EDITORIAL: The truth about the VA: Rank dereliction of duty

Sept. 20--Pressed at a House Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing, the Department of Veterans Affairs' assistant inspector general for health-care inspections conceded what the VA tried to avoid admitting: Treatment delays at the Phoenix VA hospital contributed to veterans' deaths.

Dr. John Daigh thereby admitted what an Aug. 26 VA inspector general's report tried to obfuscate by claiming the IG was "unable to conclusively assert" that those delays caused those veterans' deaths. Analysis by committee staff had previously shown that claim wasn't in the report's draft version but was added to the final version after VA officials reviewed the draft -- and was touted in a VA press release before the final report's release, according to the Washington Examiner.

Richard Griffin, the VA's acting inspector general, told the committee the care delays "could have" contributed to veterans' deaths. He also testified that the controversial claim added to the final report was suggested by a senior executive in his own, supposedly independent office, not by any VA official per se.

Such dubious contentions and hairsplitting only bolster the American Legion's call for a truly independent investigation of the VA's dereliction of duty, including phony waiting lists concocted to hide care delays. That's what it's going to take to reveal the full truth of this scandal -- a necessary step in the difficult process of rebuilding trust in the VA.

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