course we deploy units at the highest level of readiness,” he explained. “We bought machine guns, night-vision devices, we bought trucks -- all kinds of things our units were short,” he said.
Thanking the committee for their generosity, Air Force Lt. Gen. Daniel James III, director of the Air National Guard, said that there are still some requirements he needs funded. “We have prioritized and filled the critical ones that we have, and it has given us the opportunity to do some things we need to do. But there are still some issues that need funding,” he said.
One of them, he said, is the large-aircraft infrared system modification, which he said is a high priority for the C-130 aircraft, the military’s main heavy-lift transport plane.
While the Defense Department is keenly interested in equipping units for the “overseas war fight,” Blum told the committee, Congress must ensure National Guard units returning from the war get equipment replaced that was either left in theater or worn out through fair wear and tear.
He said Guard units must have the proper equipment to train on for “the next time they are needed.”
21 April 2005
BAGHDAD — Iraq may finally get a new government today, its president said, offering an end to nearly three months of stalemate since a historic election.
But the shooting of 19 Iraqi soldiers at a soccer stadium and President Jalal Talabani’s account of 50 bodies being hauled from a river near Baghdad showed that violence persists despite a relative lull perceived after the January 30 vote.
At a news conference after meetings with senior Iraqi leaders, Talabani said he hoped Iraq’s new cabinet would be finalised by yesterday.
He also said 50 bodies, believed to be those of Shia hostages seized in a town near Baghdad on Saturday, had been found in the Tigris River south of the capital.
In other violence, rebels shot dead 19 National Guardsmen in a soccer stadium in Haditha, about 200km northwest of Baghdad, after they took them prisoner, witnesses said.
Three car bombings in Baghdad killed at least two Iraqi civilians and wounded eight. And two car bombs struck the entrance of a US and National Guard base in Ramadi, a hotbed of resistance about 100km west of Baghdad.
A new democratically elected government in power could ease Iraqis’ widespread frustration about the weeks of horse-trading even as rebel violence has revived.
“We want to announce it (the new government) as soon as possible,” Talabani told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi and Abdul Aziz Al Hakim, leader of Shia Muslim party SCIRI.
“We are hoping it will happen tomorrow afternoon,” he said.
Iraqi leaders have been negotiating over the cabinet since January’s elections that brought a Shia majority to power.
But disagreements over distribution of ministries and on how the Sunni minority should be brought into the political process have held up the formation of the government.
The delay has created a climate of indecision, officials say, and let momentum against the insurgency built up by the elections to slip away.
Much of the squabbling has focused on the Oil, Interior and Defence ministries. The Interior Ministry, responsible for internal security, is expected to go to a member of SCIRI, the main party in the Shia alliance.
US and Iraqi officials have worried that delays in forming the government will hurt the battle against insurgents. A key concern is whether the new government headed by Shias like Jaafari would change tack and do away with units like the Sunni-led commandos that have shown results against rebels.
Talabani said more than 50 bodies believed to be those of hostages held in Madaen, an agricultural town about 45km southeast of Baghdad, had been taken from the Tigris.
“We have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes,” said Talabani, a 71-year-old Kurdish leader.
Shia officials said on Saturday that Sunni militants had taken around 50 people hostage in Madaen and threatened them with death. Later they said the number could be as high as 150.
Iraqi security forces raided the town but said they had found almost no evidence that anyone had been taken hostage or that there were any gunmen there.
Later, Shia officials said that dozens of bodies had been found in the Tigris south of Madaen, but a Reuters cameraman who visited the location found no evidence of any bodies.
Tensions have been running high between Shias and the once-dominant Sunni community since the election, particularly in relation to events such as the Madaen hostage crisis, which many Sunnis dismissed as a fabrication.
The killings of the National Guards in Haditha followed clashes in the area between National Guards, US troops and rebels. Iraq’s National Guard, which is at the forefront of the battle against the insurgency, has been repeatedly targeted.
Two Iraqis were killed and five wounded in a car bomb attack on a US military convoy in western Baghdad, police said. A car bomb targeting a police convoy wounded three Iraqis in southwest Baghdad, and a third bomb outside a police station damaged police vehicles.
