Gen. Shinseki Eyed for Obama's Veterans Affairs Secretary

[TheSarge]

Shinseki is the former Army chief of staff who upset his civilian bosses in 2003 when he testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the U.S. invasion

President-elect Barack Obama will name his pick for secretary of veterans affairs at a Pearl Harbor event in Chicago on Sunday, and the Associated Press reports that retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki is Obama's choice.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the official announcement, the Associated Press said.

Shinseki is the former Army chief of staff who upset his civilian bosses in 2003 when he testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the U.S. invasion. He was forced out of his job within months for being "wildly off the mark." But his words proved prophetic after President Bush in early 2007 announced a "surge" of additional troops to Iraq after miscalculating.

Earlier Saturday, it was clear that some of the people rumored to have been leading contenders for the veterans affairs job are no longer in the running, Democratic sources told FOX News. Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs, and former Georgia Senator Max Cleeland, had been front runners.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/06/obama-veterans-affairs-secretary-pearl-harbor-event/

[Ralph Wiggum]

The DUmmies like him, which concerns me.  I don't know much about him.

[TheSarge]

The DUmmies like him, which concerns me.  I don't know much about him.

Vietnam Vet, missing half of his foot as a permanent reminder of SE Asia.

First Asian-American 4 Star General.

He was originally a Clinton appointee to the CSA position.

Most notably gave us the Stryker Combat Vehicle and the Future Combat Systems programs.

Both having proven to be valueabale to us as we fight the WoT.

He also made us start wearing these  black berets.




The DUmmies like him cause he stood up to the Evil NeoCons like Rummesfeld, Feith and Boooooosh where Iraq was concerned.  They fought the war the way we saw it play out...he wanted a repeat of the troop build up we saw in Desert Storm.

He so pissed off his civilian bosses at The Pentagon that non of them were standing on Summerall Field when he retired. Even today he still doesn't show up for ceremonies where the other retired CSA's come to.  I've seen him at the Pentagon once since he retired.  He didn't even show for the Dunwoody promotion...his wife was there instead.

And this is a place where they've forginve Gene McKinney and he's very welcome around there.


And of course anyone who opposes Boooooooooooooosh is cool in the eyes of teh DUmmies.

[Eupher]

And this is a place where they've forginve Gene McKinney and he's very welcome around there.

WTF? Kinda strange for THAT when showing the obvious sexist markings that he did led to his demise - from SMA busted to MSG (although he apparently was able to retire as an E-9).

But then again, why should we be surprised? It's okay for Slick Willie to get knob jobs in the White House right about the same time that McKinney was sliming his way into the record books as not only being the first black SMA, but the first one to retire in disgrace.

And he's still a popular guy around the Pentagon, eh?

[TheSarge]

And he's still a popular guy around the Pentagon, eh?

The last time I saw him...he had a DA Civilian job there.

IMHO I think that a lot of people there viewed him as having gotten a raw deal since he wasn't guilty of what he'd initially been charged with.

[AllosaursRus]

Shinseki is the former Army chief of staff who upset his civilian bosses in 2003 when he testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the U.S. invasion

President-elect Barack Obama will name his pick for secretary of veterans affairs at a Pearl Harbor event in Chicago on Sunday, and the Associated Press reports that retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki is Obama's choice.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the official announcement, the Associated Press said.

Shinseki is the former Army chief of staff who upset his civilian bosses in 2003 when he testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the U.S. invasion. He was forced out of his job within months for being "wildly off the mark." But his words proved prophetic after President Bush in early 2007 announced a "surge" of additional troops to Iraq after miscalculating.

Earlier Saturday, it was clear that some of the people rumored to have been leading contenders for the veterans affairs job are no longer in the running, Democratic sources told FOX News. