May 9, 2008 by admin.

The House Armed Services Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Wednesday unanimously approved by voice vote its portion of the fiscal 2009 defense authorization bill, cutting $200 million from the Army’s Future Combat Systems and $166 million from the service’s Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter to fund more pressing priorities.

Indeed, subcommittee members agreed to add $800 million to fill equipment shortfalls for the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, whose leaders have testified repeatedly about dramatic shortages in inventories.

“The [chairman’s] mark first addresses the near-term imperative to provide all the equipment our soldiers and airmen need for their combat and domestic response needs,” Air and Land Forces Subcommittee Chairman Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said in his opening statement. “Doing so is a non-negotiable responsibility of this subcommittee, and takes precedence over all other considerations.”

Meanwhile, the House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee quickly and unanimously approved its share of the authorization bill, echoing in most areas the action taken last week by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

It increased the military pay raise to 3.9 percent, half a percentage point over the president’s request, authorized an additional 7,000 soldiers and 5,000 Marines and rejected again the proposed Tricare pharmacy fee increase. But Personnel Subcommittee Chairwoman Susan Davis, D-Calif., said the panel would have to work with the full committee to find the $1.2 billion to pay for it.

The Abercrombie panel’s cut in the Pentagon’s $3.6 billion request for FCS is far smaller than the panel’s previous cuts to the program amid cost and feasibility concerns. But the mark includes five new provisions aimed at boosting congressional oversight of the $160 billion program and shifts $33 million from long-term FCS development to more near-term portions of the program.

The Senate Armed Services Committee’s version of the bill provides full funding for FCS. Meanwhile, the cut to the Armed Reconnaissance Helicopter, second only in size to the FCS cut, was the result of concerns about cost increases and delays. The Pentagon sought $438.9 million for ARH, from which the Senate version cuts $75 million. The panel approved over Pentagon objections $526 million for a second engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

It approved a $2.2 billion request to upgrade Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker armored vehicles and another $570 million to buy six C-130 Hercules transport planes. In addition, the panel approved $1.6 billion for eight F-35s; with the remaining eight F-35s in the Pentagon’s request to be approved by another subcommittee.

The subcommittee agreed to recommend to the full committee some major changes to areas that fall outside its jurisdiction. Those include $3.9 billion in fiscal 2009 war funding for 15 more Boeing C-17 Globemaster III cargo planes not requested by the Pentagon.

The House’s version of the pending supplemental spending bill also includes money for 15 C-17s. The panel also backed $523 million in war spending for advanced procurement for 20 more F-22 aircraft in fiscal 2010.

The current multiyear contract for F-22s expires in fiscal 2009, but the Air Force has said it would like 198 more of the fighters than the 183 now planned. The Senate’s version includes additional F-22 money that could be used either for advanced procurement or efforts to shut down Lockheed Martin’s production line. 

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

May 5, 2008 by admin.

