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Your World Today
U.S. Forces Push Into Sadr City; Walter Reed Hearings
Aired March 05, 2007 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HALA GORANI, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: A safe haven amid the danger. Or is it? A formerly bloody section of Baghdad appears to be inching toward normality.
JIM CLANCY, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Asian and European markets take another plunge. Wall Street doesn't seem to be quite ready to follow suit.
GORANI: And Beijing bling. China's booming economy spawns a new class of very wealthy people on very large spending sprees.
CLANCY: And will an inquest a decade in the making finally resolve the questions surrounding the death of a princess?
It is 8:00 p.m. right now in Baghdad, Iraq, 1:00 in the morning in Beijing.
Hello and welcome to our report broadcast around the globe.
I'm Jim Clancy.
GORANI: I'm Hala Gorani.
From Baghdad, to Beijing, to the Big Board on Wall Street, wherever you're watching, this is YOUR WORLD TODAY.
CLANCY: We begin our report in Iraq, where insurgents have attacked one of the most distinctive historic markets, the book market in the heart of Baghdad.
GORANI: A suicide car bombing hit a crowded bookseller's district around lunchtime and it killed around 26 people.
CLANCY: Now, this blast ripped through shops and set nearby cars ablaze, sending suffocating black smoke into the skies.
GORANI: One witness says papers from books were floating through the air like leaflets dropped from a plane.
CLANCY: The reality, more than 50 people were wounded in the blast. It is the biggest now to hit the capital in several days, even as the U.S. tries to put a clamp on the security situation and calm things down.
Elsewhere in the capital, those U.S. troops pushing into the Shia stronghold of Sadr City. They were joined by Iraqi forces on the ground. Now, some of the units coming from the overwhelmingly Shia Muslim southern part of the country there for their very first foray into the streets of Baghdad.
Also alongside U.S. and Iraqi forces this day, our own correspondent, Jennifer Eccleston.
Jennifer, how long were you out there? What can you report on the situation in Sadr City?
JENNIFER ECCLESTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, I spent about eight hours on patrol with this joint Iraqi and American patrol. People were out shopping, children were playing soccer, playing football. Young girls, groups of young girls, were walking around now.
Now, I have been to Sadr City a half a dozen times in three years and I have never seen it so calm, so seemingly normal. The residents we spoke to said they indeed felt secure as a result of the new security push that is going on in Baghdad. They felt secure for the first time in a very long time.
"Why?" we asked. Well, "Our brother Iraqis are working for us." "What about the Americans?" I said. "Well, they're helping out the Iraqis and when that's done, they will go home."
CLANCY: All right. The attitudes there -- as we noted, though, some of the Iraqi troops that you saw today have never been to Baghdad, probably never worked with U.S. troops before.
How did that go?
ECCLESTON: That's right. Never been to Baghdad, never worked in an efficient way, they said, with coalition forces.
Now, there were some tense moments when the chain of command between the unit and the Americans became hazy. Now, as you mentioned, this unit is from Basra, another Shia enclave, here as part of the new security push. And as I mentioned, they've never worked with coalition forces before...
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Want to quickly get you back to the hearings that are taking place on conditions at Walter Reed. Let's go ahead and listen in to Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, his opening statements. He is currently the U.S. Army's surgeon general.
Let's listen.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
LT. GEN. KEVIN KILEY, U.S. ARMY SURGEON GENERAL: ...Walter Reed has not met our standards. And for that I am personally professionally sorry, and I offer my apologies to the soldiers, the families, the civilian military leadership of the Army, and the Departments of Defense, and to the nation. It's also clear that the complex and bureaucratic administration systems that support the medical evaluation board and physical evaluation board are complex and demand urgent simplification.
I'm dedicated to do everything in my power and authority to bring a positive change to this process. Simply put, I am in command, and as I share these failures, I also accept the responsibility and the challenge for rapid corrective action.
We are taking immediate actions to improve the living conditions and welfare of our soldier patients, to increase responsiveness of our leaders in the medical system, and to enhance support services for families of our wounded soldiers. We are taking action to put into place long-term solutions for a complex bureaucratic medical evaluation process that's impacting our soldiers.
Living conditions in 18 building at Walter Reed are not acceptable. We're fixing them now. And as of this morning, we've moved out all but six soldiers to other, better accommodations on the campus.
Although Walter Reed base operations staff has corrected some of the things that you have seen in the paper, we are taking immediate action to begin more extensive renovations of the roof, the exterior. We're going to remodel the bathrooms, put new carpets, new air- conditioning units into this facility to bring it up to what we consider to be acceptable standards.
Lieutenant General Bob Wilson, commander of the installation command, and I have sent a team out across 11 or so installations to look at similar bureaucratic, administrative and clinical conditions, and infrastructure conditions to ensure that our other installations do not have issues so stated with Walter Reed.
