Bush Apologizess
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Bush apologized Friday for the shoddy conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and promised during a visit to the facility for war veterans that “we’re going to fix the problem.”
Critics questioned the timing of Bush’s visit six weeks after poor conditions and neglect of veterans were exposed there.
Mr. Bush toured the main hospital and Abrams Hall, where soldiers were transferred after they were vacated from the facility’s Building 18, where moldy walls, rodent infestation and other problems went unchecked until reported by the media. He said his conversations with those who had been in Building 18 left him “disturbed by their accounts.”
“The problems at Walter Reed were caused by bureaucratic and administrative failures,” the president said at the end of a more than two-hour visit. “The system failed you and it failed our troops and we’re going to fix it.”