A bomb killed two US soldiers and wounded four late on Tuesday while they patrolled near Baghdad’s airport road.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts talk before a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on April 19. Myers was presented the "Kansan of the Year" Award by the Kansas Society of Washington, D.C. Photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, USAF
Myers Receives 'Kansan of the Year' Award
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 20, 2005 – The values of the heartland are the same as those of the U.S. military and went a long way toward keeping the nation’s highest-ranking military officer in the Air Force.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts talk before a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on April 19. Myers was presented the "Kansan of the Year" Award by the Kansas Society of Washington, D.C. Photo by Staff Sgt. D. Myles Cullen, USAF (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers was named the “Kansan of the Year” by the Kansas Society of Washington, D.C., April 19. He follows in the steps of such distinguished Kansans as Sen. Robert Dole, Kansas City Royals Hall of Famer George Brett, Washington Redskins running back John Riggins, and TV broadcaster Jim Lehrer.
Most of the Kansas congressional delegation attended the event.
The chairman was visibly happy to be among Kansans, and the ones in the crowd were notably pleased to honor the chairman and his family.
From the Kansas sunflower centerpieces on the table to the country band doing the entertaining, the night was a celebration of all things Kansas. “It’s fun to come to an oasis of Kansans in the middle of Washington, D.C.,” Myers said. “I think being a Kansan is a special thing. It’s certainly special to me. It’s part of the heritage that I’m proudest of.”
The chairman said that, counting ROTC time, he has spent 44 years in uniform. “One of the reasons I stayed in the service so long was the military culture,” he said.
He said the military runs on values like integrity, loyalty and selflessness. Personnel from all regions of the United States bring a “wonderful varied background of cultures” to the military. “To my mind, when you come from the heartland, you bring a real common-sense approach to problems, because you have to be practical to survive on the prairie,” he said. “We inherited that from the folks who went before us.”
Myers told the crowd that he hadn’t planned on making the Air Force a career. He was going to fulfill his commitment and get out, “probably (to go) back to the family business in Kansas City,” he said.
But the military personnel he served with kept him energized and motivated to serve. “All of us from the prairie were born to take responsibility and, if needed, to lead,” he said. “Leadership is what makes anything strong, be it a business or a country. This is a time when we need all the leaders we can get. Never have we been confronted by a greater peril than the threat posed by terrorism.”
Myers addressed a purely Kansas rivalry also. The chairman, a 1965 graduate of Kansas State University, poked fun at graduates of rival Kansas University. He said he was the “black sheep of the family” because everyone else in his family went to KU.
During the reception period before the dinner, the chairman and his family met with members of the society. The Kansans did their best to dispel outsiders’ preconceptions about the state.
First, they said, the line from the musical “South Pacific” that goes, “I’m as corny as Kansas in August,” is wrong. Kansas is covered in wheat, not corn. And if Dorothy were really singing about going over the rainbow, she would want to go to Wichita, not Oz.
The chairman thanked the society. “I appreciate the honor of this award,” he said. “I’m very proud to be from Kansas. Most of all I’m proud to wear this uniform and serve alongside a whole bunch of really great servicemen and women.
By Andrew England in Baghdad
Published: April 21 2005 03:00 | Last updated: April 21 2005 03:00
The bodies of more than 50 people have been discovered dumped in the Tigris river south of Baghdad, Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, said yesterday.
He said the victims were believed to have been Shia hostages executed by Sunni insurgents in the Madaen district last week.
The announcement seemed likely to deepen the intrigue surrounding the alleged massacre, which was dismissed as rumour earlier this week after Iraqi troops raided Madaen and found nothing to corroborate reports of a mass killing.
"We will give you details in the coming days," Mr Talabani told a news conference. "Terrorists committed crimes there. It is not true that there were no hostages. There were, but they were killed and they threw the bodies into the Tigris. More than 50 bodies have been brought out from the Tigris and we have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes."
Officials had claimed that the insurgents had threatened to kill as many as 150 civilian hostages - who had reportedly been held since last Friday - unless the Shia left the area. But after security forces found no hostages, some people suggested the reports were exaggerated.
Iyad Allawi, the outgoing prime minister, had blamed the kidnappings on a group linked to al-Qaeda and led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The group reportedly issued an internet statement denying the allegations and accused the government of fabricating the case.
The hostage-taking claims caused debate in parliament about the make-up of Iraq's security forces, and the alleged incident was cited as an example of the need to purge former members of Saddam Hussein's regime from the military and police forces.
Mr Talabani also said yesterday that a new cabinet was likely be announced today. "We want to announce it [the new government] as soon as possible," he said.
News agencies also reported that 19 Iraqi National Guards were killed yesterday in a football stadium in Hadith, north-west of Baghdad, after they were taken hostage.
21 April 2005
VIENNA — Saudi Arabia has quietly begun talks on a UN-sanctioned agreement that could curtail any outside probe of its atomic intentions — a move that heightens concerns in a region already edgy about rival Iran’s nuclear programme.
