Pentagon Takes 'Full Responsibility' for Walter Reed's Building 18

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2007 — -- Top Pentagon officials took full responsibility Wednesday for poor living conditions inside Building 18 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, a facility that houses injured soldiers who have returned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With repair work already under way, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's second-highest ranking officer, expressed the Army's disappointment with the state of the outpatient living quarters, which, he admitted, he only learned about through recent media reports.

Many of the rooms in the former hotel are covered in mold and have holes in the ceiling and leaky plumbing. Nearly half of Building 18's 54 rooms require repairs of some type, which, until now, have not been addressed.

"I'll take responsibility -- I'm the vice chief of staff of the Army," Cody told a crush of cameras and reporters. "I'll take responsibility for this, and I'll make sure that it's fixed."

In addition to speedy repair work on Building 18, Cody insisted that he had already met with some of the people he considers responsible for the conditions, though he would not identify any specific officials and denied that anyone had been fired, disciplined or discharged.

Instead, Cody said that the people overseeing the facility were not qualified and that the military's inspection policy had obviously failed.

"We had people that were put in charge that did not have, in my mind, in my experience, the right rank and the right experience and the authority to be able to execute some of the missions that was required," he said. "But at certain levels, we should have had higher-level, noncommissioned officers, and we should have had higher-level officers overseeing Building 18 and the outpatient care. And that's what we're correcting right now."

William Winkenwerder, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said the staff at the facility shares in the responsibility but added that the problems did not have to do with funding.

"There are resources to do all the things we need to do to take care of people," Winkenwerder said. "So, at the end of the day, I think this matter is about trust and the trust that we all have with the service members and their families."

"The trust has taken a hit here. And I think it's our job to repair that trust and to re-earn that trust," Winkenwerder said.

Both Cody and Winkenwerder said that media reports detailing the poor conditions inside Walter Reed's Building 18 took them by surprise.

"I have never been made aware of Building 18, its condition or complaints by wounded warriors over the last five years," said Cody. "This is not an excuse by any shape or form -- clearly, we've had a breakdown in leadership, and a bureaucratic medical and contractual process bogged down a speedy solution to these problems."

During a tour of the facility, U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., said that soldiers, by nature, are "uncomplaining" and that she expected the military to have the building repaired within a week.

The more challenging work, she said, must focus on the facility's management.

"What happens to a soldier that now has a decent place to live but has a bureaucracy that has not been renovated?" Norton said. "That what it seems to me that Congress needs to do before we get back here."

Construction has already begun on the 26 rooms in need of work. Cody also said the way officers charged with overseeing the facility are appointed is being worked on and that he will continue to press for a "one-stop" postcare center that would streamline the bureaucracy faced by wounded soldiers and their families.

Specialist John Gentry, who suffered an eye injury serving in the Army's 4th Infantry Division and lived in Building 18 for seven months, described the conditions at Walter Reed as a lot better than the conditions in Iraq.

"That's like living in the Hilton," Gentry told ABC News. "You know it's a hotel, but I don't need that anymore, so give the rooms to the guys that need it."

But another soldier, Nick Helfferich, said that there's a sense the staff at the facility is both overworked and overwhelmed by the increasing number of soldiers arriving.

"Obviously, the more and more that come in, the more and more chaotic it gets," Helfferich said.

The Pentagon has already launched independent investigations into conditions at Walter Reed, as well as at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. The results from those reviews are expected in 45 days.

The Army and Navy, meanwhile, will conduct internal investigations into their respective medical centers.

Finally, Building 18 will be renamed, Pentagon officials said, with a title more deserving of soldiers who have been injured in the line of duty.