er local services, they have no plans to actually provide them. Instead, they intend to close the Veterans Hospital at Walla Walla, among others, in defiance of protests by veterans and outraged members of Congress.

It's nuts.

Almost 3,500 American servicemen and women have been wounded in Iraq since the beginning of hostilities. The fatality count earlier this week stood at 686 for the same period. In just the past two weeks, 80 American service personnel were killed and 560 wounded.

Does this seem like the time to be shutting veterans' hospitals?

Of course not.

But budget seems to be driving Veterans Affairs, rather than delivery of services.

With the national debt climbing and staggering budget deficits, this is where the most severe cuts are being made: Closing hospitals for those who gave and are giving so much for their country.

Yes, Walla Walla's veterans hospital is old. Some of the residential buildings went up in 1850s. The man for whom the hospital is named, Gen. Jonathan M. "Skinny" Wainwright, one of the great heroes of Bataan and Corregidor in World War II, was born there 121 years ago. His own health was destroyed by more than three years as a Japanese prisoner of war.

But there are newer buildings at the center where medical services are delivered.

Without Walla Walla, veterans in Eastern Washington and Oregon will have to journey all the way to Spokane or Tacoma for services they now receive in Walla Walla.

The nationwide review of the VA's health system, known as CARES, or Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services, directed each of the agency's 21 regional divisions to conduct reviews and come up with recommendations.

The Seattle regional office, which serves 700,000 veterans, reported that demand for services is expected to increase over the next 20 years.

Changes were recommended but no hospital closures.

Then, with only eight days before the scheduled release of the CARES preliminary plan, the VA headquarters in Washington, D.C., asked the Seattle region to take another look at closing the American Lake, Walla Walla and Vancouver hospitals.

CARES, like the military base closing commission, was supposed to be above such politics.

Because Veterans Affairs obviously tried to muscle the closings for its own political reasons, it's only fair that members of Congress push back. U.S. Rep. George Nethercutt and Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell are leading the fight to save the Wainwright hospital.

If the Walla Walla hospital's facilities aren't up to standards, spend the money to bring them into compliance. If the older buildings need to be preserved as the historic relics they certainly are, preserve away.

But Veterans Affairs needs to stop trying to con local veterans with the notion that anything about closing this hospital is for their own good.

Nobody believes it.

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