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Bowe Bergdahl expected to plead guilty in desertion case

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Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is set to plead guilty Monday to charges he endangered comrades by walking away from his post in Afghanistan in 2009 — the court case wrapping up just three years after a stunning Rose Garden spectacle in which former President Barack Obama, flanked by Bergdahl’s parents, triumphantly announced the soldier’s release from captivity.

Bergdahl was released in May 2014 after a highly-criticized deal in which five Taliban terrorists were set free. At the time, Obama administration officials said Bergdahl had “served with honor and distinction.”

Former President Barack Obama, right, watches as Bob Bergdahl and Jami Bergdahl discuss the release of their son, Bowe Bergdaghl. (Reuters)

The U.S. Army said Bergdahl asked to enter his plea before the military judge at Fort Bragg. The Associated Press previously reported that he’s expected to plead guilty to charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.

It’s not clear if Bergdahl, 31, has a deal with prosecutors to limit his punishment, or if he’s simply pleading guilty in hopes of leniency from the judge, Army Col. Jeffery R. Nance. The misbehavior charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, while the desertion charge is punishable by up to five years.

Bergdahl’s lawyers are expected to reveal in court Monday whether there’s a plea agreement in place to cap his punishment, or if he’s pleading guilty without such a deal in what’s known colloquially as a “naked plea.” In either scenario, his punishment won’t be known until after the judge holds the sentencing hearing that’s expected to start on Oct. 23. Bergdahl, who’s from Hailey, Idaho, previously chose to have his case heard by a judge alone, rather than a jury.

BERGDAHL DECLARED JIHAD IN CAPTIVITY, DOCUMENTS SHOW

A naked plea would be a risky move, Eric Carpenter, an assistant law professor at Florida International University and a former Army defense attorney and prosecutor, told Task & Purpose.

“It can backfire,” Carpenter said. “If he doesn’t have a deal, they could go in there and enter this naked plea and come out with a life sentence.”

Guilty pleas would bring the highly politicized saga closer to an end eight years after Bergdahl’s disappearance in Afghanistan set off search missions by scores of his fellow service members. President Obama was criticized by Republicans for the 2014 Taliban prisoner swap that brought Bergdahl home, while President Donald Trump harshly criticized Bergdahl on the campaign trail.

Serious wounds to service members who searched for Bergdahl are expected to play a role in his sentencing. While guilty pleas would allow him to avoid a trial, he’d still face a sentencing hearing in late October. Bergdahl’s five years of captivity by the Taliban and its allies also will likely play a role in what punishment he receives.

At one point during his captivity, Bergdahl converted to Islam, fraternized openly with his captors and declared himself a “mujahid,” or warrior for Islam, Fox News reported in 2014, citing secret documents prepared on the basis of a purported eyewitness account.

The reports indicate that Bergdahl’s relations with his Haqqani captors morphed over time, from periods of hostility, where he was treated very much like a hostage, to periods where, as one source told Fox News, “he became much more of an accepted fellow” than is popularly understood. He even reportedly was allowed to carry a gun at times.

The documents show that Bergdahl at one point escaped his captors for five days and was kept, upon his re-capture, in a metal cage, like an animal. In addition, the reports detail discussions of prisoner swaps and other attempts at a negotiated resolution to the case that appear to have commenced as early as the fall of 2009.

SEAL, SOLDIER INJURIES IN BERGDAHL HUNT TO BE FOCUS OF HEARING

Legal scholars have said that several pretrial rulings against the defense have given prosecutors leverage to pursue stiff punishment against Bergdahl, The Associated Press reported. Perhaps most significant was the judge’s decision in June to allow evidence of serious wounds to service members who searched for Bergdahl at the sentencing phase. The judge ruled that a Navy SEAL and an Army National Guard sergeant wouldn’t have wound up in separate firefights that left them wounded if they hadn’t been searching for Bergdahl.

The defense also was rebuffed in an effort to prove President Donald Trump had unfairly swayed the case with scathing criticism of Bergdahl, including suggestions of harsh punishment. The judge wrote in a February ruling that Trump’s campaign-trail comments were “disturbing and disappointing” but did not constitute unlawful command influence by the soon-to-be commander in chief.

“We may as well go back to kangaroo courts and lynch mobs that got what they wanted,” Bergdahl said to a British filmmaker in 2016 when asked about trials, according to an interview obtained by ABC News. “The people who want to hang me, you’re never going to convince those people.”

Defense attorneys have acknowledged that Bergdahl walked off his base without authorization. Bergdahl himself told a general during a preliminary investigation that he left intending to cause alarm and draw attention to what he saw as problems with his unit. He was soon captured.

But the defense team has argued that Bergdahl can’t be held responsible for a long chain of events that included many decisions by others on how to conduct the searches.

