Legislators are justifiably irate at what they see as yet another area in which the Department of Veterans Affairs is not only failing to provide care to veterans, but also withholding information on their needs from Congress and the public.

Last November, CBS, after a five-month investigation, described a "hidden epidemic" of suicides among military veterans, significantly above national averages, with rates three times higher among the youngest veterans. VA officials challenged the validity of the report, but internal agency e-mails gave weight to CBS's claims.

Members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee blasted the VA in an April hearing: Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., asked VA Deputy Secretary Gordon Mansfield, "How do we trust what you're saying when every time you turn around we find out that what you're saying publicly is different from what you're saying privately?"

The House Veterans Affairs Committee reacted with similar skepticism at hearings this week, as committee chair Bob Filner, D-Calif., accused the department of "criminal negligence" in its handling of suicide data. CNN reported that the committee was reacting to a December hearing in which Katz insisted media reports on suicide data had been exaggerated, only to indicate a few days later that some alarming statistics could be correct.

One particularly odious e-mail from the head of VA mental health, Ira Katz, to his colleagues was headed "Shh!" and described the previously unreleased number of attempted suicides known to VA officials - 1,000 per month. It went on, "Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?" The e-mail was written shortly after the VA told CBS that there were 790 attempted suicides in all of 2007.

A class-action lawsuit filed by veterans against the VA charges that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are not receiving the care they need because of enormous backlogs in benefits claims, and that many suicidal veterans have unsuccessfully sought mental health care. (A recent Rand Corp. study found that 320,000 troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from traumatic brain injuries, and 300,000 troops suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression.)

Last year's horrific disclosures of moldering quarters and neglect and maltreatment of patients at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center were first belittled by the Pentagon, until a vast public outcry led to firings of top brass. Yet problems at the VA persist.

Members of the House and Senate committees have called for Katz's resignation. Since he has consistently displayed more concern with covering his agency's posterior than with the welfare of its clients, that would seem a reasonable request.

As Hitner, the House committee chair, pointed out, "This is not a bureaucratic situation with numbers. This is life or death."