Bush Apologizes for Walter Reed Woes
By William Branigin
President Bush today visited wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and issued a public apology for what he said were "bureaucratic and administrative failures" after hearing accounts of their difficulties as outpatients.
The visit was Bush's first in the nearly six weeks since a Washington Post series highlighted the problems that wounded outpatient soldiers were having with substandard living conditions and bureaucratic neglect at the Washington, D.C., hospital complex. The shortcomings sparked national outrage and became the focus of congressional hearings and a series of investigations, including one by a bipartisan presidential commission.
During his more than two-hour visit, which was shortened by nearly an hour from its planned length, Bush toured the main hospital, inspected an unoccupied dormitory room featuring modern amenities, awarded 11 Purple Hearts to soldiers seriously wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and spent some time in a physical therapy facility, where he talked with several recovering soldiers and handed out presidential coins.
He also toured Abrams Hall, where outpatient soldiers were moved after the Army closed a decrepit former hotel called Building 18 that had been used to house them just outside the hospital compound. There, The Post last month found wounded soldiers living in squalid conditions amid mold, rot, mice and cockroaches. The Post also reported on bureaucratic obstacles that soldiers and their families said were impeding their recovery.
"I met some of the soldiers who had been housed in Building 18," Bush said in brief remarks to about 100 medical personnel and hospital patients at the end of his visit. "I was disturbed by their accounts of what went wrong. It is not right to have someone volunteer to wear our uniform and not get the best possible care."
Bush said, "I apologize for what they went through, and we're going to fix the problem."
He stressed that the problems did not include Walter Reed's medical care, which he said was excellent.
"The problems at Walter Reed were caused by bureaucratic and administrative failures," Bush said. "The system failed you and it failed our troops, and we're going to fix it."
He noted that Building 18 has been closed and that repairs are underway, including the installation of a new roof.
"The patients from Building 18 have been transferred to Abrams Hall, and I'm pleased to report that living conditions there are of high quality," Bush said.
During his visit to a physical therapy room, Bush saw patients with a variety of severe injuries. He shook the prosthetic right hand of Lt. Scott A. Quilty, jumped onto an elliptical machine next to Staff Sgt. Gregory Robinson, who is missing his right leg, and admired a tattoo of a naked woman on the left shoulder of Sgt. Mark Ecker, a double amputee, according to a White House pool report.
Bush also met with Sgt. David Gardner, 28, of Fort Bragg, N.C., and his wife and eight-week-old daughter, posing with them for photographs. Gardner lost his right leg and suffered serious damage to his left when he was run over by an earth mover in Iraq while his unit was under sniper fire.
In reaction to the presidential visit, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee and daughter of a disabled World War II veteran, said in a statement, "Moldy and unsanitary rooms are inexcusable, but they are only a small part of the crisis facing our troops." During her own visit to Walter Reed this week, she said, "I heard story after story of bureaucratic nightmares and problems with care for physical and mental injuries. Five years into the Iraq war, these problems should be exceptions, not the norm."
Murray charged that the Bush administration "has a horrendous record of caring for our troops and veterans" and refuses to consider care for returning troops as a cost of war.
"As a result, mold grows, red tape ensnares our troops, and the president continues failing the same service members we rely on to keep us safe," she said. Saying that wounded troops "need more than photos ops," she called for better follow-up care and a plan to provide for them when they return home.
"Unfortunately, this president has proved better at smiling for photos than at providing for our heroes," she said.
