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IAVA Daily Brief 07.10.09
Posted by Michelle McCarthy on July 10 2009

 Here are some of today's top stories and happenings at IAVA.  Prefer to receive real-time updates about major stories and legislation that IAVA is tracking?  Follow us on Twitter @iavapressroom.

MUST READS

(1) Army Suicides Trending Upward for 2009

U.S. Army officials issued its monthly figures Thursday on active-duty suicides, reporting that while there were no confirmed suicides among active-duty troops for June there are nine deaths currently under investigation.  According to officials, so far this year there have been 88 reported suicides among active-duty troops; of those, 54 have been confirmed putting the trend on pace to match or exceed the 128 suicides reported in 2008.  Additionally, among Reserve troops the trend is also spiking:  so far this year there have been 16 confirmed suicides in that component while 23 additional deaths remain under investigation as possible suicides. Between January and June 2008 there were 29 confirmed suicides among Reserve troops not on active duty, the Army said.  To learn more about IAVA’s recommendations for combating suicides among troops and veterans, including mandatory mental health screening, read IAVA’s 2009 Issue Report “Invisible Wounds: Psychological and Neurological Injuries Confront a New Generation of Veterans.”

(2) Ban on tobacco urged in military

USA Today reports that Pentagon health experts are pushing Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end its sale on military property, a change that could dramatically alter a military culture intertwined with smoking.  According to Jack Smith, head of the Pentagon's office of clinical and program policy, he has recommended that Gates adopt proposals by a federal study that cites rising tobacco use and higher costs for the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs as reasons for the ban.  The study by the Institute of Medicine, requested by the VA and Pentagon, calls for a phased-in ban over a period of years, perhaps up to 20.  In the report, the institute concludes that far too many troops worn out by repeated deployments are relying on cigarettes as a "stress reliever" and that tobacco use in the military has increased since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started.  Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith said Thursday the department supports a smoke-free military "and believes it is achievable," but declined to elaborate on any possible ban.  Roughly one in three servicemembers use tobacco compared with one in five adult Americans; tobacco use costs the Pentagon $846 million a year in medical care and lost productivity while the Department of Veterans Affairs spends up to $6 billion in treatments for tobacco-related illnesses.

AFGHANISTAN

U.S. military officials said Thursday three U.S. soldiers were killed by roadside bombs, two in southern Afghanistan and one in the east.  In addition,  a powerful truck bomb Thursday killed at least 25 people, more than half of them schoolchildren, in Afghanistan's Lowgar province near Kabul. Authorities speculated that the explosives-laden vehicle was intended for an attack in the Afghan capital.  In an effort to weaken militants' grip on the area, U.S. troops from the 10th Mountain Division, based in Ft. Drum, N.Y., have been deployed in Lowgar and adjoining Wardak province for about six months where a "village guards" initiative has been set up to keep Taliban militants from overrunning remote villages.  In a speech Thursday, General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command in Afghanistan, warned that months of fighting lie ahead for U.S. troops there and that the effort will center on 10 percent of districts where about 70 percent of Afghanistan's violence occurs. 

After months of international outcry on the political front, Afghan officials announced Thursday they have revised a law that essentially legalized marital rape in Afghanistan. The new version no longer requires a woman submit to sex with her husband, only that she do certain “housework.”  A presidential spokesman said the revisions show that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has followed through on a pledge made in April to expunge the offensive parts of the marriage law, which applies only to minority Shiite Muslims.  While Karzai touts his image as a reformer ahead of August elections, however, government sources reported Thursday he pardoned five heroin smugglers, one of who is a relative of the man that heads his campaign for re-election next month.  More than 3,000 people have been tried or imprisoned over drugs in Afghanistan in recent years; the pardons are the first ordered by Karzai.

