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RIGHTS-US: Vets Await Verdict in Class Action Lawsuit
By Aaron Glantz
SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 (IPS) - Arturo Gonzalez delivered his closing arguments inside a packed courtroom on the 17th floor of the Federal Building in downtown San Francisco.
A partner at the gigantic corporate law firm Morrison and Forrester, he's part of a team of lawyers seeking to force the Department of Veterans' Affairs to provide better health care and more timely disability benefits to returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
The case, officially known as Veterans for Common Sense vs. Peake, represents the first class action lawsuit brought on behalf of the 1.7 million U.S. citizens who served in the war zones. Veterans say that over the last six years, the George W. Bush administration has systematically denied veterans the health care they were promised and that they went to court as a last resort.
"We are here because veterans are committing suicide at an alarming rate," Gonzalez told U.S. District Court Judge Samuel Conti, citing government documents that show 18 U.S. war veterans kill themselves every day. "More of these veterans are dying in the United States than in combat. That's wrong."
"There is only one person on Earth who can do anything to help these men and women," he told the judge, "Your honour, these veterans need help. The VA has demonstrated that they won't do it on their own."
The veterans' groups are asking the judge to order the Department of Veterans Affairs to fully implement its own mental health strategic plan, which they argue has been left to wither on the vine; to comply with an internal VA memo setting out "specific programmes intended to stop the suicides"; and to shorten claim times.
In his closing argument, Justice Department attorney Daniel Bensing countered that "the VA is providing world class health care across the board" and dismissed as "immaterial" the fact that 18 veterans commit suicide every day.
"We don't dispute that suicide is a major issue among veterans," he said, but "there is no evidence that suicidal veterans have been turned away."
"Extensive care is being provided," he said.
But internal VA documents made public at trial appeared to paint a different picture.
In one e-mail made public during the trial, the head of the VA's Mental Health division, Dr. Ira Katz, advised a media spokesperson not to tell reporters 1,000 veterans receiving care at the VA try to kill themselves every month.
"Shh!" the e-mail begins.
"Our suicide prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" the e-mail concludes. Leading Democrats on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee have since called for Katz's resignation.
Another set of documents showed that in the six months leading up to Mar. 31, 2008 1,467 veterans died waiting to learn if their disability claim would be approved by the government. A third set of documents showed that veterans who appeal a VA decision to deny their disability claim have to wait an average of 1,608 days, or nearly four and a half years, for their answer.
These documents, which contained information journalists and veterans' groups had been trying to obtain for months, only came to light because of the discovery process of the trial, which required high-ranking government officials to give depositions under oath.
"No matter how this trial turns out it has given us a wealth of information," says Amy Fairweather of the non-profit group Swords to Plowshares, which provides counseling, employment and housing to returning veterans. "We can use the information that's been discovered to show how to do things better."
Fairweather said she hopes Judge Conti will grant the veterans' groups request for a Special Master to monitor the Department of Veterans Affairs' compliance with its mental health strategic plan.
"When someone's watching over you it's an incentive to do your job," she said. "Right now, there's no accountability."
As the trial wrapped up, Conti appeared to be friendly to the arguments of the veterans groups, but the judge, an 86-year-old World War II veteran who was originally appointed to the bench by Richard Nixon, expressed a concern that he not overreach his authority.
"This court is restricted by statutes and case law," he said, asking both sides to file legal arguments on his jurisdiction over the next three weeks.
"Whatever I do, one side or the other is going to appeal," he noted, expressing a desire that his decision not be overturned by a higher court.
Speaking with reporters afterwards, spokespersons for the veterans and the government both agreed the losing side will likely appeal the case all the way to the Supreme Court.
(END/2008)
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