So, we know that we've had some brick and mortar problems, and we're fixing them. What we've got human problems here, too. And this is about soldiers and their families.
America's soldiers go to war, and they are confident that if they are injured, they will be returned to a first-class medical facility. It's said a soldier won't charge an objective out of sight of a medic.
For us it's the 68 Whiskey. And there's a connection between that 68 Whiskey on the battlefield, the transportation system, the Air Vac system, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and Walter Reed and (INAUDIBLE) facilities that is unbroken. And nothing can be allowed to shake the confidence in that system, to include the superb performance of Walter Reed and ensuring that our soldiers are cared for.
Secretary Gates has made it very clear that he expects decisive action, and he and our soldiers will get it.
You know, the system that we use to decide if a soldier is medically fit for continued service, or if not, determining an appropriate disability system and transferring to the V.A., is complex, confusing and frustrating. What we have realized over these last four to five years is the nature of the injuries these soldiers receive is also very complex. And I'll talk about that in just a minute.
The tactics, techniques and procedures we use in the asymmetric battlefield are required to be changed to adjust our enemies. The procedures that we use in our medical system need to be changed appropriately as we see the circumstances surrounding our soldiers and the disabilities change. And what we really need to do, in my opinion, is make this whole process less confrontational, less adversarial.
To meet the human factor changes, we are making some adjustments here at Walter Reed. I think you've heard some of that already.
We are bringing on more nurse case managers, more physical evaluation board liaison officers, and more physicians to review medical cases. This will lower the case ratio for case managers, improve communications, and speed the processing of the paper work. We really need to reinvent this process, and we have a team now looking at interim analysis of the MEB process, the PEB process to see if we can better improve it.
The two most common complaints we hear from soldiers about the MEB/PEB process is we take too long or we rush soldiers through. So we need to be very careful to simultaneously provide soldiers the very best medical care that modern science and American medicine can offer, while at the same time ensuring that the rights of those soldiers to a full and equitable analysis is protected. And we will be very careful to protect the quality of the care and the fair assessment of soldier disability.
We want all of these soldiers to return to their units or to their homes as quickly as we can. But we want them to benefit from a full capability of modern medicine. We want to do it right.
Your Army medical professionals have earned a tremendous reputation during this war. The marvels of modern technology have allowed us to bring more soldiers off the battlefield, increase their survival rates. The training of our combat medics and our front line surgeons, the equipment we've placed -- as I referenced earlier, our Air Force counterparts and their CCAT teams moving soldiers, sailors and Marines around the world is unprecedented. We can bring soldiers from the battlefield to this great facility in 36 hours or less.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: General, your records are going to be put on -- your comments are going to be put on the record.
KILEY: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So if you could help us by just concluding.
KILEY: I will, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
KILEY: In summary, I would say that the staff here at Walter Reed, the technology we apply, and the unwavering support of Congress and the American people have made all this happen. It's regrettable that it took "The Washington Post" to bring some of this to light, but in retrospect, it will help us accelerate the process of making change and improving things. I'm committed personally to regaining the trust of the American people, the solders and their families everywhere that our Army Medical Department system can be trusted and that it is the best in the world.
I served in the Army for 30 years as a physician and soldier, taking care of patients and serving our nation. And I remain honored to command and lead the great men and women of the Army Medical Department.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, General.
General Weightman.
MAJ. GEN. GEORGE WEIGHTMAN, FMR. COMMANDER, WALTER REED ARMY CORP.: Mr. Chairman, Congressman Davis, Congressman Shays, Distinguished Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear today to discuss the problems about which we are all concerned, brought to light at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
I am Major General George Weightman, and I commanded the North Atlantic Regional Medical Commander and Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 25, August 2006, until last week.
Secretary of Defense Gates, all of our Army leaders, and you have called this a failure of leadership. I agree.
I was Walter Reed commander. And from what we see with some soldiers' living conditions and the administrative challenges we faced in the complex medical board, physical evaluation board processes, it is clear mistakes were made, and I was in charge. We can't fail one of these soldiers or their families, not one, and we did.
There's another point on which I believe we should agree, because it's important that American people and our solders in harm's way believe that both inpatient and outpatient medical care delivered by the professional healthcare team at Walter Reed are superb. There are no two separate medical systems of care at Walter Reed. Outpatients are seen by the same doctors and nurses as the inpatients.
Outpatient medical care is not second class. It's on par with our inpatient care. You have seen this on your visits, and our solders and families deserve it.
Having said that, I acknowledge there are problems and frustration for the process of assessing and following up on that outpatient care, and we aggressively are seeking ways and implementing solutions to make that system more responsive, more efficient, more effective, and more compassionate.