Stateside, Mohammed Abdullah Warsame, a terror suspect who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support and resources to al-Qaida and the Taliban, was sentenced Thursday to seven years and eight months in prison.  Due to good behavior, however, U.S. District John R. Tunheim out of Minneapolis gave him credit for time already spent in custody; as a result, he could be out of prison in roughly 10 months before facing deportation to Canada. Warsame, 35, has spent over 5 1/2 years in solitary confinement in Minnesota. In his plea agreement, Warsame admitted to conspiring with others to help al-Qaida in Afghanistan beginning in 2000. Authorities claim he attended an al-Qaida training camp run by Osama bin Laden, dined with the terrorist leader, attended another camp and fought with the Taliban.

IRAQ

In a feature today, The New York Times highlights controversy surrounding Iraq’s Kurdish leaders as they push ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region.  The move has raised alarms for Iraqi and American officials who fear it poses a new threat to the Iraq’s unity as U.S. troops withdraw from the country.  The new constitution, approved by Kurdistan’s parliament two weeks ago and scheduled for a referendum later this year, enshrines Kurdish claims to territories and the oil and gas beneath them.  All of the claims are disputed by both the federal government in Baghdad and ethnic groups on the ground, and have initiated a stand-off between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani, who refuse to talk to one another according to officials.

In a report issued Thursday, UNESCO experts said U.S. troops and contractors in Iraq inflicted serious damage on the historic city of Babylon, driving heavy machinery over sacred paths, bulldozing hilltops and digging trenches through one of the world's greatest archaeological sites.  "The use of Babylon as a military base was a grave encroachment on this internationally known archaeological site," according to the report presented Thursday in Paris.  Though UNESCO officials stressed that the damage didn't begin with the U.S. military nor fully end after it left Babylon, they said they are banking on a new $700,000 grant from the U.S. State Department to develop a program aimed at restoring the city.

MILITARY AFFAIRS

In a statement Thursday, the Department of Veterans Affairs said it recently participated in a listening tour in Texas as part of its commitment to upgrade programs and services for women Veterans.  The Department's Advisory Committee on Women Veterans, an expert panel that advises VA on issues and programs affecting women Veterans, traveled to the VA North Texas Health Care System in Dallas where they hosted a town hall forum and heard views on facets of physical and mental health care, benefits, access, processing military sexual trauma claims, women-specific health needs, and services for returning troops.  According to the VA, female veterans comprise 7.5 percent of the total Veteran population and nearly 5.5 percent of all Veterans who use VA health care services.  The VA estimates women Veterans will constitute 10 percent of the Veteran population by 2020.

CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE

THE SENATE 

The Senate will convene at 9:00 a.m.

FUTURE COMMITTEE HEARINGS  of  INTEREST

• July 14, 2009 - SVAC will hold a hearing entitled, “Women Veterans: Bridging the Gaps in Care.”  9:30 a.m.; 418 Russell (Vasquez)
• July 29, 2009 - SVAC will hold a hearing entitled, "Review of Veterans' Disability Compensation: Forging a Path Forward."  9:30 a.m.; 418 Russell (Smith)

THE HOUSE of  REPRESENTATIVES       

The House will convene at 10:00 a.m.

FUTURE  HOUSE COMMITTEE HEARINGS of  INTEREST

• July 14, 2009  Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Hearing: Examining the Progress of Electronic Health Record Interoperability Between VA and DoD  10:00 a.m.; 334 Cannon HOB
• July 16, 2009  Joint Subcommittees on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs and Health Hearing:  Eliminating the Gaps: Examining Women Veterans’ Issues  10:00 a.m.; 334 Cannon HOB
• July 23, 2009  Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Hearing:   Examining Quality of Life and Ancillary Benefits Issues  10:00 a.m.; 334 Cannon HOB
• July 30, 2009  Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Hearing:  The Implications of VA’s Limited Scope of Gulf War Illness Research  10:00 a.m.; 334 Cannon HOB

A wide-range of views, positions, and publications are represented in these articles.  These views, positions and publications are not endorsed by nor do they necessarily represent the views of IAVA.

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