Bush launches commission on U.S. military health care

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Tuesday named former Sen. Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to co-chair a bipartisan commission examining the care that America's wounded troops receive after they return from the battlefield, a move prompted by recent revelations of squalor and bureaucratic woes facing outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The commission will look at the treatment U.S. troops receive from the time they leave the battlefield through their return to civilian life. Bush also announced that he has asked the secretary of Veterans Affairs to lead a Cabinet-level interagency task force to deal with immediate shortcomings in helping veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We have a moral obligation to provide the best possible care and treatment to the men and women who have served our country," Bush said. "They deserve it, and they're going to get it."

As Bush was speaking Tuesday morning, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee were expressing dismay on Capitol Hill as they opened hearings on Walter Reed, with both parties criticizing Army and Defense Department leaders who say they were unaware of systemic problems in outpatient care despite multiple warnings.

Echoing what members of a House committee said on Monday at a hearing at Walter Reed, senators said that they believe problems such as mold and rodents at the medical center indicate larger issues.

"Good leadership should have taken these steps long ago, without prompting by a series of embarrassing news articles," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the committee's chairman. "The American people are deeply angry about the shortfalls in care."