NYT Tues: Soldiers' widows benefits fall short...

RAW STORYPublished: Monday June 26, 2006

The New York Times is set to report on Tuesday that the payment of benefits to widows of soldiers killed in Iraq, many of them with small children, is often beset by bureaucratic hangups, RAW STORY has learned.

Although the Times acknowledges that the program runs smoothly for many widows, it states that it is characterized for others by "lost files, long delays, an avalanche of paperwork, misinformation, and gaps in a patchwork of laws."

The Times story describes the case of one young widow with an infant son who lost her husband in Iraq in November 2005. She waited more than two weeks for the initial death benefit, meant to help with the immediate payment of bills. It took months for her husband's retirement benefit to arrive. And she received only half the amount she was due for housing because of a clerical error that listed her husband as single with no dependents.

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