Bergdahl has been assigned to desk duty at a Texas Army base while his case unfolds.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Iran attacks replica US ship in military drill

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Iran’s Revolutionary Guard launches a large-scale naval and air defence drill near a strategic Gulf waterway, during which a replica of a US aircraft carrier is used as a target

By David Blair, and Robert Midgley, video source APTN
3:40PM GMT 25 Feb 2015

 

Iran’s armed forces launched a speedboat attack on a giant model of a US aircraft carrier on Wednesday as the Revolutionary Guard staged military exercises in the Gulf.

The aim of the drill was to practice how to sink an American carrier, at least two of which patrol the Gulf at any given time.

 

A helicopter and speed boat circle a damaged replica of a US aircraft carrier

A helicopter and speed boat circle a damaged replica of a US aircraft carrier

Exercise “Great Prophet Nine” showed how the naval wing of the Revolutionary Guard would launch a “swarm” attack, seeking to overwhelm the carrier’s defences by dispatching numerous speedboats to converge on the vessel from all directions.

“American aircraft carriers are very big ammunition depots housing a lot of missiles, rockets, torpedoes and everything else,” said Admiral Ali Fadavi, the naval commander of the Revolutionary Guard. He told state television that hitting a carrier with just one missile could trigger a “large secondary explosion”.

Saudi King Abdullah, a gradual modernizer, dead at 90

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Saudi King Abdullah, a gradual modernizer, dead at 90

By LEE KEATH and ABDULLAH AL-SHIHRI
Associated Press

Saudi King Abdullah

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — His changes looked minute to the outside world. But in a kingdom where ultra-conservative Muslim clerics long have held a lock on all aspects of society, King Abdullah’s incremental reforms echoed mightily.

When Abdullah took the unprecedented step of opening a new university where men and women could mix in classrooms, part of his gradual campaign to modernize Saudi Arabia, grumbling arose among the hard-liners who form the bedrock of the powerful religious establishment. One sheikh dared to openly say that the mingling of genders at the king’s university was “a great sin and a great evil.”

Abdullah sent a tough signal: He fired the critic from the state-run body of clerics who set the rules for Saudi life.

As one of the world’s largest oil exporters, Saudi Arabia is governed by a mix of tribal traditions and perhaps the world’s strictest interpretation of Islam. Its royal family prefers to act quietly in the background, shies away from direct confrontation, avoids putting itself on the line and prefers slow-paced change to radical reform.

But Abdullah, who died Friday at the age of 90 after nearly two decades in power, acted at times with unusual forcefulness for a Saudi monarch. At home, the results were reforms, including advancements for women, that were startling – for the kingdom at least – and a heavy crackdown against al-Qaida militants. Abroad, his methods translated into a powerful assertion of Saudi Arabia’s influence around the Middle East.

Backed by the kingdom’s top ally, the United States, the king was aggressive in trying to put up a bulwark against the spreading power of Saudi Arabia’s top rival, mainly Shiite Iran, thus shaping the Arab world along new lines – an anti-Iran camp and a pro-Iran camp.

According to a leaked U.S. diplomatic memo, Abdullah urged Washington in 2008 to consider military action against Iran to “cut off the head of the snake” because of its nuclear advances. Another memo spoke of how Abdullah angrily berated Iran’s foreign minister in private that “Persians” had no business meddling in “Arab” affairs.

He pushed Gulf allies into taking increasingly vocal stands against Iran and sought to isolate Syria because of its alliance with Tehran.

In Syria, Abdullah stepped indirectly into the civil war that emerged after 2011. He supported and armed rebels battling to overthrow President Bashar Assad and pressed the Obama administration to do the same. Iran’s allies Hezbollah and Iraqi Shiite militias rushed to back Assad, and the resulting conflict has left hundreds of thousands dead and driven millions of Syrians from their homes.

Across the multiple conflicts, Sunni-Shiite hatreds around the region took on a life of their own, fueling Sunni militancy. Syria’s war helped give birth to the Islamic State group, which burst out to take over large parts of Syria and Iraq. The growing militancy prompted Abdullah to commit Saudi airpower to a U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremists.

In other countries, Abdullah was an iron-willed defender of the status quo, standing against any pressure from the street to change the autocratic Sunni Arab fraternity of monarchs, emirs and sheiks who rule the Gulf region from Kuwait to Oman. He also rushed to the aid of Egypt’s military-backed government when it overthrew that country’s Islamist president.

He sent Saudi troops to lead a Gulf military force into Bahrain in March 2011 to help the tiny island nation’s monarchy crush Shiite-led protests for greater rights. Abdullah also used a mix of largesse and intimidation at home to quell rumblings for change – announcing a more than $90 billion package of incentives, jobs and services in early 2011 while unleashing riot police to crush scattered street demonstrations, particularly by the Shiite minority in the east.