We did not see where some of these soldier patients were living, and we should have. There are 371 rooms on Walter Reed where we house or outpatients at Walter Reed. Twenty-six rooms in building 18 were in need of repairs. We should not have allowed that to happen because our soldiers deserve better, and it is important to their overall rehabilitation and well being which is entrusted to us.
Also, we did not fully recognize the frustrating bureaucratic and administrative processes some of these soldiers go through. We should have, and in this I failed.
Over the last two weeks we have heard of problems from months and years ago. Many of them individually fixed immediately, but we obviously missed the big picture because not one of those soldiers deserves to be satisfied (ph).
I'm disappointed that I will not be able to continue and lead the changes we must make to care for these soldiers and their families, but I respect the Army's decision. I retain and I hope that you would share the confidence and the abilities of the Army's leader's commitment and the Army Medical Department wonderful healthcare professionals to care for soldiers and create the innovative and long overdue process changes we all agree are needed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I hope my testimony today will allow us to address these problems and start to reaffirm America's confidence in Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.
Ms. Bascetta.
CYNTHIA BASCETTA, DIRECTOR, HEALTHCARE, U.S. GAO: Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today to discuss GAO's work on the challenges encountered by soldiers who sustain serious injuries in the service to our nation.
Our work has shown the array of significant medical and administrative challenges these soldiers face throughout their recovery process as they navigate the DOD and V.A. healthcare and disability systems.
As you know, blasts and fragments from IEDs, landmines and our explosive devices cause about 65 percent of their injuries, and many more of the wounded are surviving serious injuries that would have been fatal in prior wars. But the miracle of battlefield medicine is also the enduring hardship of the war borne by the soldiers and their families.
Following acute hospital care, their recovery often requires comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation to address complex cognitive, physical and...
COLLINS: All right. We have broken into our regularly scheduled programming, which is normally YOUR WORLD TODAY, our international program here at CNN, to bring you this, the congressional hearings on the conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. So far we have heard this panel two, the first two opening statements. We are in the middle of the third. This is Cynthia Bascetta. She is the director of healthcare for the U.S. GAO.
We have also already heard from Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, who is now the U.S. Army surgeon general. He was, however, in charge as the commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center for quite some time.
His successor we've also heard from, Major General George Weightman. The former commander as of very recently and as of this situation, has resigned.
So we will continue to watch this. We are going to take a quick break, be back right here in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Welcome back, everybody. I want to make sure you know what's happening here.
We have been continuing to follow the situation in Washington now. The congressional hearing conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a live picture there as opening statements had just been heard.
We are still listening to Cynthia Bascetta. She is the director of healthcare for the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
We've also already heard from Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, currently the U.S. Army surgeon general. And after him came Major General George Weightman, who was, as of just last week, Walter Reed's Army Medical Center commander.
So, we are listening to those opening statements. We will continue to follow this and bring you the question-and-answer session momentarily as it happens.
But first, we want to bring in CNN's Barbara Starr, our Pentagon correspondent, to tell us more about this.
Barbara, I did think it was interesting Lieutenant General Kiley did apologize and says he accepts responsibility for what happened, and is also very much looking forward to the challenge of correcting it. Certainly no resignation, though.
BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: No, Heidi, certainly not.
General Kiley making it very clear he plans to stay on the job himself. That was the word we were starting to get over the weekend, that General Kiley was telling other people in the Army he wanted to stay, he wanted to be part of the solution. It remains to be seen, of course, if that actually works out to be the case.
General Kiley was the commander at Walter Reed prior to General Weightman, when many of these problems started to emerge. A lot of very tough questions, I think, are expected from the committee in this upcoming Q&A session of General Kiley.
Why should he stay on the job may be one of the questions that the committee asks if these problems emerged while he was there. How could it emerge without the top commander at the hospital not knowing that this sort of thing was going on, that soldiers were becoming very frustrated, very unhappy with the kind of care that they were getting, that many of them were living in substandard conditions?
You know, to put it all into perspective, certainly there were many stories that did have positive experiences at Walter Reed. But that may not be good enough when you have soldiers such as we saw this morning expressing such concern, having such challenges, such frustrations when they were so badly injured.
That is the picture that's going to stick with the public -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Yes. And interesting, too, we spoke a little bit earlier, Barbara, about a lot of people saying, well, you know, there's such a huge influx of wounded warriors, if you will. Something like 200,000 coming from these wars. And other people saying, well, that's true, but they've got to be able to handle them.
We heard General Weightman speaking quite extensively about the administrative process and the fact that it's a problem at a facility like this.
STARR: Well, it is, because the military healthcare system, of course, is really still set up for peacetime, for troops that may be routinely injured, troops that become disabled, troops getting out of the military due to illness or something like that. Not set up for the year-after-year flow of hundreds of wounded troops every month.