By Rafael Enrique Valero
rvalero@govexec.com
April 29, 2008

In a congressional briefing on Monday, RAND Corp. called on the Defense and the Veterans Affairs departments to lead a nationwide effort to care for the growing number of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. A little more than half of all returning service members seeking care for PTSD or depression are receiving minimally adequate care, RAND reported. Promoting a nationwide effort might be a matter of dollars and sense, RAND concluded in a recent study, which noted that if the government invested in treatment for at least 50 percent of soldiers suffering from PTSD it would see an overall cost savings. “If we can get 100 percent of those in need into effective evidence-based care the costs come down even further,” said Terri Tanielian, co-director of RAND’s Center for Military Health Policy Research. “These savings come from increases in productivity and lower rates of attempted suicide.” Effective care has not yet reached all treatment settings, said Tanielian, but the estimated cost to care for mild traumatic brain injury averaged $30,000 per patient while moderate to severe cases cost $350,000. Many vets are released from service without a brain injury diagnosis and are being treated by private doctors, according to the report, making it difficult to calculate the overall cost of such cases. Citing 2,700 documented cases at the Defense Department, Tanielian said the government has spent $770 million to treat traumatic brain injury in the first half of 2007. If all soldiers needing care for PTSD and depression received proper treatment, costs could be reduced by $1.7 billion, or $1,063 per veteran, she added. RAND reported that of the 1.64 million troops deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq, an estimated 300,000 suffer from PTSD or depression and 330,000, have experienced mild, moderate or severe brain injuries. Tanielian said most of those soldiers likely have the mild form — a concussion — but 60 percent of those afflicted with brain injuries have not been evaluated by doctors. “So what’s unknown is the current level of need in this population. And it is that unknown that could hurt those exposed to TBI that is the most concern,” she said, adding that the high volume of cases report in the RAND was “in the ballpark” of an Army surgeon general report released in 2007. Ten percent to 20 percent of soldiers returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered from mild TBI, said the Army surgeon general’s Traumatic Brain Injury Task Force report , which like PTSD “may produce similar symptoms, such as sleep problems, memory problems, confusion and irritability.” “Our findings demonstrate that, like our civilian counterparts, the Army has a good handle on treatment of moderate to severe TBI, but is challenged to understand, diagnose and treat military personnel who suffer with mild TBI,” said task force chairman Brig. Gen. Donald Bradshaw, commander of the Army’s Southeast Regional Medical Command. RAND’s 500-page study, which surveyed 1,965 recently returned soldiers, estimated that 30 percent of all deployable service members have experienced PTSD, depression or TBI. Founded after World War II, RAND has been a key think tank advising the military services for 60 years. Calling for a nationwide effort to care for traumatized soldiers, Tanielian said the military should rapidly expand the number of health care providers and make them accessible anywhere in the country, encourage soldiers to seek treatment, and invest in research to better understand what wounded soldiers need after leaving active duty. “We need to make sure that changes in this policy are directed not just at the DoD and VA, but make this a national priority and an issue across America,” she said.

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

May 2, 2008 by admin.

By Greg Grant ggrant@govexec.com April 30, 2008
The Navy last week created a new 4th Fleet, responsible for Navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean and Central and South America. The move signals the Pentagon’s recognition of the importance of the region and elevates the Navy’s stature there, said Rear Adm. James Stevenson Jr., who commands all naval forces in the Southern Hemisphere.
The 4th Fleet will be headquartered at Mayport, Fla. The Navy will not station ships there permanently, but the establishment of the command will allow the service to respond more quickly to natural disasters such as hurricanes or to emergencies requiring humanitarian relief, Stevenson told reporters on Wednesday. The command will have responsibility for any Navy ship or aircraft deploying to Latin America.
The 4th Fleet originally was created during World War II to hunt enemy submarines and was disbanded in 1950. Today, the 4th Fleet focuses on providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief in the area, especially in the hurricane-plagued Caribbean. It also provides additional ships, submarines and aircraft for counternarcotics operations in the region.
The surveillance and stealthy monitoring capabilities of Navy submarines make them particularly useful against drug runners, Stevenson said. In recent years, sophisticated drug traffickers have made greater use of small submarines to smuggle drugs into the United States.
The Navy’s new maritime strategy elevated disaster relief and humanitarian operations to the same level as combat operations, Stevenson said, and the service’s amphibious warfare ships have the shallow draft that allows them to enter the region’s ports. They also have the capacity to carry large quantities of medical supplies.
Last year, the hospital ship Comfort provided medical assistance to about 300,000 people. This year, the amphibious ships Boxer and Kearsarge will make about 20 ports of call in the Caribbean and along the East Coast of South America. “It’s quite remarkable once the word gets out,” Stevenson said about the response when a Navy medical ship makes a port of call.
Navy ships can be positioned nearby when a hurricane is approaching landfall and can move in almost immediately to provide medical care and deliver food and shelter, he said.
Stevenson said the Navy also is mindful of events in Cuba and the chance of another mass migration from the island, which happened in the 1980s and 1990s when thousands fled by small boats for U.S. shores. “If you don’t have the capability to rescue these people, you have a disaster on your hands,” he said.
In addition, half the nation’s oil imports and 40 percent of its exports come from the region. To keep the sea lanes secure, Navy ships partner with ships from other regional naval forces to conduct training exercises and military-to-military exchanges.

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

April 30, 2008 by admin.

