CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Dec. 7, 2008 – 4:14 p.m.
Choice of Shinseki to Head Veterans Affairs Draws Praise, Some GOP Concern
By Matthew M. Johnson, CQ Staff
Congressional Democrats rallied Sunday around the surprise choice of retired Army Gen. Eric K. Shinseki as President-elect Barack Obama ’s nominee for Veterans Affairs secretary.
At least one Republican, however, criticized Obama’s decision, saying it would have been better to keep current Secretary James B. Peake on board.
The formal announcement of Shinseki’s selection came at a news conference in Chicago marking the 67th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But news of the choice leaked out Saturday after Obama mentioned it while taping an interview with NBC for Sunday morning’s “Meet the Press” program.
The choice of Shinseki, 66, came as a surprise. His name had not been floated publicly before Obama’s “Meet the Press” interview, and speculation had centered on others as possible choices, including former Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga. (1997-2003), who headed the VA during the Carter administration, and Illinois Veterans Affairs Department chief Tammy Duckworth.
“There is no one more distinguished, more determined, or more qualified” to lead the department into the 21st century than the retired four-star Army general, said Obama, who, like Shinseki, is a native of Hawaii.
“No one will ever doubt that this former Army chief of staff has the courage to stand up for our troops and our veterans. No one will ever question whether he will fight hard enough to make sure they have the support they need,” Obama said, alluding to Shinseki’s well-publicized disagreement with the Bush administration over the size of the forces needed to invade Iraq in 2003. Shinseki told a Senate committee several hundred thousand more troops would be needed than administration officials wanted to use.
The disagreement was a factor in Shinseki’s tense relationship with then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, that culminated in his retirement June 11, 2003, after four years as Army chief of staff.
Obama broadly alluded to problems faced by veterans returning home from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries, as well as job and economic insecurity.
“We must show them and their families the same devotion that they have shown this country,” Obama said. “The war doesn’t end when they come home. [Veterans] should get the best care that we have to offer and that is what we will provide when I am president.”
Shinseki echoed Obama’s promises to overhaul the department to allow veterans to transition from military to civilian life without having to worry about benefits being available when they need them.
“As we stand here today there are veterans worried about keeping their health care and even their homes,” Shinseki said.
Chairmen Applaud
The chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs committees on Saturday strongly endorsed the nomination of Shinseki.
“Gen. Shinseki is a great choice; he is well aware of the needs of our veterans and will make an excellent secretary of Veterans Affairs,” said Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel K. Akaka , D-Hawaii. “I have great respect for Gen. Shinseki’s judgment and abilities. I’ve worked with him in the past and I look forward to working with him in the future.”
Patty Murray , D-Wash., a senior member of the Senate panel, said she was pleased by the pick and looks forward Shinseki modernize the department.
“I believe Gen. Shinseki can confirm his commitment to changing the system through his actions – and that will start with listening to veterans and advocates and being honest with lawmakers about the resources needed to take us in a new direction,” Murray said.
Rep. Bob Filner , D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, also praised Obama’s decision to nominate Shinseki, predicting he would bring “a new energy to the department and bring hope to our veterans.”
However, Steve Buyer of Indiana, the ranking Republican on the House committee, said he was disappointed that Obama was replacing, Peake, the current VA secretary, warning that “could cause a major setback, by simple virtue of the fact it takes a great deal of time to absorb the enormous amount of information necessary to run our nation’s second largest department and the world’s largest integrated health care system.”
Buyer said the VA “is in a critical situation, and now is not the time to dismiss someone who has demonstrated the ability to manage this complex system.”
Nonetheless, Buyer acknowledged that Shinseki is a qualified nominee and promised to make every effort to assist him in the transition.
At least one group of veterans applauded the selection of Shinseki, and encouraged him to hire young veterans to help modernize the VA.
“Gen. Shinseki has a record of courage and honesty, and is a bold choice to lead the VA into the future,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “[He] has a monumental task before him. We encourage Gen. Shinseki to move quickly to add Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to key positions in his senior staff.”
The nomination of Shinseki revitalizes a career that was set back by the Bush administration because of the dispute over troop levels needed for the Iraq War.
“He was right,” Obama told Tom Brokaw on “Meet the Press.”
A veteran of the Vietnam War, Shinseki also was U.S. Army commander in Europe and head of the NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia-Herzegovina during his 38-year career. He was also decorated with two purple hearts and three bronze stars.
Comments
Hopefully General Shinseki is prepared to take on a massive, and massively dysfunctional bureaucracy. I speak as a 100% disabled veteran who holds a Ph D and has taught at the university level for 17 years. I speak as a citizen concerned for the plight of thousands of other veterans like myself, who are simultaneously told a long string of stories about how important we are to the VA and how the VA makes serving us the top priority in all their activities. I speak with the experience of 25 years of routine lying, common inadvertent misinformation coming from the same people in the same office, office mismanagement that would get any clerk fired from any business in the town where I live, and so on. This is hardly the tip of the iceberg I am attempting to indicate in that horrendously corrupt bureaucratic empire. General Shinseki will need to find a way to learn from outside that bureaucracy what is happening inside it, because the corruption is so astutely organized he will hear only total fabrications from the bureaucrats inside about what the VA is actually doing. I do not know how that might be accomplished, unless General Shinseki is ready to personally appoint his own office of review, including no one who ever was employed by VA previously, and no one who has any experiential or relational connection with previous or current VA employees, and use this review office to ask every veteran who attempts to deal with every VA facility to give a description of that experience. The review office will then be able to rapidly build a more accurate picture of what the VA appears to be doing from the veteran's perspective. He will get only gross, total fabrications from inside the VA's own processes of internal reviews.
He is a good choice for any job. I would like to see him move over to Secretary of Defense in about a year when Gates moves on.
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