The Saudis deny any plans to develop nuclear weapons, and diplomats close to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) told AP that the UN nuclear monitor has no firm evidence that would cast doubt on the Saudi assertions.
But the diplomats say that past Saudi nuclear interest is heightening worries, as is the timing of the efforts to sign on to the IAEA’s small quantities protocol that would exempt the country from most of the agency’s control authority.
Born of more trusting days, the agreement has been joined by dozens of countries, most of which have never experimented with nuclear weapons. But the protocol is now viewed with suspicion within the agency, after revelations of other loopholes that have allowed prewar Iraq, Iran, Libya and other countries to work secretly on known or suspected nuclear weapons programmes.
The protocol frees countries from reporting the possession of up to 10 tons of natural uranium — or up to 20 tons of depleted uranium, depending on the degree of enrichment — and 1 kilogram of plutonium. It also allows them to keep silent about work on nuclear facilities secret until six months before they are ready for operation. And once a protocol is signed, the country’s word is normally not questioned.
Experts say 10 tons of natural uranium can be processed into the material for up to two nuclear warheads. And Iran and South Korea both used substantially smaller amounts of uranium or plutonium in laboratory-scale experiments with suspected links to arms programmes.
Saudi Arabia has never negotiated an agreement that would define IAEA controls, even though it is obligated to do so as a signer of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Such foot dragging, and now the move to sign on to a small quantities protocol, have contributed to concerns about the protocol within top IAEA echelons.
“As has become clear over the last several years, states can conduct nuclear activities of proliferation concern with quantities of nuclear material much smaller” than allowed under the protocol, Pierre Goldschmidt, a deputy IAEA director general, said in a report in February.
Goldschmidt’s comments — and similar statements from IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei — reflect an agency drive to close loopholes to the inspections system.
The Saudi push comes amid increased nuclear-generated tensions in the region, fed by suspicions that Iran might want to develop the bomb. And it highlights important gaps in nuclear controls just before a high-level international nonproliferation conference is to convene next month in New York.
While the Saudi government insists it has no interest in going nuclear beyond a small research reactor built in the 1970s, in the past two decades it has been linked to prewar Iraq’s nuclear programme, to Pakistan and to the Pakistani nuclear black marketeer A.Q. Khan. It has expressed interest in Pakistani missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and credible reports say Saudi officials have discussed taking the nuclear option as a deterrent in the volatile Middle East.
“It certainly is a region of tension, and the (nuclear control) requirements should be tightened instead of eased,” said David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector who now runs the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. “What if the security situation prompts the Saudis to rethink their (nuclear) options — or what if a (nuclear-minded) terrorist group sets up on Saudi territory?”
A Vienna-based diplomat familiar with the issue said that while there is no firm evidence that the Saudis “have been playing around, we can never be sure” should the IAEA’s authority to inspect be curtailed and it be restricted to taking the word of the government that all is well.
He, like the other diplomats, spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic.
Worries about Saudi Arabia were nonexistent in the 1970s, when the first small quantities protocols were negotiated. The overriding fear back then was that the Cold War could turn nuclear.
While the Nonproliferation Treaty, which came into force in 1970, was designed to contain the spread of nuclear weapons, the focus was on developed countries on both sides of the ideological U.S.-Soviet divide.
Small quantities protocols were thus welcomed as a way to allow investigators to focus on the visible nuclear threat. By the late 1990s, a decade after the end of the Cold War, more than 70 nations, many of them in the developing world, had signed on to the protocol.
Among them are countries like Trinidad and Tobago and Tonga, whose openness and geographic location make them of little concern. Others, like Yemen, are more worrisome as part of the volatile Middle East and as a potential base for terrorist groups.
But the Saudi case is even more disquieting considering the country’s past record.
British newspapers and several think tanks have reported independently on the existence of a Saudi position paper as recently as two years ago that listed the possible acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability as a deterrent.
Further back, Saudi defector Muhammad Khilewi produced documents in 1994 purporting to show that the Saudi government had paid up to US$5 billion to Saddam Hussein to build nuclear weapons on condition that should the project succeed, some of the bombs would be given to the Saudis.
The former diplomat’s papers also appeared to show Saudi payments for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. Later, in 1999, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi defence minister, toured part of Pakistan’s secret nuclear facilities.
While there, he reportedly met with A.Q. Khan — the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb who four years later would be identified as the head of the international nuclear black market that supplied the illicit programs of Iran, Libya and possibly North Korea.