Top military doctors say six- to nine-month combat tours would reduce stress
By Bob Brewin April 17, 2008
The surgeon generals of the Army, Navy and Air Force told senators on Wednesday that the optimal tour in Afghanistan and Iraq to reduce combat stress should be six to nine months with 18 months at home, far shorter than the cut in tours from 15 to 12 months ordered by President Bush last week.
Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker emphasized that his was a medical assessment of the optimal length for combat tours and that “operational imperatives dictate [length of] deployments.”
Vice Adm. Adam Robinson, the Navy’s surgeon general, said less time at home between deployments has had a “devastating” effect on troops and their families since the United States commenced operations in Iraq five years ago.
While Air Force personnel in general average much shorter deployments — about three months — Lt. Gen. James Roudebush, the service’s chief doctor, told the hearing that “my leadership pays close attention to rotation and dwell times…I agree that six months, plus or minus” is an optimal deployment length.
The views of the top military doctors on deployment periods and increased time at home dovetail with the opinions of senior military leaders and studies that have shown stress increases with the length of time in combat.
The Army’s chief of staff, Gen. George W. Casey, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in February that “The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years of war have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight, and unable to do the things that we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility for an uncertain future.” Casey added that “frequent deployments are taking their toll on our soldiers and their equipment.”
Also in February, the Army reported that a mental health assessment team sent to evaluate troops deployed overseas determined that “reports of work-related problems due to stress, mental health problems and marital separations generally increased with each subsequent month of deployment.” Also, the team’s report said, “Soldiers on their third or fourth deployment were at significantly higher risk than soldiers on their first or second deployment for mental health problems and work-related problems.” The team conducted its field studies between October and November 2007.
The military services have boosted the number of mental health professionals in war zones, including psychologists and social workers, the three surgeon generals told the panel. But the same stresses that troops experience from frequent and long deployments have a deleterious effect on recruitment and retention of mental health professionals, Schoomaker told the hearing. Behavioral health personnel, he said “are among the most frequently deployed.”
Schoomaker said the Army tries to meet its target of one behavioral health professional per 1,000 soldiers, but the mental heath assessment team said deployed soldiers reported in 2007 that they had “more difficulty accessing behavioral health services….” Behavioral health specialists also told the assessment team that they saw a significant increase in the advice they gave commanders about mental health issues and at the same time experienced higher burnout themselves.

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

April 11, 2008 by admin.

April 2, 2008

Contact Kristal DeKleer at (202) 225-9756 Washington, D.C. – On Wednesday, the House Veterans’ Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, led by Chairman Harry Mitchell (D-AZ), conducted a hearing to examine vision dysfunctions resulting from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Recent research suggests that vision problems may be a common and previously unrecognized consequence of TBI.    “Traumatic brain injury is one of the signature injuries for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and I am afraid that vision problems are becoming the unrecognized result of that injury,” said Chairman Mitchell.  “We now know that military and VA health care providers must be especially alert to vision deficits resulting from TBI, even when there is no obvious physical injury to the eye.” 

Dr. Thomas Zampieri of Blinded Veterans Association discussed the prevalence of visual impairments and suspected inaccurate vision diagnoses as a result of service during the current military operations, Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF): “As of February 26 of this year, there were 29,317 wounded in OIF/OEF operations, of which 8,904 required air medical evacuation. Another 8,273 military personnel injured in non-hostile action have also been evacuated from Iraq or Afghanistan. Between March 19, 2003 and September 17, 2007, 1,162 of those evacuated had sustained direct eye trauma. This means that 13 percent of all evacuated wounded had sustained direct eye trauma, the highest percentage of eye wounded in more than 160 years of American wars. Based on additional information that we have received during the aforementioned four-year period, mostly anecdotal in nature, BVA believes that perhaps many more than 1,162 service members evacuated from Iraq or Afghanistan have experienced direct eye trauma.”

Navy veteran Glenn Minney testified to his experience with getting treatment for vision problems following a mortar blast during his military service at Haditha Dam in Iraq. Minney was wounded on April 18, 2005 and was initially treated for direct injury to his eyes, not for brain injury.  Only after having an MRI at the Wounded Warriors Barracks at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, ten months after his initial injury, did he learn he “was suffering from a severe TBI.  All the medical centers I described above and not one had performed any sort of MRI, CT Scan, or even an X-Ray…It was then they discovered I had a loss of brain tissue in the parietal lobe as well as the occipital lobe (which works the eyes). I went through several neuro-psych exams to determine the extent of my injury, and after several tests, it was determined that the TBI was also a major cause in my loss of sight. The eye healed from the surgeries, but it was also the optic nerve that was damaged as a result of the TBI that was now a concern.  In 9/06 I was officially retired from the Navy, and I was rated at 100 percent disabled.”

