Bush tries to stem furore over soldiers' hospital

President George Bush yesterday rushed to contain a new political scandal sweeping his administration over dire conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the country's most prestigious military hospital for wounded combat troops.

Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered neglect, bureaucratic intransigence and infestations of rats, cockroaches and mould, it emerged. The scandal has already claimed President Bush's secretary of the army, who was fired on Friday, as well as Walter Reed's commander and the deputy who temporarily stepped in to replace him.

Veterans' groups and the Democratic Party leadership in Congress have voiced considerable anger that the hospital, regarded as the top military medical facility in the country, if not the world, should be allowed to lapse into neglect.

The President, under fire for cutting the health and social security benefits of veterans and failing to provide active combat troops with essential equipment such as body armour, took the unusual step of releasing the text of his regular Saturday radio address early, so it would make yesterday morning's papers. He vowed to meet the physical and mental needs of soldiers returning from combat.

Robert Gates, Mr Bush's new Defence Secretary, won considerable praise yesterday for the swiftness with which he demanded accountability - and a resignation letter - from army secretary Francis Harvey, Walter Reed commander George Weightman and his acting replacement Kevin Kiley, whose appointment in the top position lasted just one day. The issue nevertheless remains a political hot potato for a deeply unpopular President pursuing a deeply unpopular war in Iraq - one that is likely to produce only more patients for Walter Reed.

Yesterday, a roadside bomb killed three US soldiers in Baghdad, and American forces launched air strikes against insurgents suspected of targeting US helicopters. A car bomb also killed 12 people at a police checkpoint in Ramadi.

The Bush administration could still be vulnerable following reports that complaints about shoddy outpatient care at Walter Reed have been circulating for three years, but have received little or no attention. An internal army memorandum written last September warned of "mission failure" at the hospital as a consequence of privatising its support services.

The scandal broke with an investigative series in The Washington Post, which detailed appalling living conditions. It also depicted a woefully underresourced and undermanaged bureaucratic system in which soldiers suffering psychological disorders were put in charge of comrades deemed to be suicide risks, and overworked clerks and underlings failed to address basic needs like helping brain-damaged soldiers remember their medical appointments.