UPDATE: House Votes To Expedite Airport Screening For Troops

By Adrianna McGinley

The House is scheduled to vote Tuesday on legislation that would expedite airport security screening for members of the Armed Forces.

H.R. 1801 would give the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) six months to implement a risk-based system for screening members of the military and their families traveling on official orders. 

The legislation, introduced by Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.), was sparked in 2007 when 200 soldiers traveling home from Iraq to Hawaii were detained during a layover at Oakland International Airport and denied entry to the passenger terminal.

“Our soldiers who are putting their lives on the line in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere should be afforded extra respect when returning home to their loved ones and shouldn’t be viewed as potential terrorists in our airports,” Cravaack said.

The House Committee on Homeland Security unanimously agreed in September to bring the legislation to the floor for consideration.

Update on Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 10:25PM by Staff

As expected, the Risk-Based Screening for Members of the Armed Services Act passed the House unanimously Tuesday evening. The vote tally was 404-0.

U.S. Soldiers Exposed To Toxic Substance In Iraq, Cite Health Concerns

By Courtney Ann Jackson-Talk Radio News Service

Exposure to a toxic substance at a water injection facility in Iraq has left U.S. soldiers in deteriorating health. The U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee conducted a hearing Monday to investigate what some Senators would describe as the Army’s lackluster response.

“The Army failed to provide proper oversight over KBR's [military contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root] contract provisions that called for the contractor to identify, prevent and mitigate environmental hazards so as to protect the health and safety of workers and U.S. troops,” said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.).

Another hearing was held last year to address how KBR had exposed its own workers and hundreds of U.S. soldiers to a highly toxic chemical, sodium dichromate, at the Qarmat Ali water injection facility in the Spring and Summer of 2003.

Four National Guard soldiers testified at Monday's hearing and told the committee about their subsequent health problems.

Russell Powell, Former Staff Sergeant of the West Virginia Army National Guard said “I and many other soldiers and KBR workers had severe nosebleeds, coughed up blood, had difficulty breathing and nausea, and/or experienced a burning sensation in our lungs and throats. After a few weeks of being the facility, many of the soldiers around me began getting lesions on their hands, arms, faces, and in the nostril area.”

The sodium dichromate was described by all four men as a thick orange powder that often filled the air during windstorms. They said they were certainly aware of the substance but even after inquiring about its effects, were told it was only a mild irritant. Despite the dismissal of the substance’s harmful nature, the soldiers were consistently having health problems and finding it difficult to breathe in the facility and surrounding areas.

Herman Gibb, PhD, an expert on health risks associated with exposure to sodium chromate, testified that the chemical is considered to be a deadly carcinogen.

“Based on my experience working at the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] on risk assessments of hexavalent chromium and my study of chromate production workers, the symptoms reported by some of the soldiers who served at Qarmat Ali are consistent with significant exposure to sodium chromate,” Gibb said.

The soldiers stated that they continue to struggle with lingering respiratory, sinus, and other serious medical conditions.

Two of the four soldiers testifying were not notified until this year that they had been exposed to the carcinogen when they received a letter from their respective state’s National Guard under which they served.

Soldiers Silencing the Critics

By Courtney Ann Jackson- Talk Radio News

Since World War II, the success of American soldiers in actions abroad has preserved freedom for millions of people, according to former Republican Massachussetts Governor Mitt Romney. At a Heritage Foundation event Monday, Romney noted the upcoming 65th anniversary of D-Day and said American soldiers have shouldered the burden of defending freedom since World War II. The event was meant to commemorate those who served and to criticize the Obama administration for cutting funding from the Defense Department budget.

“Because of what America did in the 20th century, there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who now live in freedom-who, but for the price paid by the United States, would have lived in despair. I know of no other such example of national selfishness in the history of mankind. That is why America is the hope of the earth.”

The broad military plans of the Obama administration are also troubling to Romney, who was a 2008 presidential candidate. He is concerned that Obama will look to the military budget for the largest cuts in the process of reforming the financial system.

“ The right way to scale America’s defense budget is to add up the requirements for each of our missions, beginning with strategic defense,” he said.

He laid out other defense missions that he felt the U.S. should be focusing on such as: fighting and winning land wars and counter-insurgencies and providing counter-insurgency support for nations under threat from Jihadists.

“We cannot allow the economic crisis to conceal the very real threats to our nation’s security. We cannot ignore the intentions of competitors who would replace America’s leadership with their own, and set back the cause of freedom,” Romney said.

The demands of all U.S. defense missions involving U.S. soldiers are not covered in Obama’s planned cuts for the department, Romney said, do not equal budget cuts. He believes a $50 billion increase in the modernization budget is needed. He noted that Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also repeatedly said that is a necessary increase.

He concluded by saying, “Providence has blessed us and trusted us to safeguard liberty; in a time of confusion at home and challenge abroad, let ours be the voice of clarity and good sense-confident in our cause, and faithful in the care of freedom.”