And now, you know, approaching the fourth year of the war in Iraq, it doesn't look like it's going to let up any time soon. And many of these troops are going to need healthcare for months to come, as well as for the rest of their lives through the V.A. system. So this is something that Congress and the government are really only beginning to cope with -- Heidi.
COLLINS: Where does the V.A. come in to all of this as we continue to watch these proceedings?
STARR: Well, under -- the way it's structured, when someone is on active duty in the military, they go through the military healthcare system. Those are the hospitals such as Walter Reed, Bethesda Naval Hospital, the burn center down at San Antonio, Texas, the active duty military healthcare hospitals that we are so familiar with.
Once someone leaves active duty military, if they are retired after a full career or if they are retired out do to a medical problem such as an injury during the war, then they move into the V.A. system, the Veterans Administration. Now, the Veterans Administration also is gearing up for these very same problems, traumatic brain injury, burns, amputation. These are problems that are going to stick with these injured troops for the rest of their lives, and the V.A. already is beginning to feel the load of that kind of care. And that's even more difficult, if you will, to provide healthcare for because, of course, these hundreds of thousands of troops return to their homes, their cities, their towns across America. There may not be a V.A. hospital nearby.
These troops as they get on in years are going to find it more challenging, perhaps, to cope with their medical situation. So I think what most people are seeing today really is probably their first look as civilians at the challenges that these wounded troops are really facing -- Heidi.
COLLINS: And real quickly, before we take a break, because we do want to come back, Barbara, and bring in this question-and-answer session as the second panel here speaks, I just want to ask you specifically about General Kiley and making sure that everyone remembers as of just August is when Weightman took over for him.
I wonder if it is sort of common knowledge that it's possible he could need to step down, even though the responsibilities of maintenance and the person who is in charge of that facility directly, that there is some delegation there.
STARR: Well, I think that's the question an awful lot of people are asking today. I mean, moving around the Pentagon this morning, I have to tell you, speaking to one very senior general I encountered in the hallway, already a lot of questions being asked in the Army about, can General Kiley stay with it? Can he remain in this job?
COLLINS: Right.
STARR: So far, he's there. We will see what happens.
COLLINS: All right. We will continue to watch it. Got to take a quick break.
We will be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Quickly want to take you back to the live coverage that we have here, the congressional hearings on the conditions at Walter Reed Army medical Center. Some of the questions that happened during the break here, talking a lot about the personnel decline that apparently happened at Walter Reed.
We are listening in to some of these questions now that are facing Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, the current U.S. Army surgeon general; Major General George Weightman, former commander as of just a few days ago at Walter Reed Army Medical Center; and this woman, Ms. Cynthia Bascetta. She's the director of healthcare at the U.S. Government Accountability office.
Let's go ahead and listen in for just a moment.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)
REP. TOM DAVIS (R), RANKING MEMBER, OVERSIGHT: ... our committee's quarterly briefing on medical holdovers. I requested a copy of the assistant secretary's analysis and review, their SAR report.
This review was conducted by individuals from all of the medical commands involved in all of the processes, including installation management. It clearly indicates the review teams had concerns with building 18 ability, staffing, the soldiers' handbook, training, out- processing, separation transition, patient transformation, and the medical evaluation boards.
Attached to the review is a memo that was signed by Colonel Ronald Hamilton (ph), the commander that indicates that you, General Weightman, and General Kiley received a copy of this review in October.
Do you remember receiving a copy or getting briefed on it?
WEIGHTMAN: Yes, sir, I do.
DAVIS: How about you, General?
KILEY: I believe I did, too. Yes, sir.
DAVIS: So, it really wasn't necessarily "The Washington Post." You knew these were problems. You may not have known specifically what it looked like and you may not have been able to put faces and stories behind it, but this was an ongoing certain, wasn't it?
KILEY: Well, yes, sir. And it was not just at Walter Reed. We were concerned about medical holdover operations at all of our installations.
DAVIS: So what did you do when you saw this report in October? We know what you're doing now after "The Post" articles. What did you do in October to try to stay ahead of it?
KILEY: My staff informed me that the Walter Reed staff was working it, that they recognized that there were issues, and that they were taking action.
Sir, may I address some of the specifics on that?
WEIGHTMAN: We realized to address some of the problems with how long it took our patients to get through the medical board process, that we needed more physicians framed on the MEB process and to help move those records. So we added three different physicians part time to work on those records, and we also designated in '06 a colonel to be in charge of that whole process.
We also recognized we didn't have enough of the PEBLO counselors available. And I think you've already heard from previous testimony their role in counseling and being the patient's advocate in this whole process, realized that they needed more training and they were inadequate in number. So we've increased those, and that started after this report.
