Dole, Shalala Pledge Full Investigation Into Military Care

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the majority whip, said after the meeting that he pressed Bush on issues that are "at the heart of our situation in Iraq," asking him how much longer the war will go on and how long a current troop surge will continue "before we can make an evaluation" of its effectiveness. Ultimately, he said he told Bush, the new commission will have to make decisions "based on a projection of how many more injured soldiers we're going to be treating in the years to come."

Durbin said he also raised questions about whether a pending appropriations bill should include more money for military hospitals and the Veterans Administration.

He said it was inexcusable that wounded troops "now have to be subjected to flophouse atmospheres near Walter Reed hospital fighting the bureaucracy when they're trying to overcome their own illnesses and turning to families that have been praying for their safe return as their only advocates at the last moment."

Shalala said after meeting Bush, "The president actually asked us to look at the whole system from the time a soldier is moved from Iraq or Afghanistan into other kinds of care, and he made it very clear that if one soldier doesn't get high-quality treatment and isn't transitioned back into civilian life or back into the military, that's unacceptable."

"And you could sense his anger and his anxiousness that we move as quickly as possible while the Defense Department is moving to make corrections at Walter Reed," she said.

Dole said Bush made it clear that "he was going to be personally involved in this commission . . . and he thought if we came up with good recommendations it could change the system for the next 30 years."

Dole, 83, and Shalala, 66, said they would start by talking to military patients and their families.

Although he has been to Walter Reed often, Dole, a disabled veteran and former GOP presidential candidate, said he was unaware of the problems there and had not been to Building 18, the former hotel across from the hospital compound where Post reporters found wounded soldiers living in squalor in rooms plagued by mold, rot, mice and cockroaches.

"Obviously, somebody dropped the ball," Dole said. "I wonder where all the service organizations were."

In the years since Dole was seriously wounded while serving as a young Army officer in Italy, losing the use of his right arm, "health care has changed," Shalala said. "Now there's a tremendous outpatient piece," especially since more wounded soldiers are surviving their injuries than ever before.

"We have a war now with a significant number of lives being saved that weren't saved in previous wars," she said. "That requires a very different kind of system, and we need to get this right for everyone."

In Congress, meanwhile, lawmakers held another series of hearings today to probe the shortcomings in military care. The defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing on Defense Department medical programs; the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee investigated the "adjudication process" for veterans benefits; and the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee called in top Army brass to ask more questions about the situation at Walter Reed.