[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5412-5413]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




PENTAGON SHOULD HAVE TAKEN ACTION EARLIER THAN THE RELEASE OF THE POST 
                             INVESTIGATION

  (Mr. SPACE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. SPACE. Madam Speaker, both high-ranking Pentagon officials and

[[Page 5413]]

the White House have said that they were shocked to learn of the shoddy 
treatment wounded soldiers were receiving at Walter Reed. They say the 
first time they heard about this treatment was from The Washington Post 
investigation last month.
  Madam Speaker, there is simply no way that the Bush administration 
did not know that this was a problem before the Post report. Several 
GAO reports have been conducted at the urging of Congress, and the 
findings of those reports back up exactly what we are now seeing at 
Walter Reed.
  The Washington Post was also not the first media outlet to highlight 
this problem. Salon magazine reported on the mistreatment of soldiers 
at Walter Reed 2 years ago.
  And yet the Bush administration continues to claim that it knew 
nothing about this until the Washington Post investigation last month. 
The administration is either completely out of touch or it simply does 
not believe taking care of our wounded military personnel is a top 
priority. Either way, it should be a top concern for this Congress and 
the American people.

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