Doing the wrong thing

Thursday, March 20, 2008 | 2:05 a.m.

Fearing the creation of a Gulf War syndrome, Pentagon officials have delayed giving troops returning from Iraq medical screenings for mild brain injuries because, they say, they didn’t want to create distress among soldiers.

Air Force Col. Kenneth Cox told USA Today that screenings for mild traumatic brain injury, which can be caused by exposure to bomb blasts, were put off for two years. Cox, the military’s director of medical assessments, said the Pentagon was fearing a reoccurrence of Gulf War syndrome. Troops in the first Gulf War blamed their service for a number of vague symptoms, and the Pentagon wanted to avoid the costly process of testing soldiers.

Cox said that soldiers may believe they have something they don’t, often “reacting to rumors, things they’ve read about or heard about on the Internet or (from) their friends.”

He said such uncertainty makes treating veterans “much more difficult and more costly.”

The Pentagon could have simply resolved that uncertainty by instituting testing for brain injury on all troops serving in war zones. That would have cleared up any questions and expedited the treatment of injured troops.

The Pentagon knew that but did nothing. In January 2006 the federal Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center said screenings for troops should start “immediately.” And last month an Army report indicated that in a survey of nearly 2,200 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 1 in 10 showed signs of mild brain injury.

After more than two years of taking no action, the Pentagon now says it will soon require screenings for troops coming out of combat.

Soon is not good enough. The Pentagon should have been doing this testing for years and should be doing it now.

The country has put troops in harm’s way and should be providing the best services it can to returning veterans. The Pentagon’s delay in doing the right thing, hiding from the cost and the responsibility, is unforgivable.