Political ideology and the real Walter Reed scandal
Bob Williams
May 21, 2007
We know that governments can become bloated. We know that governments can become onerous. Therefore we all desire a government as small, efficient and unobtrusive as possible while still carrying out the functions we desire. This shared view has been corrupted, beginning in the 1980s, into an extreme political ideology once summed up the Republican operative Grover Norquist when he said he wanted to, “shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
This is the ideology that rules in the Bush Whitehouse. It is an ideology implemented through four political strategies. The first of these is called “starve the beast” which means reducing government revenues to the extent that government programs and operations are curtailed more and more. The second strategy: encourage citizens to disdain government. The third strategy: do away with all regulatory functions of government. And, finally, privatize most remaining government functions and operations. In this last strategy, privatization, Bush has exceeded all other administrations making Ronald Reagan, in comparison, look like a liberal.
The Iraq war has, among other things, been a massive experiment in privatization. We pay for a private army to provide security for private contractors representing major corporations with ties to the administration. These contractors, including the private army, are paid as individuals six times what individuals in our military are paid when doing roughly the same jobs. This has resulted in one scandal after another in terms of excess costs, disappearing materials, shoddy work and work never done. In May of last year the Army Corps of Engineers cancelled a major contract with the Parsons company rebuilding hospital facilities. Not only were cost overruns enormous but problems included raw sewage backing up, new lighting fittings that had melted, loose floor tiles in the operating room, plumbing pipes connected to nothing, and on down the line.
In hindsight we can see the problems in the Iraqi hospitals as a parody of what the Washington Post later discovered at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The Walter Reed scandal is physically minor compared to the Iraqi hospital scandal but it hits home with us because it involves our soldiers whose care has been neglected. And both occurred as a result of an ideology run amok in which privatization is more important than our soldiers’ care.
When the Walter Reed scandal hit the news the Bush administration moved quickly and for good reason. Support the troops had become a daily mantra of Bush as a way of justifying the continuing military campaign in Iraq. To find that severely wounded soldiers were being neglected at hospital facilities here hardly looked like supporting the troops. Heads began to roll: the Secretary of the Army and two generals resigned or were dismissed. But this did not address the real problem and Bush still has not addressed this problem.
When Bush took office he mandated the privatization of 425,000 federal jobs. In June, 2003 Rumsfeld announced that he would outsource 325,000 jobs as Secretary of Defense. IAP Worldwide Services wanted the contract to run the Walter Reed facilities, but in 2004 the Army determined that Walter Reed’s federal employees could operate the facilities more efficiently. IAP, a company with powerful political connections, protested. Subsequently the Army added $23 million to their estimated costs. This made IAP more competitive and in January, 2006 they got the contract which included management of Building 18. The number of facilities management workers dropped from 180 to 100 even before IAP took over and few replacements were found.
All of this was happening at a time when funds were being cut for these medical facilities. Lt. Gen. Kiley, one of those dismissed, testified that Pentagon budget officials had steadily cut their budget. "This year, it's $80 million (in cuts) in my core budget. Next year, it's on the order of $142 million. I can't find $142 million in efficiencies," Kiley said.
In short, Walter Reed suffered both from “starve the beast” and from privatization. The abrupt dismissal of top uniformed military men simply diverted attention from the real problem, a political ideology carried too far. Some functions are best served by government and not by private profit motives. The Walter Reed scandal should be an object lesson on this issue but it isn’t. It isn’t because neither television nor the press covered this part of the story. Perhaps the real story should be, why wasn’t this covered?
This is the ideology that rules in the Bush Whitehouse. It is an ideology implemented through four political strategies. The first of these is called “starve the beast” which means reducing government revenues to the extent that government programs and operations are curtailed more and more. The second strategy: encourage citizens to disdain government. The third strategy: do away with all regulatory functions of government. And, finally, privatize most remaining government functions and operations. In this last strategy, privatization, Bush has exceeded all other administrations making Ronald Reagan, in comparison, look like a liberal.
The Iraq war has, among other things, been a massive experiment in privatization. We pay for a private army to provide security for private contractors representing major corporations with ties to the administration. These contractors, including the private army, are paid as individuals six times what individuals in our military are paid when doing roughly the same jobs. This has resulted in one scandal after another in terms of excess costs, disappearing materials, shoddy work and work never done. In May of last year the Army Corps of Engineers cancelled a major contract with the Parsons company rebuilding hospital facilities. Not only were cost overruns enormous but problems included raw sewage backing up, new lighting fittings that had melted, loose floor tiles in the operating room, plumbing pipes connected to nothing, and on down the line.
In hindsight we can see the problems in the Iraqi hospitals as a parody of what the Washington Post later discovered at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The Walter Reed scandal is physically minor compared to the Iraqi hospital scandal but it hits home with us because it involves our soldiers whose care has been neglected. And both occurred as a result of an ideology run amok in which privatization is more important than our soldiers’ care.
When the Walter Reed scandal hit the news the Bush administration moved quickly and for good reason. Support the troops had become a daily mantra of Bush as a way of justifying the continuing military campaign in Iraq. To find that severely wounded soldiers were being neglected at hospital facilities here hardly looked like supporting the troops. Heads began to roll: the Secretary of the Army and two generals resigned or were dismissed. But this did not address the real problem and Bush still has not addressed this problem.
When Bush took office he mandated the privatization of 425,000 federal jobs. In June, 2003 Rumsfeld announced that he would outsource 325,000 jobs as Secretary of Defense. IAP Worldwide Services wanted the contract to run the Walter Reed facilities, but in 2004 the Army determined that Walter Reed’s federal employees could operate the facilities more efficiently. IAP, a company with powerful political connections, protested. Subsequently the Army added $23 million to their estimated costs. This made IAP more competitive and in January, 2006 they got the contract which included management of Building 18. The number of facilities management workers dropped from 180 to 100 even before IAP took over and few replacements were found.
All of this was happening at a time when funds were being cut for these medical facilities. Lt. Gen. Kiley, one of those dismissed, testified that Pentagon budget officials had steadily cut their budget. "This year, it's $80 million (in cuts) in my core budget. Next year, it's on the order of $142 million. I can't find $142 million in efficiencies," Kiley said.
In short, Walter Reed suffered both from “starve the beast” and from privatization. The abrupt dismissal of top uniformed military men simply diverted attention from the real problem, a political ideology carried too far. Some functions are best served by government and not by private profit motives. The Walter Reed scandal should be an object lesson on this issue but it isn’t. It isn’t because neither television nor the press covered this part of the story. Perhaps the real story should be, why wasn’t this covered?
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