Staff Sergeant Brian Pearce and his wife, Angela, testified to a similar experience.  Sgt. Pearce suffered significant injuries in an Improved Explosive Device blast in 2006, including TBI.  Sgt. Pearce still has 20/20 vision, but as a result of the TBI, he is legally blind.  As he testified, “[i]t is my brain that will not allow my eyes to function appropriately.”  Sgt. Pearce needed recognition of the nature of his injuries and seamless cooperation on his care between VA and the Department of Defense.  Partly due to a failure to appreciate the nature and extent of his TBI-related visual dysfunction, Sgt. Pearce and Angela encountered obstacles and delays in obtaining proper treatment. 

The Subcommittee heard from VA clinician-researchers about their ground-breaking research into the connections between TBI and visual dysfunction.  The panelists offered recommendations to improve screenings and assessments for veterans with vision issues and also discussed technological advances in equipment and rehabilitation programs.   This technology, which includes the development of computerized visual stimulation devices, is available to veterans, though on a limited basis.

In recognition of the importance of identifying and treating eye injuries and vision dysfunction in injured service members, Congress included a provision in the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act which directs the Department of Defense to create an eye care center of excellence which is required to “collaborate to the maximum extent practicable” with the VA.  Reports from both Departments and testimony from hearing witnesses suggested that progress on this eye care center has so far been limited to developing a computerized registry of those suffering from vision deficits.

“We cannot wait any longer to implement these new technologies and make them available to our wounded service members and veterans,” said Bob Filner (D-CA), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.  “Our veterans did not wait for research results before navigating an alley in Iraq or patrolling a village in Afghanistan.  They did not perform a cost-benefit analysis before implementing the orders that were given to them.  We owe these heroes prompt and bold action.”   

Witnesses:Panel 1

• <!–[if !supportLists]–>

Staff Sergeant (Ret.) Brian Pearce, U.S. Army Combat Veteran

• <!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–>

Angela M. Pearce, Wife of U.S. Army Combat Veteran

• <!–[if !supportLists]–>

HM1 (FMF) (Ret.) Glenn Minney, U.S. Navy Combat Veteran

• <!–[if !supportLists]–>

Thomas Zampieri, Ph.D., Director of Government Relations, Blinded Veterans Association

Panel 2

• <!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>

Randolph S. Marshall, M.D., M.S., Professor of Clinical Neurology, Director, Division of Cerebrovascular Diseases, Columbia University Medical Center, Testifying on behalf of NovaVision, Inc.

Accompanied by:

•  
  • <!–[if !supportLists]–> <!–[endif]–>

Navroze S. Mehta, President/CEO, NovaVision, Inc.

• <!–[if !supportLists]–>

Mary Warren, M.S., OTR/L, Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy, Director, Graduate Certification in Low Vision Rehabilitation Program, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Testifying on behalf of Performance Enterprises and Dynavision 2000

• <!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–>

Gayle Clarke, Chief Executive Officer, Neuro Vision Technology Pty. Ltd.

Panel 3

• <!–[if !supportLists]–>

James Orcutt, M.D., Chief of Ophthalmology, Veterans Health Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

• <!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–>

Barbara Sigford, M.D., Ph.D., National Program Director for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Veterans Health Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

• <!–[if !supportLists]–>

Glenn Cockerham, M.D., Chief of Ophthalmology, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Accompanied by:

·         <!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–>

Gregory L. Goodrich, Ph.D., Research Psychologist, Western Blind Rehabilitation Center, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

• <!–[if !supportLists]–><!–[endif]–>

Colonel (P) Loree K. Sutton, M.D., Director, Department of Defense Center of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury, U.S. Department of Defense
Accompanied by:

• <!–[if !supportLists]–>

Major General Gale S. Pollock, Deputy Surgeon General for Force Management, Chief, Army Nurse Corps, U.S. Department of Defense

Prepared testimony and a link to the webcast of the hearing is available on the internet at this link:  http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/hearing.aspx?newsid=219.

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

March 10, 2008 by admin.

Navy Awards Contract for New Walter Reed Facility
American Forces Press Service
BETHESDA, Md., March 3, 2008 – A joint venture of Clark Construction of Bethesda, Md., and Balfour Beatty Construction, based in Atlanta, today received a $641.4 million from the Naval Facilities Engineering Command to design and build the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda.
The Navy command will oversee the planning and construction.

