By Patricia L Johnson

Americans are big sports fans – billions and billions of dollars are spent each year on baseball, football, hockey, golf, racing, boxing, basketball, soccer – you name it and we’ll find a team to play it.  Whether the team is good bad, or indifferent, we are stuck like glue to sports channels and winners become our heroes.

The American people have heroes in the making in the 110th Congress where the score is now 269-259.  Two-hundred sixty nine members of Congress have joined forces and voted to set a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.

The House vote came on March 23, 2007 with a score of 218-212 on H.R. 1591 as follows:

The Senate vote came on the morning of March 29, 2007 with a score of 51-47.  Republicans Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon joined forces with the Democrats providing them with the necessary majority.

President Bush, during an address to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, stated “I have made it clear for weeks, if either version comes to my desk, I’m going to veto it,”  

President Bush believes the end result of his action will lead Americans to blame Congress for failure to fund the troops, but there is no failure.  H.R. 1591 “Making emergency supplemental appropriations for fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes” contains adequate provisions to support our troops.  If President Bush vetoes the bill, he will be the one person that is solely responsible for cutting off funding to our troops, no one else. 

A new report, published in the March 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, indicates the incidence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder is running at 31% for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.  The lead researcher, Karen H. Seal, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, believes the number of veterans suffering from PTSD and/or mental disorders is actually much higher.  Many of the cases diagnosed during the study of 104,000 veterans were diagnosed by primary care physicians during primary care appointments, rather than by mental health professionals. 

The fact that VA physicians are actively looking for PTSD symptoms in returning vets is good news.  Posttraumatic Stress Disorder was not added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until many years after the Vietnam conflict was over and most Vietnam veterans were subjected to many years of suffering before they were able to obtain treatment from the Veterans Administration. Prior to the attack on Iraq we were told, by our President, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be turned against us in a matter of hours.  Now we are being told, by this same President, the situation in Iraq is improving on a daily basis.  

The following chart indicates major attacks over the past 70 + days.  It does not include attacks that occur daily in various areas throughout the country of Iraq. Is this what our government considers an improvement in conditions in Iraq? 

Source:  Reuters  

The new bomb of choice in Iraq is filled with chlorine and causes breathing problems, nausea, skin irritation and vomiting.  On March 28, 2007 one of these bombs was detonated wounding 15 U.S. and Iraqi forces.  This is the eighth chlorine bomb used by the insurgents since January 28, 2007.

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