We also realized that we didn't have enough of the case managers as well to work with the patients within the medical hold and medical holdover companies, and we began active recruiting efforts for those as well.
DAVIS: General Kiley, you're no stranger to this committee. You came before us in 2005. During your testimony at that point, you assured us that improvements were being made to the medical holdover process.
This was at the point where we had numerous soldiers come up and talk about how they had fallen through the process, how they languished. Their orders would be they would leave from the Army and go back to the Guard, and they were in kind of a limbo. And you reported at that point you stated under oath MHO (ph) soldiers can expect their treatment recovery experience to meet or exceed that of the active component because the army's surgeon general has made their care, the medical treatment facilities, top priority. That was your position at that point.
LT. GEN. KEVIN KILEY, U.S. ARMY SURGEON GENERAL: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it did not happen, did it?
KILEY: Sir, in my role in the med com commander, Walter Reed was not my only command. Southeast was (INAUDIBLE) Brooke and Tripler. In my discussions routinely with my senior commanders, we discussed the issues of medical hold-over processing because I'd heard as the Walter Reed commander that our reserve and National Guard soldiers felt like they were not getting the same priority as active duty. I made it clear at a minimum there would be no difference. In many cases these soldiers because they were staying at our camp post stations instead of going home, was a sense of urgency to get them to the head of the line, to get the evaluations done. My comments about a good news story was the numbers of solders that we were able to heal and return to the force on the order of magnitude of about 80 percent of those soldiers (INAUDIBLE). My take on this and my comments to your committee were that, while we have problems and we continue to have those problems, we were still caring for and healing and returning to the force a large number.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: General, the problem I think is a systemic problem. We have more people coming back than was anticipated. We have antiquated systems (INAUDIBLE) reserves and the Guard and the army back and forth. It's a paper work nightmare. It's a labyrinth that you need a Ph.D and a law degree and you still could not navigate yourself through. And the frustration of these poor injured veterans coming back, it is systemic. I'm afraid this is just the tip of the iceberg that when we go out in the field we may find more like this. Sir, do you have an comment on that as you look at. Is that a fair analysis? CYNTHIA BASCETTA, DIR., HEALTH CARE, GOVT. ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE: I think certainly from our work, it would warrant a top-to-bottom review of the situation across the country.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To keep putting a band-aid on something, it needs a complete overhaul that seems to me.
BASCETTA: Correct.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, gentlemen. Mr. Waxman.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D) CALIFORNIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. General Kiley, according to "Washington Post" article on Saturday, former Army Secretary Francis Harvey described a telephone conversation that he had with you. And he said that after the Walter Reed story broke in the "Washington Post," you called him and lambasted the "Washington Post" reports as of squalid conditions, you said the "Post" story was yellow journalism at its worse. Did you tell the army secretary you thought the "Post" story was yellow journalism at its worst?
KILEY: Sir, I had as I remember, a couple of conversations from the start of the publication of the "Post" with the secretary. I believe one was in person. I had a discussion with him over an article in "The Army Times" where he asked me to call him back and I called him back and told him I would go through that and then I had a discussion with when he called me.
WAXMAN: Whatever discussions you had with him, did you say to him that that report was yellow journalism at its worst?
KILEY: I don't believe my comment - (AUDIO GAP) directed at the larger report but a follow-on article that took a series of facts that included me and began to say what did I know and when did I know it. And I didn't think that was necessarily a fair article.
WAXMAN: You're talking about the "Washington Post" articles?
KILEY: All of them, sir.
WAXMAN: OK. Are you denying the accounts of the solders in the "Post" article or what happened?
KILEY: No, sir. No, sir.
WAXMAN: And what were you outraged about?
KILEY: I was disappointed that the articles characterized the fact that I had been commander from 2002 and that I was aware of some of the circumstances that the "Post" was revealing in its stories in 2005 and 2006 and that somehow I had known about them. And other parts of that article that I didn't think were accurate.
WAXMAN: So after you left, when did you leave?
KILEY: I left in 2004. WAXMAN: After you left, you did not know what happened here?
KILEY: No, sir, that's not correct. But I was the next higher commander. I had a two star commander in command managing Walter Reed as well as North Atlantic region. As with General Weightman, we had routine video conferences to talk about issues not just related to med holdover but to the Brac (ph), to A-76.
WAXMAN: You had these conversations complaining about how you were treated in the articles. Did you say in any of your conversations, we've got to do something. We've got to investigate this problem and straighten it out?
KILEY: I'm sorry, to who, sir?
WAXMAN: To the army -- the head of the army.
KILEY: To Secretary Harvey?
WAXMAN: Yes.
