Senators Rip VA Treatment of Wounded Vets

Two senior U.S. senators say shocking conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center outside Washington are just the tip of the iceberg.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., appeared Sunday on CBS News’ Face the Nation.

The conditions at Walter Reed, including decrepit facilities and long waits for wounded soldiers, were exposed by a series in The Washington Post.

Lieberman said the hospital scandal, which has led to several high-level resignations, is the tip of the iceberg … What that series has uncovered, I believe, is that we are not keeping the moral responsibility we have for the men and women who are fighting for us in the war on terrorism, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. We never have made the national commitment commensurate with going to war to give our soldiers the best medical care they can receive from the battlefield to back home.

He said the Veterans Administration is just overwhelmed.

Levin said the scandal at Walter Reed was a product of a larger problem in the Bush administration.

I think the basic problem here, in addition to a lack of accountability, which sends the wrong signal … is the over-optimism which just symbolized this administration right from the beginning of this war, that the mission was accomplished. Well, you don’t prepare for this kind of problem.