“You could call Abdullah sort of the leader of the anti-Arab Spring,” said Ehsan Ahrari, a political analyst in Alexandria, Virginia, who follows Mideast affairs.

Abdullah ultimately strengthened the Saudi alliance with the United States with close cooperation against al-Qaida and against Iran.

President Barack Obama said of the king shortly after his death that “he was always candid and had the courage of his convictions.” The statement by the president added that Abdullah’s “steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the U.S.-Saudi relationship” would be part of the king’s legacy.

And when there were policy differences with the U.S., Abdullah made them clear. He resisted Washington’s pressure to warm to Iraq’s U.S.-backed Shiite prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, seeing him as a mere tool of Iran. He was frustrated with U.S. failure to push ahead the Israeli-Arab peace process, particularly after he won Arab acceptance for his broad plan offering Israel peace with all Arab nations if it withdrew from Arab lands occupied in 1967.

“Once the King has lost trust in a counterpart, his personal antipathy can become a serious obstacle to bilateral relations,” noted a 2010 U.S. Embassy briefing for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Reflecting his Bedouin roots, he judges his counterparts on the basis of character, honesty, and trust,” it said. “He expects good-faith consultations, not surprises.”

Abdullah was born in Riyadh in 1924 to one of the many wives of King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia who reportedly fathered more than 40 children. Abdullah’s mother was from a powerful Bedouin tribe known as the Shammar that were rivals with the king’s clan, and the marriage was an apparent way to ease the feuds.

Like all Abdul-Aziz’s sons, Abdullah had only rudimentary education. His strict upbringing was exemplified by the three days he spent in prison as a young man as punishment by his father for not giving up his seat for a visitor, a violation of Bedouin hospitality.

Tall and heavyset, Abdullah felt more at home in the Nejd, the kingdom’s desert heartland, riding his favorite stallions and hunting with falcons. Even as Saudi Arabia was transformed by oil money, Abdullah – who has spoken with a stutter since birth – never appeared comfortable with the trappings of hyper-wealth embraced some of his relatives.

Abdullah rose to be appointed head of Saudi Arabia’s National Guard. He was selected as crown prince in 1982 on the day his half-brother Fahd ascended to the throne.

In 1995, he became the kingdom’s de facto leader after King Fahd was incapacitated by a stroke. During that time he led national dialogue talks that brought together the country’s various factions, tribes and sects to discuss their needs and review their complaints. He took the throne formally in August 2005 after Fahd’s death.

His immediate successor, his half-brother Crown Prince Salman, was announced king after Abdullah’s death. Salman, at 79, served as defense minister since 2011.

Muqrin was elevated from deputy crown prince to crown prince, placing him next in line to the throne after Salman. Muqrin, who once oversaw the kingdom’s intelligence agency, is the youngest of Abdul-Aziz’s sons at 69.

Salman, in his first official decree as king, named Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef as deputy crown prince, making him second-in-line to the throne. Mohammed, the interior minister, is the first grandson of Saudi Arabia’s founder, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud, to be named as a future heir.

Unemployment remains high among the under-25 generation, which accounts for around half of the population. The Internet and satellite TV – while censored in Saudi Arabia – are rife with criticism and jokes about the country’s woes.

His reign opened up small splashes of variety in the kingdom. Shortly after he came to power, color and glitter slowly crept to the all-black abayas women must wear in public. The country’s stuffy government-run TV stations started playing music, forbidden for decades. Book fairs opened their doors to women writers and banned books.

His most substantive moves chipped away at the overwhelming restrictions on women in the kingdom. Abdullah for the first time gave women seats on the Shura Council, an unelected body that advises the king and government. He promised women would be able to vote and run in 2015 elections for municipal councils, the only elections held in the country. Two Saudi female athletes competed in the Olympics for the first time in 2012, and a small handful of women were granted licenses to work as lawyers during his rule.

One of his most ambitious projects was a Western-style university that bears his name: King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or Kaust. Men and women can share classrooms and study together inside the campus grounds, a major departure in a country where even small talk between the sexes in public can bring a warning from the morality police.

But there were limits in how far he would go, given that the royal family’s legitimacy is tightly bound up in its alliance with clerics of the hard-line Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, which enforces the strictest segregation of genders in the world and allows public beheadings and floggings.

For example, Abdullah did not respond to demands to allow women to drive – though in 2011 he negated a sentence of 10 lashes handed down by a clerical court on a woman who defied the driving ban. When he died, two Saudi women drivers had been under arrest for more than six weeks after being referred to trial on charges related to their comments on Twitter.

The Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States strained relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., where many pointed out that the baseline ideology for al-Qaida and other groups was a radical offshoot of Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi brand of Islam.