“I am confident that the new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will be the crown jewel in an already illustrious military medical system. The most important mission for us is to provide the highest levels of care, comfort and convenience to our wounded heroes so they can focus on the most important mission of all, healing,†said Dr. S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.

The establishment of the new center on the grounds of the National Naval Medical Center was congressionally mandated under the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act, which recommended the realignment of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the relocation of all tertiary medical services to the Bethesda campus and the renaming of the facility as the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The law requires that all services be relocated by Sept. 15, 2011.

For the contractor to complete construction in accordance with BRAC legislation while minimizing impacts on ongoing patient care operations at the Bethesda complex, critical activities, most notably environmental isues, must be completed well in advance to the start of construction, officials said.

The final environmental impact statement is scheduled for release in early April. The required comment period under the National Environmental Policy Act ended Jan. 28, officials explained, and the official response to public comments will be included in the final economic impact statement.

Officials said the Defense Department is aware of the increased traffic concerns of the surrounding communities, and continues to consider measures to mitigate traffic issues that could arise during the period of construction, and work with local civilian leadership.

Plans call for the new, 345-bed medical center to be have the full range of intensive and complex specialty and subspecialty medical services, including specialized facilities for the most seriously war injured. It’s expected to become the U.S. military’s premier tertiary referral center for casualty and beneficiary care, to provide postgraduate education and other training, and to serve as a critical medical research center.

Concurrent to this project will be the construction of a new 120-bed military medical treatment facility at Fort Belvoir, Va.

“This is the next step in building the world-class medical center at the hub of the nation’s premier regional health care system,†said Navy Rear Adm. (Dr.) John M. Mateczun, commander of Joint Task Force Capital Region Medical. “The department intends to meet its obligation to ensure our service members and families receive the highest quality of care. There is nothing more important than taking care of our wounded warriors.â€

The new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center complex will include a mix of new outpatient and inpatient facilities as well as extensive renovations and upgrades to the existing hospital facilities. New circulation pathways, utility tunnels, and a parking structure are also included in the plans. Supporting facilities to be built under a separate contract include non-clinical and Warrior Transition administrative spaces, barracks, a gymnasium and additional parking.

About 2,200 staff positions will be added to the Bethesda campus; most of the new personnel added to the future facility will transfer from other DoD locations, officials said. Additionally, the Fisher House Foundation will build two new Fisher Houses and a National Intrepid Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health Diagnosis, Treatment, Clinical Training, and Related Services to support wounded veterans and their families.

(From a Joint Task Force Capital Region Medical news release.)

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

February 25, 2008 by admin.

Veterans Affairs aims to update and centralize IT systems
By Bob Brewin bbrewin@govexec.com February 21, 2008
The Veterans Affairs Department is centralizing information technology systems, management and processes with one primary goal in mind, according to VA’s top enterprise infrastructure engineering official: to ensure that veterans anywhere in the country get the same level of care.
Charlie De Sanno, executive director of VA’s Office of Enterprise Infrastructure Engineering, said that until two years ago, the department’s approach to IT was decentralized, in which an individual hospital’s level of service depended on how much it invested in information systems.
Some facilities invest more in IT than others in VA’s network of 1,400 hospitals, clinics and nursing homes, De Sanno said in McLean, Va., on Wednesday, after speaking at the annual Federal Networks conference, sponsored by Telestrategies and Suss Consulting. Central IT management will ensure that veterans have the same experience whether they go to a VA hospital in Brooklyn or Boston, he said.
A key part of the project is to pull computing operations out of 126 local sites serving the Veterans Health Administration and consolidate them into four regional data processing centers. But that effort hit a hurdle in August 2007, when an outage knocked out vital information systems at VA hospitals and clinics operated in Alaska, northern California, Los Angeles, Hawaii, Guam, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, west Texas, American Samoa, the Philippines and Washington state.
The outage resulted from a tweak in the systems at the Sacramento data center that mismatched the speed of servers with the speed of a telecommunications switch, De Sanno said, adding that it was human, not technological, error. Dr. Ben Davoren, director of clinical informatics at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, called the outage “the most significant technological threat to patient safety VA has ever had.”
The IT staff came away from that outage with a couple of valuable lessons learned, De Sanno said. First, VA needs to tightly control and supervise change and configuration management, he said, as well as diversify computer resources.
The Sacramento data center supported 17 hospitals and their outlying clinics. In the future, fewer hospitals will be supported by beefed-up regional server farms, De Sanno said. The plan includes two- and three-server clusters that will support six hospitals and provide redundancy. Supporting fewer hospitals from a server cluster will make it easier to restart the system in case of a failure, De Sanno said.
VA also is in the process of transforming its award-winning but aging Veterans Health Information Systems Technology and Architecture (VistA) electronic health record system, Robert Howard, VA assistant secretary for information and technology, said at the conference.
He said VistA, which is based on programming language developed in the 1960s, needs to be updated to function in a Web-based world to serve highly mobile clinicians and patients. As VA works to improve VistA, he vowed, “we will not break it.” The transition will be a slow process, De Sanno said, with some core databases in use a decade from now.
Another challenge the department faces this year is switching its nationwide networks from the Sprint FTS 20001 contract to the General Services Administration’s new Networx contract, held by AT&T Government Solutions, Verizon Business Services and Qwest Government Services, David Cheplicik, executive director of VA’s Office of eEnterprise Telecommunications, said at the conference. He expects VA to award its Networx contracts by April.

