Duncan Hunter National Defense Authorization Act for FIscal Year 2009 Part 2
Floor Speech
DUNCAN HUNTER NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2009 -- (House of Representatives - May 22, 2008)
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Chairman, Sergeant Jonathan Schulze was an Iraq war veteran who committed suicide after being denied care to address his PTSD symptoms. According to the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, today, among veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the number of suicides may exceed the number who have been killed in combat. This is a broken promise, Mr. Chairman. After asking our soldiers to sacrifice so much, we must ensure they get the care they deserve.
I was proud to work with Chairman Skelton on the DeLauro-Courtney amendment to direct the Secretary of Defense to conduct a demonstration project to assess the feasibility and the efficacy of providing face-to-face postdeployment mental health screening between members of the Armed Forces and a mental health provider.
The 2-year project will include a combat stress evaluation conducted by a qualified mental health professional 120 to 180 days of the date the soldier returns. And a case manager will follow up by phone over the course of another 2 years.
We have no excuse for failing the soldiers who have given this Nation everything.
I urge adoption of this amendment.
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[Amendment 55]
Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman.
Madam Chairman, I rise to support this amendment because no one should receive special privileges under our tax system.
I want to recognize Representative Ellsworth and Congressman Emanuel for the hard work on this important issue.
It is unacceptable for the Department of Defense to pay for this war by doing business with companies that siphon money from their own workers and from their own government. What does it say about our Nation and our priorities when American companies like Kellogg, Brown & Root, by far the largest contractor in Iraq, are allowed to take their Department of Defense dollars, filter them through an offshore shell company, all to avoid paying significant Social Security and Medicare taxes?
Madam Chairman, we are depleting the Social Security and Medicare trust funds by hundreds of millions of dollars, and this amendment says that must end--prohibiting Defense Department contractors from using foreign shell companies to employ American workers. When tax dodgers avoid their responsibilities, the American taxpayers suffers. We cannot afford this. Support this amendment.
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[Amendment 56]
Ms. DeLAURO. This is domestic propaganda. It is a military-industrial-media complex in which military analysts, many who have ties with the contractors making money off of the war and parroting DOD talking points on the air to mislead the American public, and the TV networks did nothing to prevent it.
I will just tell my colleagues that if you voted for the DOD appropriations bill last year, if you did, you voted to prohibit this. You've done it since 2002. Donald Rumsfeld met with these guys 18 times, told them what to say, and then, my friends, DOD hired a company to track their remarks on the TV networks.
New York Times: 75 retired military analysts briefed often by high-level officials in a ``powerfully seductive environment'' only to be found later again parroting the administration's talking points on major television news programs, over the radio and through newspapers.
Also, the Times reported internal DOD documents described the analysts as ``message force multipliers'' who could be counted on to deliver the administration's themes and messages to millions of Americans in the form of their own opinions.
You know, when you put analysts on the air without fully disclosing their business interests or their relationship with high-level officials, you have betrayed the public trust. This should not have happened. Unfortunately, our leaders at the Department of Defense didn't understand it. Support this amendment.
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