But when al-Qaida militants in 2003 began a campaign of attacks in the kingdom aimed at toppling the monarchy, Abdullah cracked down hard. For the next three years, the militants attacked foreign residential compounds, oil facilities and other targets, until security forces succeeded in forcing many of its members to flee to neighboring Yemen, where they revived the branch.

The tougher line helped restore Abdullah’s image with the White House. He paid two visits to then President George W. Bush – in 2002 and 2005 – at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Abdullah’s wealth was estimated at more than $21 billion by some sources, which made him one of the world’s richest monarchs. He made a number of humanitarian donations, including relief supplies after the Chinese earthquake in 2008 and donations to refurbish a New Orleans school damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as well as to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

—

Keath reported from Cairo.

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Harry Reid in hospital with broken ribs, facial bones

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Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid is in a Las Vegas hospital following injuries sustained while exercising at home.

A statement issued Friday by Reid’s office said doctors expect a “full recovery.”

“A piece of equipment Senator Reid was using to exercise broke, causing him to fall and break a number of ribs and bones in his face,” according to the statement. “Senator Reid will return to Washington this weekend and be in the office Tuesday as the Senate prepares to reconvene.”

Adam Jentleson, the senator’s spokesman, told the Associated Press that the accident occurred when an elastic exercise band broke and hit the 75-year-old Reid in the face, causing him to fall. As the senator fell, Jentleson said, Reid struck part of the equipment and broke several bones near his right eye. Reid broke several ribs as he hit the floor.

Jentleson said tests found no bleeding in his brain or other internal bleeding.

Reid’s security detail first brought him to St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nev., after the accident occurred Thursday. He was transferred to the University Medical Center in Las Vegas for further testing and was admitted overnight “as a precaution,” the senator’s office said. Reid is expected to be released later today.

Investing in the ObamaFund

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Treasury rolls out a new savings plan without a Congressional vote.

Dec. 29, 2014 7:20 p.m. ET

Hey, kids. Uncle Sam has a new investment offer for you. Even if you have several decades of productive work ahead—and thus a long investing time horizon—the White House wants you to consider a retirement plan that will invest in nothing but U.S. government debt.

Any financial professional who advised a young investor to avoid stocks and corporate bonds—and everything else except Treasury bonds—would be sued for malpractice. But asset allocation is merely one of the problems with the new “myRA” fund rolling out from the Treasury this month.

Getty Images

A form of Roth Individual Retirement Account that allows people to save after-tax dollars and watch them grow tax-free until retirement, the new myRA offers a single investment option. It’s a private version of the G Fund that is available to federal workers and has lately been delivering annual returns of about 2% on its portfolio of Treasury securities.

Intended for those who haven’t started saving for retirement, don’t have a retirement plan at work, and make less than $129,000 per year ($191,000 for married couples filing jointly), the myRA requires no minimum investment to open an account and promises no fees for investors.

Readers will recall President Obama ’s announcement of this program in January’s State of the Union address. Mr. Obama said that he would direct the Treasury to create this new retirement plan, which was puzzling because such plans are normally created by law, not Presidential order.

Congressional staff were as puzzled as anyone and wondered how the White House would justify the creation of this new savings vehicle. Or perhaps Team Obama would seek new authority from Congress? Well, Treasury is now offering these accounts and has hired Texas-based Comerica to manage them with a partner, Fidelity National Information Services . But the executive branch received no new authority from Congress this year to launch the program.

Treasury is funding the program out of the budget for its Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The assertion here is that existing law allows this part of the Treasury to hire financial agents as part of its mission to efficiently finance the federal government.

But that’s a reach, because far from delivering efficiencies for the taxpayer, this program is designed to subsidize the investors. Not that a low-yielding Treasury securities fund is the right move for these first-time investors. But this is a deal they cannot find in the marketplace because it would be unprofitable for any company to offer it, given that the investor pays no fees and can contribute as little as he wishes in regular payroll deductions. Taxpayers are covering the costs, though their elected representatives in Congress never voted to create the program. So far Treasury also hasn’t told us the fees it is paying Comerica.

The subsidies in myRAs are likely to be small at first, but the history of government programs is that they expand over time. And if such a subsidy scheme can be enacted administratively, does anyone think this will be the last time such power is exercised?

New investors should be encouraged to consider ways to build wealth beyond simply lending money to the feds. And if politicians want taxpayers to support another retirement program, they should do so through law, not White House whim.

Military urged Obama not to trade Taliban

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reporter_herridge_060614

Senior military officials had advised President Obama not to make the Taliban-for-Bergdahl trade, a senior Defense official told Fox News, likening it to “handing over five four-star generals of the Taliban.”

The claim adds to the picture that is emerging about the tense internal debate over whether to proceed with freeing five hardened Taliban leaders from Guantanamo in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s release.