KILEY: Yes, sir. We talked about getting engaged and finding out what's going on, getting an action together to fix those immediate problems that we could fix and starting to look at the long-term issues. Some of which we had already been taking on to include my TBI task force, mental health task force and issues looking specifically the MEBP (ph) process.
WAXMAN: Now, the chairman asked about this contracting out. This contracting out according to the memo that was prepared which I presume you saw. Is that correct?
KILEY: Colonel Garibaldi's (ph) message? Yes, sir.
WAXMAN: You saw it and General Weightman, you saw that memo as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.
WAXMAN: That memo warned about mission failure, in other words, the failure to provide care that Walter Reed was supposed to provide because of ...
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We continue to bring you the question-and-answer session at the House oversight and government reform committee, some exchanges there with Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, currently the U.S. Army surgeon general, formerly the commander of Walter Reed Army medical center as they try to get to the bottom of what has happened to the living conditions and the quality of care. We continue to watch this as we bring you another story.
DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're keeping an eye as well on a plane crash that happened in Bedford, Indiana, a live picture here. What you're seeing there is a home with a plane parked in it, not where it's supposed to be. This was a small plane crash, authorities there in Bedford, which is about 65 miles south of Indianapolis, are reporting that at least one person was killed and that one person was the person that was on that plane. Don't know yet about injuries on the ground to anyone or anyone who was possibly in the home. Yes, you're looking at a home in Bedford, Indiana, that has a plane parked in it, not where it's supposed to be.
According to a local newspaper, this plane was just trying to land actually at an airport that's not far from this home. It veered severely to one side and ended up landing in this home. Keeping an eye on this story but at least one person killed according to authorities there. That person was on the plane. Don't know yet about injuries on the ground. We will keep an eye on this as well as the hearings in Washington, DC about the conditions at Walter Reed. Quick break, be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Back to Washington now as we watch Representative Christopher Shays in exchanges and questions for the three panelists. This is panel number two now. We have Department of Defense and Army officials Lt. General Kevin Kiley, Major General George Weightman and Cynthia Bascetta, director of the health care of the U.S. Government Accountability Office. Let's go ahead, listen in right now and see what this discussion in particular, is about now.
REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R) CONNECTICUT: There's something visual. There was mold on the wall but the mold on the wall is in fact the tip of the iceberg. So help me out, because people are going to say it's going to be taken care of and in two weeks from now or two months from now, how do we know it is?
KILEY: Sir, I agree with you. The mold is a brick and mortar issue. We've got it fixed in building 18. We are examining all of the rest of the brick and mortar and medical command to make sure we don't have those kinds of issues.
SHAYS: I think that's the easy part.
KILEY: Yes, sir. The second piece is the thing I referenced, which is the heretofore not fully realized complexity of the injuries of these great young Americans. I'm a co-chair of the mental health task force, Senators Boxer and Lieberman. We are coming to closure on our work this last year. The issues of mental health, PTSD, late emerging PTSD, the issues of TBI, traumatic brain injury - how to diagnose
SHAYS: I don't know what you're saying to me.
KILEY: What I'm saying is these are very complex patients that are severely injured in multiple emotional, physical and mental ways, and then finally, sir, we are going to have a long-term challenge to continue to care for these soldiers and their families.
SHAYS: We know that. I guess what I'm trying to understand, how does it get solved? How many case workers do we have? What is the workload of each case worker?
KILEY: Sir, those average about one to 25 to one to 30.
SHAYS: Under oath you're saying that's what it is?
KILEY: Yes, sir.
SHAYS: So why would Sergeant Shannon basically have to find his own way and have to find his own case worker, without his case worker finding him? I feel like these men and women are almost in prison in the bureaucracy. They could be here -- it's kind of the like the old song of the Kingston trio, in the subway -- that's the way it feels to me. Explain that to me.
KILEY: Sir, it's absolutely right. We did not have a fool proof system to hand off our in-patients to the outpatient care. We had a system that probably was accurate about 80 percent of the time. About 20 percent of the time as I assume Sergeant Shannon fall into that group. We did not do a good handoff of those patients so he went from being an in-patient on one of our wards to his platoon sergeant and his case manager picking him up.
SHAYS: So write these reports. They are available to Congress. They are available to the press, even the press, so this is nothing new. All of us in a sense are made aware of these problems. How do you know when the problem is being addressed and how do you get around and how do we deal with people telling us they are being addressed when they are not?
BASCETTA: Well, when we make recommendations, we always follow up on those recommendations to ensure that they have been implemented. But in this case, we have been very frustrated. We bring things to DOD's attention over and over and we see that they fix certain problems on an individual basis, but the systemic fixes don't seem to happen. And sometimes I think that part of the problem is that the rules and regulations are so monumental that we are focused more on that and not on the patients.