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

February 11, 2008 by admin.

IRS is providing for taxpayer year 2007 - Free File

Military Members can use Free File for Income Tax

If their adjusted gross income was $54,000 or less in 2007, you can use Free File to prepare and e-file your taxes online.

http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=118986,00.html

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

February 11, 2008 by admin.

Coalition Forces Disrupt Terrorists in Central, Northern Iraq

American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2008 – Coalition forces killed six terrorists, detained 28 terrorism suspects and discovered three weapons caches during operations over the past two days disrupting al Qaeda networks operating in central and northern Iraq.

In operations today:

– Coalition forces targeted associates of a senior al Qaeda foreign-terrorist facilitator during two coordinated operations in Mosul. The terrorist leader reportedly leads a group of foreign terrorists and suicide bombers responsible for an attack that resulted in the death of five coalition soldiers Jan. 28. Reports led coalition forces to an area where one of the suspects was believed to be operating. Forces killed one terrorist and destroyed a vehicle to prevent its further use for terrorist operations. In the eastern portion of the city, coalition forces detained six suspected terrorists for their alleged association with the terrorist leader.

– Coalition forces captured an individual in Beiji who is allegedly an al Qaeda cell leader. The suspect reportedly leads and coordinates attacks on coalition forces in the region. He also is believed to be a close associate of the al Qaeda senior leader for the network, as well as a member of an anti-coalition forces group active in the region. Local citizens led the ground force to the individual, and he was detained along with one additional suspect.

– Coalition forces in Tikrit captured an alleged member of an al Qaeda media and propaganda cell with suspected ties to al Qaeda senior leadership. Coalition forces detained three suspected terrorists in addition to the wanted suspect.

– Iraqi and coalition security forces conducted an operation targeting special group criminal elements today in eastern Baghdad. Sixteen criminals were initially detained; one died later from wounds received during the operation. As ground forces approached the target house they came under attack by small-arms fire. Iraqi and coalition forces returned fire , mortally wounding one terrorist. A woman also suffered a minor injury and was treated on site by military medical personnel. The operation targeted members of a group believed to be responsible for multiple indirect-fire and explosively formed penetrator attacks against Iraqi and coalition forces, as well as the kidnapping and murder of Iraqi citizens.

In operations yesterday:

– Coalition forces conducted an operation in the Diyala River Valley targeting al Qaeda associates involved in weapons smuggling and attacks against coalition forces. Reports indicate that coalition success in degrading the networks in Baghdad has pushed groups of al Qaeda into the valley, where they are seeking safe haven. Forces confirmed the presence of enemy personnel in the target area and called for supporting aircraft to engage, killing five terrorists. As the ground force cleared the area, they discovered numerous weapons, including 12 machine guns and ammunition, multiple mortar tubes, two anti-aircraft weapons, and multiple rocket-propelled grenades. The weapons were safely destroyed, along with a vehicle in the target area, to prevent future use by terrorists.

– Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers came upon a weapons cache including 56 60 mm mortar rounds, 43 82 mm mortar rounds and 19 120 mm mortar rounds while patrolling Ghazaliyah. The soldiers apprehended a suspected terrorist in connection with the cache find. In addition, the soldiers discovered a second cache, consisting of two 105 mm artillery rounds, a 120 mm artillery round, eight 121 mm mortar rounds, four 81 mm mortar rounds, 71 60 mm mortar rounds and 66 rocket-propelled-grenade propellants.

– Coalition forces conducting a boat patrol south of Baghdad were engaged by small-arms fire. They returned fire and called supporting aircraft to engage. Following the engagement, ground forces arrived to assess the scene and discovered that the location where the small-arms fire originated was a local citizens’ checkpoint. The Iraqis had mistakenly fired on coalition forces, who followed proper self-defense measures in response to the threat, officials said. The building next to the checkpoint was struck by the supporting aircraft fire, killing an Iraqi civilian and damaging the building. “Coalition forces sincerely regret when any innocent civilian is killed during our operations, and the man’s family has our deepest condolences,” said Army Maj. Winfield Danielson, a Multinational Force Iraq spokesman. “We only engage what we believe to be hostile threats and take every precaution to protect innocent civilians, specifically to minimize the chances of a tragedy like this.”

In operations earlier this week:

– Coalition forces working with intelligence from police in northern Iraq liberated two men locked inside a large storage container being used as a subterranean prison in the Al Jazeera desert near Samarra on Feb. 4. The hostages, both from Yethrib village near Balad, were taken from a gas station along with a fuel truck by men in black masks. The two men were malnourished and dehydrated, but showed no signs of torture. “The two individuals told us they were taken because their station didn’t pay al Qaeda extremists,” said Army 1st Lt. Todd Baldwin, of Company C, 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment. After receiving medical attention at Forward Operating Base Brassfield-Mora, near Samarra, the men said up to nine other people were held prisoner. The two men didn’t know what happened to the others, but mentioned five of them were from Sons of Iraq, a neighborhood watch group, in Beiji. “Iraqi police and Sons of Iraq were the driving forces in the rescue of the two men,” Baldwin said. “They provided the human intelligence for us to conduct the rescue operation.”

– Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers arrested a suspected criminal in the Jihad neighborhood of southern Baghdad on Feb. 4. The man is believed to be a former lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi army and is suspected of using money taken from contracts to finance weapons trafficking to destabilize the neighborhood. The suspect was taken to a coalition forces detention facility for further questioning.

– An Iraqi civilian provided information that enabled Iraqi and coalition forces to unearth a large cache 7 kilometers south of Ramadi on Feb. 4. The buried cache consisted of 120 23 mm rounds, three 82 mm mortar rounds, three antiaircraft weapons, 4,000 14.5 mm ammunition rounds, and 70 pounds of assorted propellant. An explosive ordnance disposal team destroyed the munitions at the site with a controlled detonation.

– Policemen from 1st Brigade, 7th Iraqi National Police Division, arrested a man believed to be an al Qaeda operative after he tried to pass through a traffic control checkpoint in Massafee on Feb. 3. The man, suspected of murder, placing improvised explosive devices and weapons trafficking, was taken to an Iraqi facility for further questioning.

– Multinational Division Baghdad soldiers captured two suspected al Qaeda cell members in two separate raids in Doura on Feb. 3. During the first raid, soldiers knocked on the door of a home believed to be a terrorist sniper and arrested a man matching the extremist’s name and description. The man is accused of setting up false checkpoints to kidnap Shiite and Christian Iraqis in the Arab Jabour region of the city. Later, soldiers arrested a man accused of murder, forcibly displacing families and placing bombs in the Doura area. Both alleged extremists were taken to a coalition forces detention facility for further questioning.

(Compiled from Multinational Force Iraq and Multinational Corps Iraq news releases.)

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »

February 4, 2008 by admin.

VA urged to use advanced technology to cut backlog of benefit claims

By Bob Brewin bbrewin@govexec.com January 30, 2008 Advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence could help the Veterans Affairs Department reduce a backlog of disability claims that has spiked past 1 million, according to computer experts and veterans advocates.

The Veterans Benefits Administration, which processes the claims, has a backlog of 650,000 pending claims and another 147,000 that are under appeal and working their way through a process that “is paper intensive, complex to understand, difficult to manage and takes years to learn,” Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., chairman of the Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Disability and Memorial Affairs, said at a Jan. 29 hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

Training an employee to rate VBA claims can take two to three years and many leave within five years, Hall said. Experienced raters can adjudicate only about three claims a day, spending two to three hours on each claim. He said the VA should consider the use of artificial intelligence technologies, such as automated decision-support tools that can determine disability payments, which would speed up claims processing.