Sources told Fox News earlier this week that the Obama administration largely bypassed the intelligence community to green-light the swap, after such an exchange was first floated several years ago.

The Defense official, in explaining internal military opposition to the exchange, said many in the military considered Bergdahl to be a traitor — a reference to allegations that he deliberately abandoned his post in 2009.

Yet on the other end of the trade were five high-value, sought-after Taliban leaders. The U.S. government’s own records show some of them had ties to top terror figures including Mullah Omar and Usama bin Laden. Many Republican lawmakers have raised concerns that their freedom poses a major national security risk

“You’ve just released five extremely dangerous people, who in my opinion … will rejoin the battlefield,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told Fox News.

New details are also emerging about Bergdahl’s conditions in captivity, offering a complicated portrait of his five years with his Haqqani captors.

According to secret documents prepared on the basis of a purported eyewitness account and obtained by Fox News, Bergdahl at one point during his captivity converted to Islam, fraternized openly with his captors and declared himself a “mujahid,” or warrior for Islam.

Yet the documents also show that Bergdahl at one point escaped his captors for five days and was kept, upon his re-capture, in a metal cage, like an animal. In addition, the reports detail discussions of prisoner swaps and other attempts at a negotiated resolution to the case that appear to have commenced as early as the fall of 2009.

The reports indicate that Bergdahl’s relations with his Haqqani captors morphed over time, from periods of hostility, where he was treated very much like a hostage, to periods where, as one source told Fox News, “he became much more of an accepted fellow” than is popularly understood. He even reportedly was allowed to carry a gun at times.

The dispatches were generated by the Eclipse Group, a private firm of former intelligence officers and operatives that has subcontracted with the Defense Department and prominent corporations to deliver granular intelligence on terrorist activities and other security-related topics.

The group is run by Duane R. (“Dewey”) Clarridge, a former senior operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1980s best known for having been indicted for lying to Congress about his role in the tangled set of events that became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. He was pardoned by the first President Bush in December 1992 while on trial.

Amid concerns that the Bergdahl trade has created huge security risks, President Obama said earlier this week that the U.S. would be “keeping eyes” on the Taliban members while they spend the next year in Qatar.

At the same time, he acknowledged there’s “absolutely” a risk that the former Guantanamo inmates will try to return to the battlefield.

Some of them reportedly already have made that vow. NBC reported Friday that Noorullah Noori, one of the freed prisoners, pledged to return and fight Americans in Afghanistan, according to a Taliban commander.

Fox News’ Jim Angle, James Rosen and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.

Shinseki faces bipartisan calls to resign after VA watchdog report

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The official watchdog for the Department of Veterans Affairs claimed in a scathing report that the department has a “systemic” problem with clinics lying about patient wait times, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle joined calls for Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign.

The VA Office of Inspector General released its interim report on Wednesday, as part of its ongoing probe into whether veterans died as a result of under-reported delays. While not reaching any conclusion on what led to those deaths, the office released troubling statistics regarding the embattled Phoenix VA facility suggesting workers under-stated wait-times in order to make their internal figures look good.

The office, in its preliminary findings, determined that veterans in Phoenix waited an average of 115 days for a primary care appointment — far longer than the VA’s official statistics showed. Such inappropriate scheduling tactics, according to the report, may be the basis for claims of “secret” waiting lists.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who until now had held off on urging Shinseki to resign, said during a press conference at his Phoenix office Wednesday afternoon that “it’s time for Secretary Shinseki to step down” — and that if he won’t, “then I call on the president of the United States to relieve him of his duties, fire him.”

The longtime senator and Vietnam veteran also called on the Justice Department to get involved, saying the allegations detail not just administrative issues, but “criminal problems.”

In the wake of the report’s release, five Senate Democrats facing tough election campaigns — Colorado’s Mark Udall, Montana’s John Walsh, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Al Franken of Minnesota and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — called for Shinseki to leave. House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., also called for Shinseki to “resign immediately.”

So far, President Obama has stood by his VA secretary, though the White House released a statement saying the president has been briefed on the findings and found them “extremely troubling.” Shinseki released a statement on Wednesday calling the latest findings “reprehensible,” but did not offer his resignation.

The report released Wednesday focused on the Phoenix VA facility, while noting that reviews at a “growing number” of facilities have exposed inappropriate scheduling practices throughout the VA system. According to the office, the investigation has now expanded to 42 VA medical facilities nationwide.

The IG’s office released figures showing the Phoenix office “significantly understated” the amount of time patients waited for appointments.

“To date, our work has substantiated serious conditions at the Phoenix” center, the report said, claiming the delays have “negatively impacted the quality of care.”

According to the IG’s office, about 1,400 veterans awaiting a primary care appointment were appropriately included on the electronic wait-list — but an additional 1,700 veterans waiting for an appointment were left off that list. The omission, the report warned, raises the risk that these veterans will be “forgotten or lost” in the “convoluted” Phoenix system.