SHAYS: This is what I think and I will conclude with the few seconds I have left. I believe that basically it's part of your mind set that says if you're not going to get the resources, your job is to basically come to Congress and say, we are getting the job done. And I feel like -- frankly, that's almost not almost, it's being dishonest. It's being dishonest to yourself and it's being dishonest to us. And I will look forward to the day when someone who is in a uniform comes to us and says under oath, I'm not getting the resources I need to do my job.
KILEY: Mr. Chairman, may I respond to that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Briefly.
KILEY: I have said this, sir, in public. The congress has given U.S. Army medical command under my command everything I have asked for in terms of resources. The challenge is in some of the issues that we are addressing, which is how do we best apply those resources to best care for soldiers and then hand them off to the VA? I agree with you there are issues, there are gaps in the system, both electronic and medical records, handoffs. I have assigned army personnel --
SHAYS: I understand my time is up. But what you're saying though under oath is you have all of the resources necessary --
KILEY: Sir --
SHAYS: and I honestly don't believe that.
KILEY: Yes, sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Mr. Duncan made the point of $450 billion in the defense budget and it may be I think there's some -- some truth to the matter that there's resources there and there's priorities, but I hear your point as well. Mr. Lynch?
REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D) MASS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I just want to say, I have read this record pretty thoroughly and General Weightman, I have to say that you having only been in this position for six months, you probably have a little more blame being laid at your doorstep that I think is probably appropriate. I just want to get that on the record, my reading of this. Miss Bascetta, you're aware that GAO conducted a review of the army system for evaluating the fitness of wounded solders to stay in the service.
BASCETTA: Yes.
LYNCH: OK. I'm just stuck on this number. I noticed that the Navy has an approval rate of about 35 percent for those who apply for retirement for disability and the Air Force, their approval rate is around 24 percent. Then I noticed the Army, which has a greater number of individuals applying, has an approval rate of about 4 percent. Now I'm just curious if you looked at that. I know you just did the Army. But did you look at a comparison with what's going on? Can you help me with this? Can you explain why those numbers look the way they do?
BASCETTA: What I can tell you is that in our review of the disability system, we noticed first of all that the services don't always follow the same procedures. But more importantly, they don't have a quality assurance mechanism in place to assure that the decisions that are made are consistent across the services. And I -- without knowing that, it's difficult to explain whether the variations that you're seeing in those award rates are reasonable or not.
LYNCH: OK. Let me ask you this, recently the secretary of Defense appointed an independent panel to review all of this. Now, it's an independent review commission. It's headed by former Secretary Togo (ph) West and also former Secretary Jack Marsh. Both outstanding individuals, but I just question whether it's independent. Both of these men are just -- they are just top notch, but they are Army to the core. And I am just wondering if we are looking for an independent review, truly independent, someone that can be critical of this whole process, I just question in your own mind conducting a review like this, and while I have, again, I have enormous respect for Togo West and Jack Marsh, but I'm wondering if these are the best people for an independent and impartial review since these two men I know absolutely love the United States Army. And I'm questioning whether or not they can be objective about the problems here.
BASCETTA: I can certainly understand your concern. I can tell you that there's a lot of work going on reviewing the disability systems, both in the VA and in the DOD. There's a veterans benefits commission that is looking at those issues now and the discrepancies between the ratings, comparing them to those that are given in the VA for the same service members.
LYNCH: And lastly before I yield back, General Kiley, I don't always trust the newspapers, but the quotes that you thought -- you thought the story was unfair, I know that Chairman Waxman mentioned it a little earlier and that you felt this was not a failure or a horrible situation at Walter Reed, your comments were in conflict with the secretary of the Army on the same issue. He said there was definitely a failure and that it was inexcusable, inexcusable was the word he used. Are your own thoughts the same as you sit here today that you thought this was a one-sided report and that it did not fairly represent the situation?
KILEY: Sir, to make sure I'm clear on this. The original reports about the soldiers and the conditions, building 18, again, I did not label that as yellow journalism. There was a follow-on article later that was focused on me that I had some concerns about and did say in a private conversation with the secretary I thought it was yellow journalism. What I did say and what you referenced Mr. Lynch was earlier on, my concern...
PHILLIPS: You're listening to Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, the current U.S. Army surgeon general in the middle of a congressional hearing on the conditions at Walter Reed medical facility. We have been following this all day long. Several other people have been speaking, also taking questions. Major General George Weightman, he is the commander at Walter Reed starting in August of 2006 so really only in charge of for six months. This gentleman you're watching now has been in charge prior to that. So that's why so many questions for him. And, of course, his current position as a surgeon general. Major General Weightman is out, secretary of the army was out. That would be Secretary Harvey from last week. We will continue to watch these proceedings and you will see more at the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM PM.
