His testimony marks the first time a Bush administration official has provided detailed information about the psychological impact of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars on combat veterans. Cross testified that five years after the invasion of Iraq, the VA has still not completed a study on the link between suicides and PTSD among combat veterans. However, he said such a study is currently in the works and may be published soon.
Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, Paul Sullivan, said more than 5,000 veterans commit suicide per year.
Dr. Arthur Blank, a renowned expert on PTSD who has worked closely with the VA, testified that about 30 percent of Iraqi war veterans are likely suffering from PTSD due to multiple deployments and the VA is not doing enough to care for them.
"I think it's because of multiple deployments, which means one is exposed to trauma over and over again," Blank testified.
Last week, Daniel Cooper, the VA's undersecretary for benefits, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, abruptly resigned. Sullivan's group had called for Cooper's resignation two weeks ago in light of the huge backlog of benefits claims that have yet to be processed by Cooper's department.
Last August, the Pentagon's Inspector General revealed that Cooper used his government position to promote the work of a fundamentalist Christian organization, a violation of the laws governing the separation of church and state.
Cooper, and several high-ranking military officials, appeared in a promotional video for Christian Embassy, an evangelical organization that evangelizes members of the military and politicians in Washington, DC via daily Bible studies and outreach events. The group holds prayer breakfasts on Wednesdays in the Pentagons executive dining room, according to the organization's web site.
Mikey Weinstein, the founder and president of The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, whose organization called for a federal investigation after government officials were discovered to have participated in the Christian Embassy promotional video, said Cooper is a "disgrace."
"The D in Dan stands for disgrace," Weinstein said in an interview. "He's a disgrace to the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy, the US armed forces, the Veterans Administration, and the United States of America. Why? Because we have him on videotape making it very clear to the world that the most important part of his job was to push the fundamentalist agenda of the Christian right over his specified duties at the Veterans Administration. Dan Cooper has used the United States Constitution as his personal roll of toilet paper. I wish him as much good fortune as he has provided to our honorable and noble veterans; none."
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