Shinseki, in his statement, said he’s ordered the Phoenix system to “immediately triage” each of the 1,700 veterans in order to “bring them timely care.”

The IG’s office also said VA national data had claimed patient wait times among a sample of Phoenix veterans typically was about 24 days. But the IG’s own review found the average wait was actually 115 days.

The report would appear to substantiate allegations that clinics played around with the schedules to make it seem like patients were being seen sooner. The VA offices at Phoenix and several other locations have been accused of covering up the long waits by using improper scheduling tactics. About 40 veterans are said to have died while awaiting care in Phoenix.

Dr. Samuel Foote, a former clinic director for the VA in Phoenix who was the first to bring the allegations to light, said the findings were no surprise.

“I knew about all of this all along,” Foote told The Associated Press in an interview. “The only thing I can say is you can’t celebrate the fact that vets were being denied care.”

Foote took issue with the finding by the inspector general that patients had, on average, waited 115 days for their first medical appointment.

“I don’t think that number is correct. It was much longer,” he said. “It seemed to us to be about six months.”

Still, Foote said it is good that the VA finally appears to be addressing some long-standing problems.

“Everybody has been gaming the system for a long time,” he said. “Phoenix just took it to another level. … The magnitude of the problem nationwide is just so huge, so it’s hard for most people to get a grasp on it.”

Miller also called for Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a criminal probe into the VA’s “scheduling corruption” in light of the report.

“Today the inspector general confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt what was becoming more obvious by the day: wait time schemes and data manipulation are systemic throughout VA and are putting veterans at risk in Phoenix and across the country,” he said in a statement.

Also Wednesday, Miller’s House Committee on Veterans Affairs held a hearing to address what he called the VA’s “continued lack of compliance” with a subpoena the committee issued last month. Three VA officials testified at the hearing.

The committee subpoenaed Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on May 8 for emails and documents tied to an alleged secret “waiting list” for sick veterans at a Phoenix VA hospital.

Miller said he does not believe the documents that have been produced as a result of the subpoena are the result of a thorough investigation for relevant records.

He said he knows the VA is withholding at least three documents from relevant communications because of attorney client privilege.

One of the VA officials, Joan Mooney, deferred questions about any documents that may have not been turned over to the committee to the VA’s general counsel.

However, Miller said he will not rest until they get a complete explanation.

“We expect VA to be forthcoming but unfortunately it takes repeated requests and threats of compulsion to get VA to bring their people here,” he said.

Following the hearing, Dr. Thomas Lynch, the VA’s Deputy Under Secretary for Health, claimed that there were no secret waiting lists. Lynch said that the canceled appointments were part of an attempt to improve the clinic’s efficiency.

Miller dismissed Lynch’s claim by saying “There are secret lists. There are even multiple lists at some areas of speciality.”

Fox News’ Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Deplorable Conditions at Some VA Hospitals’

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Then-Senator Barack Obama, November 12, 2007: “After seven years of an Administration that has stretched our military to the breaking point, ignored deplorable conditions at some VA hospitals, and neglected the planning and preparation necessary to care for our returning heroes, America’s veterans deserve a President who will fight for them not just when it’s easy or convenient, but every hour of every day for the next four years.”

By 2012, Obama continued to compare the performance of the VA during his administration favorably to his predecessor, declaring, “For the first time ever, we’ve made military families and veterans a top priority not just at DOD, not just at the VA, but across the government.”

Now we know the report of at least 40 U.S. veterans dying waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system is only the tip of the iceberg. 

Today: 

When Shinseki took office, he vowed that every disability claim would be processed within 125 days with 98 percent accuracy. But the backlogs only got worse.

It took about four months for VA to process a claim for disability compensation claim when Shinseki was sworn in. By 2012, the average wait time was about nine months.

In February 2013, the Examiner published a five-part series, “Making America’s Heroes Wait,” showing more than 1.1 million veterans with disability claims and appeals were trapped in bureaucratic limbo at VA.

About 70 percent of the 900,000 claims for initial benefits were considered backlogged, meaning they were older than 125 days.

The Examiner series also showed how agency statistics were manipulated to hide mistakes that doomed veterans into appeals that could drag on for years.

There were some early signs then that VA’s failures in delivering medical care were having deadly consequences.

An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease was reported in Pittsburgh in November 2012. Subsequent investigations by the inspector general and area media eventually linked a half-dozen patient deaths from the disease to faulty maintenance and poor management.

Reports of other deaths followed.

Four patients under VA’s care in Atlanta died of a drug overdose or suicides.

In Columbia, S.C., at least six patient deaths from colorectal cancers were linked to delays in receiving colonoscopies at veterans’ medical facilities.