JIM CLANCY, CNN ANCHOR, YOUR WORLD TODAY: Hello everyone. Welcome back to our viewers joining us from more than 200 countries around the globe, including all of you in the United States.
HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR, YOUR WORLD TODAY: This is YOUR WORLD TODAY on CNN international and part of our world today, pictures coming to us from Germany. Dramatic pictures you might not be able to make it out there. But what you're seeing is dramatic prison break in western Germany that ended in spectacular failure. You see it there. Three long-term prisoners, one of them you see on your screen there, caught by barbed wire while trying to escape in the city of Bochum (ph). They managed to climb over the security fence. They managed that but then the barbed wire put an abrupt stop to things for them. A local TV station got these pictures from one of the men on a stretcher there, hanging from the fence and then was wheeled into an ambulance. Two of the three prisoners were seriously hurt by the barbed wire.
CLANCY: Interesting pictures of an escape plan, but there was a catch.
Well, there's only one Oprah Winfrey, the U.S. talk show host. She's built an empire. There's no doubt about that, based on her ability to communicate directly to her audience, no matter what's the topic.
GORANI: It's a format that's popular at the other end of the world. There's a young woman in China who seems to share her gift, Oprah's gift. So is it any wonder they call Chen Lu Yu the Chinese Oprah? James McDonald reports.
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JAMES McDONALD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In a studio on the outskirts of Beijing, a live TV audience watches people share their most intimate stories in public. Not long ago this kind of show would have been unthinkable in China but its pioneering host makes it work, drawing comparisons to a talk TV icon.
CHEN LU YU, TALK SHOW HOST: It's flattering in a way because she's my model and if people say wow, your trans- (ph) Oprah, that means people say you're pretty good.
McDONALD: Chen Lu Yu hosts "A Date with Lu Yu." Her groundbreaking show is known for pushing the envelope, dealing with topics once considered too hot for Chinese TV. Before the show, Chen talked to us about the challenges of hosting a chat show in a conservative culture.
YU: Chinese people tend to be kind of shy and we are not as expressive. I mean, I cannot expect my viewers to be acting like all of those viewers on Oprah's show. They shout, they scream.
McDONALD: When her show first went to air, it was celebrity focused but the U.S.-educated Chen expanded the format to include guests from all walks of life, most unaccustomed to opening up.
YU: Being sincere and kind and being protective of my guests do help a lot. I'm very curious. I'm going to ask all the tough questions. But if they don't want to answer those questions, it's fine.
McDONALD: Tough questions and sometimes sensitive subjects. Here transsexual dancer Jin Sing (ph) appears on the program. Chen has even had guests with HIV, a hot button issue in a country where television is still heavily censored.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fact Chen Lu Yu can talk about those things and it's not censored in China is a recognition of a greater openness broadly in society and government.
McDONALD: This program is part of a dramatic shift in the Chinese media landscape. The TV market has expanded and viewers now have more programming choices than ever before with dozens of local TV channels along with cable and satellite networks. But state media still dominates and some topics, mainly political, remain off-limits. Chen said censors have left her alone. Her show stays away from politics because she says her audience is looking for something else.
YU: I believe in making my viewers feel good about themselves and about life because life is hard as it is.
McDONALD: On this show, a guest shares his story of trying to run a restaurant in Baghdad. It's personal, at times both heartbreaking and humorous, a date Chen's viewers won't soon forget. James McDonald, CNN, Beijing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GORANI: I was going to say, the set actually looks a bit like Oprah's set. So the concept --
CLANCY: It's a copy.
GORANI: All right. Moving on.
CLANCY: Not exactly the same thing. There's a band in Israel that is all tied up in knots, what not to play.
GORANI: That's how one band defends its controversial entry into the Eurovision song contest. Now here, meet the Teapacks (ph), the band that won Israel's qualifying round. "Push the Button" is the song. It takes a swipe at world leaders that it says are bent on world destruction.
CLANCY: So what is this controversy really all about? You have to listen to the front man (INAUDIBLE)
"Push the Button," that's what he says. That's what the song is all about. Some at the Eurovision song contest say this is too political to bring into all of this. But since when hasn't politics been a part of the music world? Ask the Dixie Chicks.
GORANI: Absolutely. We're going to see how they do the Eurovision song contest. It's a little kitschy. It's not the trendiest song competition around in the world, but it definitely gets a lot of attention.
CLANCY: We're going to continue to follow that. We will have a little bit more tomorrow on the Teapacks as they are called. But for now, that has to be our report. I'm Jim Clancy.
GORANI: I'm Hal Gorani. Thank you for being with us on YOUR WORLD TODAY. Stay with CNN and CNN international. The news continues.
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