Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 10. Oktober
2006 / Time Line October 10, 2006
Version 3.5
9. Oktober 2006, 11. Oktober 2006
10/10/2006
National Security Archive Update, October 10, 2006
VA Takes Nine Months to Locate Data on Disability Claims by
Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
Report Indicates that 1 in 4 Veterans of the Global War on
Terrorism Claim Disabilities
Washington, DC, October 10, 2006 - One in four veterans of the Iraq
and Afghanistan Wars are filing disability claims, according to
records released by the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA)
under the Freedom of Information Act after nine months of denying
their existence and posted today on the National Security Archive
Web site.
The VA responded to the Archive's original January 2006 FOIA
request for documents about the number of disability benefits
claims filed by veterans from the current war in Iraq by claiming
that no documents existed, apparently because the reports concern
the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) rather than being limited to the
Iraq War. Notably, one of the reports indicates that GWOT is the
"military name for the current wars in and around Afghanistan and
Iraq." A similar report was released in December 2005 detailing
Gulf War veterans' benefit activity. An updated copy of this report
was released in March 2006.
Only after the Archive administratively appealed the VA's "no
documents" claims and advised the VA that it was prepared to file a
lawsuit did the agency manage to locate the records. One is a
January 30, 2006, document: "Compensation and Pension Benefit
Activity Among 464,144 Veterans Deployed to the Global War on
Terror." It reports that more than 150,000 deployed Operation
Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq)
veterans, out of more than 560,000 veterans of the Global War on
Terrorism (GWOT), filed disability compensation and pension
benefits claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA).
The other is a July 20, 2006, document: "Compensation and Pension
Benefit Activity Among Veterans of the Global War on
Terrorism."
Veterans' groups have criticized the VA for using emergency
appropriations to fund veterans' benefits rather than realistically
planning and budgeting for the veterans' needs. According to
Veterans for America, the newly released data suggests official
estimates dramatically understate the future cost of the current
Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. If the current trend continues, then VA
could receive as many as 400,000 disability claims from the 1.6
million deployed active duty and reserve service members in the
Global War on Terrorism. Jonathan Powers, Associate Director of
Veterans for America and an Iraq War veteran, warned, "VA already
has a backlog, and the claims process is only going to get worse
unless VA takes action now. VA has no plan or funding to process
and pay existing and future claims to ensure our veterans promptly
receive the disability benefits and healthcare care they
earned."
In its most recent FOIA Annual Report, the VA purported to process
1.9 million FOIA requests during FY 2005, with a median processing
time of 11 days. Meredith Fuchs, the Archive's General Counsel,
expressed dismay at how the FOIA request was handled: "For the
agency to take nine months to 'find' information that is of clear
current public interest in the context of the ongoing Global War on
Terrorism is astounding. It is one thing for VA to be reluctant to
deliver bad news, but another thing entirely to deny the existence
of the information."
These documents were posted today on the Web site of the National
Security Archive.
10/10/2006
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