VA eventually acknowledged that delays in providing care was linked to the deaths of 23 patients who died of gastrointestinal cancers at veterans’ health facilities. Deaths from other conditions were not disclosed.

Jailed doc who helped nail Bin Laden warns Pakistan sees U.S. as ‘worst enemy’

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By Dominic Di-Natale – Published September 10, 2012 – FoxNews.com

Jailed Doctor Shakil AfridiPESHAWAR, Pakistan – Pakistan’s powerful spy agency regards America as its “worst enemy,” and the government’s claims that it is cooperating with the US are a sham to extract billions of dollars in American aid, according to the CIA informant jailed for his role in hunting down Usama bin Laden.

In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Shakil Afridi, the medical doctor who helped pinpoint bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound before last year’s raid by SEAL Team 6, described brutal torture at the hands of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, and said the agency is openly hostile to the U.S.

“They said ‘The Americans are our worst enemies, worse than the Indians,’” Afridi, who spoke from inside Peshawar Central Jail, said as he recalled the brutal interrogation and torture he suffered after he was initially detained.

“I tried to argue that America was Pakistan’s biggest supporter – billions and billions of dollars in aid, social and military assistance — but all they said was, ‘These are our worst enemies. You helped our enemies.’”

The ISI, Afridi said, helps fund the Haqqani network, the North Waziristan-based militant group that was last week designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The agency also works against the U.S. by preventing the CIA from interrogating militants captured by Pakistan, who are routinely released to return to Afghanistan to continue attacks on NATO forces there.

“It is now indisputable that militancy in Pakistan is supported by the ISI […] Pakistan’s fight against militancy is bogus. It’s just to extract money from America,” Afridi said, referring to the $23 billion Pakistan has received largely in military aid since 9/11.

Afridi gave unprecedented insight into activity inside the infamous basement prison where he was initially held beneath the ISI’s headquarters at Apbara, in the capital Islamabad. He described how during his own interrogation, in which he was tortured with cigarette burns and electric shocks, ISI officers attacked him for assisting the U.S. Afridi helped pinpoint Bin Laden’s compound in the weeks before the May 2, 2011, raid in Abbottabad.

He described a regime of perpetual torture and interrogation for large numbers of detainees, some of whom include radicalized white Western male converts to Islam who had been apprehended while traveling to Afghanistan to fight NATO troops or to be trained in militant camps in the region’s tribal belt.

One of the officers who interrogated him had also escorted an American official visiting from Washington to an interview with a highly sought militant Abdul Karim Agha, in November 2011.

Agha had told him afterward that an ISI officer had whispered instructions in his ear as he walked into the interrogation room to feign sudden illness so he could not be interviewed.

“They said to him, ‘You tell this person ‘I am very sick, I cannot talk today,’” he related. “The American official protested, saying he’d only been given a week to stay in Pakistan with the expectation of interrogating him two or three times. But the ISI told him that the interrogation was postponed for three weeks, and so he had to leave.

“I was told by others that the ISI advises militants to make things up to tell CIA interrogators, pretend this and that,” Afridi told Fox News.

Afridi’s comments are likely to further complicate relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, which have become strained in the past two years over their joint fight against extremist militants.

Washington has repeatedly pressured Islamabad to eradicate extremist safe havens in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, most recently the Haqqani Network, the fundamentalist group closely allied to the Taliban and the remnants of Al Qaeda’s original leadership.

Afridi said that before he was moved to Peshawar in May, he met Abdul Kayyum, the nephew of a chief of the Wazir tribe, who had been apprehended by the ISI for reasons that are unclear.

Kayyum explained to the doctor that three years earlier, his uncle, Khan Marjakee, had been instructed by the ISI to raise funds from the tribal community for the Haqqanis, which Marjakee then did.

“Without doubt, the Haqqanis are 100 percent supported by the ISI,” said Afridi.

Afridi said there were many militants of different nationalities, often Afghans, held at Apbarra. Arab detainees were given “first-class treatment and first-class food,” while some radicalized Westerners were singled out for abuse.

“The militants were told by the ISI, ‘According to the Americans, we’re supposed to arrest you. We don’t want anything to do with you, but will support you by letting you go. Go back to Afghanistan and steer clear of the Americans.’ And then they would be released.”

Among other detainees at Apbarra were numerous white Westerners, identified as being from the U.S., U.K., Germany and the Netherlands. Afridi would talk to an American, referred to only as Brown, as the doctor was the only person who spoke fluent English there.

Brown was held for four months after he crossed illegally into Pakistan from Iran and was arrested in the southwest city of Quetta, notorious for its links with the Taliban. He had told the ISI he was on his way to Afghanistan.

“He was white skinned, had red hair and tattoos,” Afridi said. “He was a mason by profession and told me he came for jihad. He had converted to Islam five years before and had adopted the Muslim name Ismael.