030415-N-1056B-001 Naval Station Rota, Spain (Apr. 15, 2003) -- A Navy Hospital Corpsman prepares the operating room at Fleet Hospital Eight (FH-8), located at Naval Station Rota, in preparation for the arrival of 39 wounded Marines and Soldiers from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Wounded arrive almost daily from Kuwait and receive advanced medical treatment. A 116-bed hospital was built on February 24 and a larger 250-bed facility was completed in March. U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Corey Barker. (RELEASED)
Fleet Hospital 8 Earns MUC for 2003 Deployment
Story Number: NNS050420-14
Release Date: 4/20/2005 5:43:00 PM
By Journalist 3rd Class Chris Gethings, Naval Hospital Bremerton Public Affairs
NAVAL HOSPITAL BREMERTON, Wash. (NNS) -- Fleet Hospital (FH) 8, primarily consisting of Fleet Hospital Bremerton officers and Sailors, received the Meritorious Unit Commendation award March 8 for its 2003 deployment to Rota, Spain.
FH 8 was recognized for its achievements during its deployment from February to July 2003 to Rota in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. More than 550 officers and Sailors from 16 commands deployed with FH 8, and saw their first patient March 17.
“Everybody on board did an awesome job,” said Lt. Erich Dietrich, personnel officer on the deployment. “Everyone out there rose to the challenge and excelled tremendously. The time everything was built in was just phenomenal. We also set unprecedented accomplishments in the facilities we set up.”
During the deployment, Fleet Hospital 8 built two separate medical facilities from the ground up. One was a 116-bed expeditionary medical facility and the other a 250-bed fleet hospital.
“The two facilities we built and the time we did it in was truly remarkable,” said Dietrich. “The teamwork involved during this mission couldn’t have been better.”
During the deployment, FH 8 saw more than 1,300 patients and performed more than 250 surgical operations on Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines evacuated from U.S. Central Command’s areas of operation.
One of the numerous accomplishments by Fleet Hospital 8 during the deployment was the first fleet hospital reconditioning unit for patients recovering from battle fatigue.
“Our initial mission was to sit tight and wait for patients to come our way, and to possibly help out any of our own service members who might be having trouble adjusting to the deployment,” said Cmdr. Mark Russell, Fleet Hospital 8’s mental health department head. “We decided this wasn’t enough and that mental health should play a more proactive role in times of war. We set up the reconditioning ward that was not at all part of the original mission.”
Out of 110 patients who participated in the 14-day structured program in the reconditioning ward, 85 returned to their units out in the field, Russell added.
Another initiative by FH 8 was homecoming transition briefs conducted by the chaplain and mental health staff for all patients. This was the first of its kind by medical treatment facilities or fleet hospitals, Russell said.
“I think everyone on this deployment did just spectacular,” said Russell. “The teamwork involved from the top of the chain and down was superb. In my department, the enlisted corpsmen really stepped-up and were very instrumental in any success we had.”
All personnel attached to Fleet Hospital 8 from Feb. 16 - July 23, 2003, are eligible to wear the Meritorious Unit Commendation award.
For related news, visit the Naval Hospital Bremerton Navy NewsStand page at www.news.navy.mil/local/nhb.
20/04/2005 KurdishMedia.com - By Saadulla Abdulla New threats to Kurdish media workers in Kirkuk only days after assassination of Kurdish journalist.
Saadulla Abdulla reports from Kirkuk.
Kirkuk - South Kurdistan (KurdishMedia.com) 20 April 2005: Terrorists have served death threats to Kurdish media workers in Kirkuk. The threats were delivered only a couple of days after the cold-blooded assassination of Saman Abdullah, a young employee of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan-owned KurdSat TV channel in Kirkuk.
An employee of the press section of a local government department told KurdishMedia.com, speaking on condition of anonymity, that he and a number of his colleagues had received death threats. He did not want to disclose how he received the threats.
Asked whether he took the threats seriously he replied, “I personally take the threats very seriously though I will not be intimidated by them."
Kurdish media workers in Kirkuk are generally safe at their workplace because they have good security and are well protected from possible insurgent attacks, but outside the workplace they are an easy prey for the terrorists.
The Mafia style killing of Saman Abdullah sent shock waves not only among media workers but also among the wider Kurdish population in Kirkuk. Masked gunmen stormed the office of Al-Pasha car show office, opened fire and killed the journalist in front of the eyes of the car show workers and customers.
According to eyewitnesses, the terrorists left the scene of crime in a normal way and in no hurry.
BY JOSEPH TANFANI
Posted on Wed, Apr. 20, 2005
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - Two U.S. senators are pushing for hundreds of millions in additional funds for armored Humvees, saying the Army is still far from solving the armor shortage for troops in Iraq.
