[NYTr] Bush's Disabled Vet Appointee: "Bible study is more important than doing my job"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

IPS - Sep 5, 2007
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39154

Bush Appointee Campaigns for Evangelicals

By Aaron Glantz

SAN FRANCISCO, Sep 5 (IPS) - The head of the U.S. federal government
agency that doles out benefits to disabled veterans is under fire for
saying Bible study is "more important than doing [my] job."

Two organisations, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) and the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), demanded an investigation Tuesday
of Daniel Cooper, President George W. Bush's undersecretary for
benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Their complaint stems from an appearance Cooper made in a fundraising
video for the evangelical group Christian Embassy, which carries out
missionary work among the Washington elite as part of the Campus
Crusade for Christ.

In the video, Cooper says of his Bible study, "it's not really about
carving out time, it really is a matter of saying what is important.
And since that's more important than doing the job -- the job's going
to be there, whether I'm there or not."

Veterans for Common Sense and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation
believe Cooper violated the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution,
which prohibits government officials from advocating a particular
religion while on the job.

They also believe Cooper violated ethics rules that prohibit government
officials from using their name, picture, or title for proselytising or
fundraising.

"We're very concerned about this because hundreds of thousands of
veterans are waiting for their benefits while Cooper himself says that
promoting his religion is more important than helping the veterans,"
Veterans for Common Sense's Paul Sullivan told IPS.

Since Cooper was appointed the head of the Veterans Benefits
Administration, the number of veterans waiting on their disability
claims has increased dramatically, from 325,000 in 2002 to 600,000
today.

On average, a U.S. war veteran must wait six months for an answer to
their application. If a vet decides to appeal a denial, the process
often drags on as long as three years.

In addition, Veterans Administration hospitals, clinics and counseling
centres report that more than 52,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans
were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). But under
Cooper's leadership, only 19,000 of those veterans were approved for
service-connected disability compensation for PTSD, a significant
discrepancy.

The groups are also upset that Cooper gave his top aid, Ronald Aument,
the deputy secretary for benefits, a 33,000-dollar cash bonus while the
claims backlog grew larger.

"He's prostituting his position," argued Mikey Weinstein, the head of
the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. "We could have done just as
poorly as he's done by sticking a German Shepard or a cactus in that
job."

Sullivan and Weinstein turned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
after the Veterans Administration's own inspector general cleared
Cooper of any wrongdoing.

"We made a referral to the designated agency ethics official," said
Cathy Gromek, a spokeswoman for the VA inspector general's office. "He
reviewed the video, and he determined that conduct portrayed in the
video did not violate federal laws or regulations."

When asked to provide a copy of the inspector's report, Gromek told IPS
it was not readily available. A request would need to be made under the
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), she said -- a bureaucratic process
that often takes weeks, or even months. Veterans for Common Sense has
already filed a formal request for the report, but whatever it shows,
the organisation's director Paul Sullivan told IPS the FBI still needs
to get involved.

"It's like the fox guarding the henhouse," Sullivan said. "VA's
Inspector General, who is a political appointee, should not be
investigating other political appointees within his own department."

Daniel Cooper wasn't the only high ranking official in the Christian
Embassy video. The video also featured Environmental Protection Agency
Administrator Stephen Johnson and a slew of current and retired
Pentagon officials, including Army brigadier generals Vincent Brooks
and Robert Caslen, retired Army Chaplain Col. Ralph Benson, and Air
Force major generals Peter Sutton and John Catton.

Long time observers of the religious right say the controversy
surrounding Daniel Cooper is part of a pattern.

"Evangelicals have been working through the military and government
agencies since the Cold War as part of the fight against 'Godless
Communism', but they tried to follow certain boundaries" said Chip
Berlet, a senior analyst of Political Research Associates in Boston.
"With the Bush administration we've seen many egregious examples of
officials stepping way out of line of any kind of boundary, of which
this promotional video is a particularly notable example."

In 2005, for example, the group Americans United for the Separation of
Church and State issued a report accusing officials at the U.S. Air
Force Academy in Colorado Springs of religious discrimination.

Cadets were frequently pressured to attend chapel and take part of
evangelical services, the group said, with prayer part of mandatory
events at the academy. In at least one case, the group said, a teacher
ordered students to pray before beginning their final examination.

(END/2007)