President Bush on Friday met with his Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors, saying that he would “support their work and will address the problems that they find.” Bush created the commission, chaired by former Sen. Bob Dole and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, in response to the reports of substandard outpatient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the bureaucratic maze faced by wound war on terror veterans. Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, has questioned whether the President has given the commission enough time to perform a thorough review.
When the Air Force sets a new program baseline for the B-52 re-engining this fall, there will be “some” cost increase, because the project wasn't previously fully funded, and the Air Force has a better handle on actual supplier costs and knowledge from ground testing, program officials said.