Computer experts who testified at the hearing said technology exists today that can automate the claims process and eliminate the backlog.

“If we can develop computer software such as TurboTax, which guides taxpayers as they fill out complex tax forms online, and which then provides them with instant, computer-based application of complex tax regulations to calculate to the penny the taxes they owe, then I see no reason why we cannot develop similar software to automate online filing of VA benefits claims and to automate a substantial fraction of the processing of these claims,” said Tom Mitchell, chairman of the Machine Learning Department at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Mitchell said the VBA needs to emulate health insurers such as Highmark Inc., a Pittsburgh-based company that uses computers to process 90 percent of its claims. The computer system automatically determines payments, Mitchell said, “because it contains a large collection of rules, each one specifying the payment to be made in some very specific case, defined by the details of the patient’s policy, treatment and history. The complex policy for determining what payment is due under which condition is encoded in these rules inside the computer.”

While the type of claims processed by Highmark are not identical to the kinds of claims processed by the VBA, Mitchell said they are similar enough to “conclude online processing will be of considerable value to the VA.”

Mitchell said other AI techniques that could work for VBA include case-based reasoning systems, which tap into a database of historical data to compare past cases with a current case, and machine learning and data-mining, which could discover patterns in a current claim that indicate more information is needed to process the claim.

The VBA could automate its processes by developing a document naming system for paper documents, which are then electronically scanned into a database to make it easier to retrieve, said Ronald Miller, professor of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University..

VBA repeatedly loses paper records submitted by claimants. Robin Cleveland, wife of retired Marine Gunnery Sgt. Tai Cleveland, told the hearing that since November 2005, she has submitted multiple copies of Tai’s medical record and was told that the VBA could not find the records and she needed to resubmit them. She said her husband, a paraplegic after injuries incurred in August 2003 during a hand-to-hand training exercise in Kuwait, only started to receive benefit payments this month after Congress intervened.

Dr. Marjie Shahani, senior vice president of operations at QTC Medical Services, which conducts medical examinations on veterans and active duty personnel seeking VBA compensation, said her company has developed an application called the Evidence Organizer, which creates an electronic file for a claim, which can include multiple medical conditions and is accessible at the click of a mouse. Shahani said the organizer cuts the time to rate an individual claim from 3.5 hours to 2.2 hours. The time savings should allow a VBA ratings specialist to review 711 claims compared with the 533 a specialist processes today, he said.

The VBA already has begun to develop technologies to increase the number of claims that specialists can process, said Kim Graves, director of business process integration for the VBA. The agency has a comprehensive strategy to develop the Paperless Delivery of Veterans Benefits initiative, which will employ a variety of enhanced technologies to support end-to-end claims processing, Graves said. In addition to imaging and computable data, it will also incorporate enhanced electronic workflow capabilities, enterprise content and correspondence management services.

Graves said VBA also is considering the use of business-rules-engine software for workflow management, which could improve processors’ decision-making.

Stephen Warren, principal deputy assistant secretary for the VA Office of Information and Technology, said the department is preparing a statement of work to engage the services of a lead systems integrator to develop strategy and business requirements for Paperless Delivery of Veterans Benefits, though he did not provide a timeline.

Gary Christopherson, who served as chief information officer for the Veterans Health Administration in 2000 and principal deputy assistant secretary for Health Affairs in the Defense Department, said “using artificial intelligence or electronic decision support tools is nothing new.” Government and corporations routinely use those tools, and VBA claims processing is no more difficult than any other application of AI, he said.

Christopherson also called for a radical policy change in how VBA provides benefits. He said that it should presume that a veteran has a valid claim and is entitled to benefits for a period of a year until it completes the processing of that claim, with payment starting in 30 days of the date the claim is filed.

“Today, there is a failure to understand and appreciate the veteran’s plight,” Christopherson said. “Today’s claims processing behavior is more like a castle under siege rather than a home providing compassion, warmth, help and sustenance. That attitude and approach needs to change to a pro-active system, which welcomes veterans seeking help based on ‘the duty to assist.’ “

Posted in JWV | Print | No Comments »