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Local leaders react to Army supply deficit

BY MARTIN C. EVANS | Newsday Staff Writer

June 9, 2006

Expressing outrage that some Army soldiers cannot get lifesaving medical supplies, Rep. Steve Israel said yesterday he would use an upcoming hearing before the House Armed Services Committee to demand answers from the military's top brass.

The Huntington Democrat, who sits on the powerful Armed Services Committee, said he had begun prodding Army officials last week after hearing that some troops were not equipped with specially treated bandages designed to prevent victims from bleeding to death.

"There have been consistent reports for three years now of inadequate supplies and I saw it firsthand in my first visit to Iraq in 2004," Israel said.

He and others in the Long Island and Queens delegation responded to a Newsday report yesterday that Army soldiers in Iraq are asking friends and family to send the bandages that the Army says are to be carried by every soldier.

"This is, unfortunately and tragically, a pattern," Rep. Timothy Bishop (D-Southampton) said. "First it was insufficient body armor, then [a lack of] up-armored Humvees. This is all outrageous, as far as I'm concerned."

In September, Army Surgeon General Kevin Kiley ordered that all soldiers serving in Iraq or Afghanistan get the bandages.

He said then that most troops who die in battle bleed to death before they reach hospital facilities, and that the bandages could curb the number of fatalities.

But the Army still has not gotten the bandages to every soldier.

The reports of shortages come in the wake of prior incidents in which military supplies were inadequate.

"Sending them unprepared into battle without the proper body armor to keep them from getting ripped apart, and then without the bandages to keep them from bleeding out shows an administration without a clue," Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) said.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) issued a release saying, "I have contacted the Department of Army and am demanding a full accounting."

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, said yesterday: "The Army Medical Department has met and surpassed U.S. Central Command's requirements for HemCon bandages."

But Ann Berger, 88, a Valley Stream resident and World War II veteran, was so upset that she called the White House.

"I told them I was aggravated and what were they going to do about it," said Berger, who served with the Women's Army Corps. "During the war, this would never have happened," she said. "Our boys were considered, and the president knew what was going on."