"No soldier should be sent into battle unprotected, but that is exactly what happened in Iraq," Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., said on the Senate floor Wednesday, citing a Philadelphia Inquirer article and a government study on continuing delays in supplying armored trucks and Humvees to soldiers.
"It's a tragedy that our soldiers are still paying the price for this delay," Kennedy said. He and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., early and dogged critics of the pace of armoring military vehicles in Iraq, are sponsoring an amendment to add $213 million for armored Humvees to an $81 billion supplemental spending bill for the Iraq war.
A vote on the amendment was set for Thursday. An aide to the Republican-controlled Armed Services Committee said there was bipartisan support for some added funding for armor.
Though Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said all vehicles leaving bases in Iraq have some kind of armor, a third, or 11,700, are protected with nothing more than cut sheets of steel, inadequate by Army standards, The Inquirer reported.
The Army is working to put better armor on those vehicles, but has said the job won't be finished until late this year.
While supplying more armor, faster, might have saved lives, the Army's efforts were hamstrung by a piecemeal, stop-and-start approach to production, The Inquirer reported.
Kennedy also cited a study issued this month by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, which found that bureaucratic delays had repeatedly slowed the armor production effort. Even the Army's own depots, where much vehicle armor work has been done, weren't always working at full capacity, the study found.
An Army spokesman said in a statement yesterday, "The Army continues to aggressively work with industry to provide our soldiers the best armor protection available."
The additional $213 million would keep an armored Humvee production line running at full capacity until the end of the federal fiscal year in July, according to a Kennedy aide. The supplemental bill also contains money for armor kits for Humvees and trucks.
Two Fort Riley soldiers killed in training accident
Posted on Wed, Apr. 20, 2005
By JOHN MILBURN The Associated Press
TOPEKA — Two Fort Riley soldiers died Tuesday in a training accident on the Army post in northeast Kansas when an armored personnel carrier rolled over.
The soldiers were from Company A of the 1st Engineer Battalion of the 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. Five other soldiers were injured in the accident, said post spokeswoman Sam Robinson.
The accident occurred about 2 p.m. The other soldiers' injuries weren't considered life-threatening. About 100 soldiers were involved in the training, on the northeast section of the post.
Names of the dead soldiers were not released, pending notification of their families. However, a memorial service was scheduled 10 a.m. Thursday at the post's Morris Hill Chapel.
Robinson said the accident was being investigated by the battalion, military police and the Fort Riley Directorate of Environment and Safety.
The accident occurred as the soldiers were training in an M113 personnel carrier on the squad assault course. All seven soldiers injured or killed were inside.
Robinson said the post was still investigating and did not yet have other details, including how the vehicle rolled over and the specific terrain. Fort Riley's training grounds are in the Flint Hills, a landscape of hills, grasses, creeks and small ponds.
The battalion, formed in 1846, is the U.S. Army's oldest engineer battalion and returned to Fort Riley in September 2004 after a year in Iraq.
Five soldiers from Company B were killed in March 2004 in Iraq when a bomb exploded beneath their M113. In all, 10 soldiers from the battalion died in combat in Iraq.
The battalion and entire brigade have been placed on notice for possible redeployment to Iraq later this year or in early 2006. Currently, more than 4,300 Fort Riley soldiers are in Iraq.
DoD Identifies Army Casualty No. 385-05 IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 20, 2005
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Maj. Steven W. Thornton, 46, of Eugene, Ore., died April 18 in Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, when he collapsed during physical training. Thornton was assigned to the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, Fort Monmouth, N.J.
John Ellsworth is shown by his computer in Wixom, Mich., in this Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004, file photo, with a screen saver showing his son Marine Lance Cpl. Justin M. Ellsworth, who died in Iraq Nov. 13, 2004. John Ellsworth's, Justin's father, attempts to get access to Justin's Yahoo! e-mail account drew national attention to the plight of a parent seeking to reclaim the property of his son, pitting e-mail privacy rights against the rights of parents or any loved ones who might want the final writings of a deceased loved one. Under court order on Wednesday, April 20, 2005, Yahoo! turned over the contents of Justin's account. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
I'm not sure what I think about this ruling about the email.
I'd sure hate for the father to find something in there that increased his pain. I don't know what it could be, but still I worry.
Speaking of worry, is your heart rate finally back to normal? I don't know how you saw those pictures and still kept your composure.
I'm so glad his injury is relatively minor and also about Sgt. Smith's relatively minor injury.
God Bless them both.
morning Tex,
just wanted to say Thank You for the OPF threads...
; )
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