More Fallout From Walter Reed Scandal

Army Surgeon General Kevin C. Kiley has resigned, the third military official to lose his job in the Walter Reed scandal. An anonymous defense official says Kiley was asked to step down by the acting Army secretary, who got his job only two weeks ago after another abrupt dismissal.

AP via Yahoo News:

Army Surgeon General Kevin C. Kiley abruptly stepped down under pressure from military superiors, the third top Army official forced out in the fallout from revelations of shabby treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The Army said Monday that Lt. Gen. Kiley had submitted a request to retire over the weekend. Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren had asked Kiley for his retirement, said a senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the events.

Kiley’s removal underscored how the controversy, which began with reports of dilapidated outpatient housing and a nightmarish bureaucracy at the Army’s flagship hospital, has snowballed into a far broader problem for the Bush administration.

Congressional committees and a slew of investigative boards are scrutinizing the treatment of wounded troops and veterans by the military’s entire medical system, as well as by the Department of Veterans Affairs, headed by Jim Nicholson. The probes come with the administration already struggling to defend its widely unpopular war policies in Iraq, and the Democratic-led Congress citing poor care for troops as the latest instance of incompetent administration planning for the conflict.

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