“When he came back from interrogation, he told me he had been beaten very seriously. I last saw him on May 1. I have no idea what happened to him.”

After holding Afridi for 12 months, the ISI produced a report on his involvement with the CIA and the vaccination drive that was unsuccessfully used as a decoy to obtain DNA samples from those living inside Usama bin Laden’s compound at Abbottabad in northern Pakistan.

He strongly denied confessing anything to the various army majors in the ISI who questioned him during his months of interrogation.

“I was told stories about what to say as statements and forced to write statements,” he said. “When I refused, the major said, ‘When we give you pain, then you will write.’”

White House Backs Bill to Collect Employee Pay Information from Businesses

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Thursday, July 22, 2010
By Penny Starr, Senior Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration is backing legislation that includes regulations requiring U.S. businesses to provide to the government data about employee pay as it relates to the sex, race and national origin of employees.

In an orchestrated effort that included a statement by President Barack Obama and an event at the White House featuring Vice President Joe Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, the president and his cabinet endorsed the Paycheck Fairness Act.

The House approved the act in 2009, but the Senate did not approve it. In the 111th Congress, both the House and the Senate have offered legislation that covers a wide range of workplace requirements and regulations, including training girls and women to become better at negotiating pay and benefits, and the establishment of a data base of U.S. workers’ pay in both the public and private sector.

At the White House on Tuesday, Biden was the keynote speaker at a Middle Class Task Force event where he told invited guests that the Obama administration is “on the right side of history” by passing legislation to ensure women are paid the same as their male counterparts.

“Women make up nearly half of all workers on U.S. payrolls, and two-thirds of families with children are headed either by two working parents or by a single parent who works,” Biden said.

“Yet, the workplace has, for the most part, not changed to reflect these realities – and it must. Closing the gender pay gap, helping parents keep their jobs while balancing family responsibilities, and increasing workplace flexibility – these are not only women’s issues, they are issues of middle class economic security,” he said.

Biden said Congress should pass the bill, which includes language requiring employers to provide information about employee pay. In Section 8 of the bill, entitled Collection of Pay Information by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it calls for an amendment to Section 709 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

“(f)(1) Not later than 18 months after the date of enactment of this subsection, the Commission shall–

“(A) complete a survey of the data that is currently available to the Federal Government relating to employee pay information for use in the enforcement of Federal laws prohibiting pay discrimination and, in consultation with other relevant Federal agencies, identify additional data collections that will enhance the enforcement of such laws; and

“(B) based on the results of the survey and consultations under subparagraph (A), issue regulations to provide for the collection of pay information data from employers as described by the sex, race, and national origin of employees.”

In a White House-issued press release, the “enhancement of enforcement” is described as “a pledge by the Department of Justice and other enforcement agencies will coordinate and collaborate through investigations, litigation, policy guidance, data analysis, and public education efforts to make meaningful progress in closing the wage gap,” the press release stated.

“Already, the Justice Department, in conjunction with the EEOC and four of its district offices, has launched a robust and intensive pilot program to coordinate the investigation and litigation of charges against state and local government employers,” it added.

But critics charge that the Paycheck Fairness Act will be harmful to small businesses and the economy. The National Association of Manufacturers issued a statement about the bill in April.

“The Paycheck Fairness Act, which purports to prevent instances of illegal gender-based discrimination, could outlaw many legitimate practices employers use to set employee pay rates, even where there is no evidence of intentional discrimination and employers act with reasonable belief that their pay policies are lawful,” the statement said.

“Manufacturers strongly oppose unlawful discrimination in any form, but the Paycheck Fairness Act would impose unparalleled government control over how employees are paid, among even the nation’s smallest businesses,” it added.

“It would drastically alter the Equal Pay Act to allow unprecedented penalties of unlimited punitive and compensatory damages in cases of alleged discrimination,” the statement said.

James Sherk, Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy in the Center for Data Analysis at conservative The Heritage Foundation, said that the law would be a boon to trial lawyers seeking damages from employers for their clients and would allow the courts to “micro-manage” American businesses.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Obama said it was discrimination in the workplace that is harming the economy and American families.

“In America today, women make up half of the workforce, and two-thirds of American families with children rely on a woman’s wages as a significant portion of their families’ income,” the statement said.

“Yet, even in 2010, women make only 77 cents for every dollar that men earn. The gap is even more significant for working women of color, and it affects women across all education levels,” the statement said.

“As Vice President Biden and the Middle Class Task Force will discuss today, this is not just a question of fairness for hard-working women. Paycheck discrimination hurts families who lose out on badly needed income. And with so many families depending on women’s wages, it hurts the American economy as a whole. In difficult economic times like these, we simply cannot afford this discriminatory burden.”

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