Government panel considers eliminating all VA medical centers, clinics

A blue-ribbon panel created to evaluate the Veterans Affairs health system is weighing a radical proposal to eliminate all VA medical centers and outpatient facilities in the next 20 years and transition 9 million veterans to the private sector for health care, according to the Miliary Times.

A 34-page “strawman document" floated last week by seven of 15 members of the VA Commission on Care calls for giving all veterans immediate access to private health services and closing VA health facilities gradually, starting with those that are obsolete or underutilized in a process similar to a base realignment and closure.

VA eventually would become “primarily a payer,” much like Medicare, under the proposal.

Of the seven commission members whose names appear on the document, three are from the private sector and one is a board member of a veterans advocacy group that has proposed its own plan to expand privatized health care for veterans.

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Otto Skorzeny, one of Hitler’s favorite soldiers, was a master of daring, guerrilla-style commando raids. An unrepentant Nazi, Skorzeny was a senior SS officer who staged the 1943 raid that rescued Italian dictator Mussolini from his partisan captors. Skorzeny was also a lifelong anti-Semite who committed atrocities during World War II and who remained involved in right-wing causes until his death in 1975. But, bizarrely enough, it has also emerged that he was an agent and hitman for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service.

The extraordinary story of Skorzeny’s work for Israel is documented for the first time in the latest edition of the magazine, Forward. The piece was written by Dan Raviv, a correspondent with CBS Radio News, and Yossi Melman, an Israeli author.

Mossad had recruited Skorzeny in 1962 to help it hunt down and kill German scientists helping Egypt develop deadly long-range rockets to fire at Israel.

Skorzeny agreed to help Israel in exchange for being taken off Israel’s hit-list. He even turned down offers of money. Skorzeny proved an enthusiastic and adept partner. As requested by the Israelis, he flew to Egypt and compiled a detailed list of German scientists and their addresses. Skorzeny also provided the names of many front companies in Europe that were procuring and shipping components for Egypt’s military projects. And he even took part directly in a hit by mailing a letter bomb that killed five workers in an Egyptian office where German scientists worked.

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The anti-Islamic State coalition conducting airstrikes in Iraq and Syria has killed the IS militant believed responsible for an attack on U.S. troops in northern Iraq last month that left a Marine dead, it said on Sunday, according to a Reuters report.

Militant Jasim Khadijah, a former Iraqi officer not considered a high-value target, was killed by a drone strike overnight in northern Iraq, coalition spokesman U.S. Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters in Baghdad.

“We have information (that) he was a rocket expert; he controlled these attacks,” said Warren, referring to the shelling of a base used by U.S. troops near the town of Makhmour, located between Mosul and Kirkuk.

That attack killed Marine Staff Sergeant Louis Cardin and wounded eight others, all part of a company-sized detachment of less than 200 troops. They provide force protection fire to Iraqi army troops, who are making slow progress in a campaign to clear areas around Mosul, an IS stronghold.

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The Washington Post is reporting that U.S. Special Operations forces are using rifle sights that are supposed to help shooters accurately hit their targets but instead have a defect, acknowledged by the manufacturer, that potentially endangers the lives of service members in combat, according to court records and military officials.

The U.S. government is aware of the problem and sued the sight’s maker in November for fraud, accusing the company, L-3 Communications, of covering up a variety of issues with the sight, which has been used by every branch of the military, the FBI, the State Department and local law enforcement.

The company quickly settled for $25.6 million. “A sight that ‘almost works’ is not acceptable,” said Naval Criminal Investigative Service Director Andrew Traver in a news release the day the settlement was announced.

But more than four months later, the equipment has not been recalled or replaced, say current service members and military officials. Instead, it is still used by units under Special Operations Command (SOCOM), including Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, Marine Corps Special Operation units and some parts of Delta Force and SEAL Team Six, according to Navy Cmdr. Matthew Allen, a spokesman for SOCOM. The Marine Corps is also continuing to use thousands of the sights, said a Marine Corps spokesman, Maj. Tony Semelroth.

This story was originally published April 4, 2016 at 11:32 AM with the headline "Government panel considers eliminating all VA medical centers, clinics."