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'An Inspired Selection'

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The Associated Press

Published: December 8, 2008

WASHINGTON - Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who clashed with the Bush administration on its Iraq war strategy, will bring qualities to the job of Veterans Affairs secretary his predecessors sometimes lacked: credibility, experience and sound judgment.

Even if it means challenging his bosses.

And, in his choice of Shinseki, the president-elect brings to his Cabinet someone who symbolizes the break Barack Obama seeks with the Bush era on national security.

Shinseki was nudged out as Army chief of staff in 2003 after testifying to Congress that more U.S. troops were needed in Iraq than Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the time. In words that came to be vindicated by events, he anticipated "ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems, and so it takes a significant ground force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment."

The controversy made Shinseki popular with soldiers in Iraq and veterans of the conflict who resented what they saw as inadequate troop strength. In helming the Department of Veterans Affairs, he inherits an agency struggling with rising numbers of veterans with physical and mental wounds from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as aging veterans of past conflicts.

On Sunday, he pledged to improve the VA.

Thousands of veterans currently endure six-month waits for VA disability benefits, despite promises by current VA Secretary James Peake and his predecessor, Jim Nicholson, to reduce delays.

The department continues to work with the Pentagon to fix the gaps in coordinating medical care of troops and veterans that contributed to the scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. And it is scrambling to upgrade government technology systems before new legislation providing for millions of dollars in new GI education benefits takes effect in August.

•The 66-year-old is the first four-star Army general of Japanese-American descent. He was born and grew up in Hawaii.

•He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1965.

•During his 38 years as a soldier, he received two Purple Hearts for life-threatening injuries in Vietnam after stepping on a land mine, which blew off much of his foot.

•He commanded the NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia.

•Shinseki became the Army's chief of staff in 1999.

•He testified to Congress in 2003 that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the invasion. He was belittled by the top brass and retired soon after. He was vindicated when President Bush announced a troop surge in early 2007.

Information from The New York Times and Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

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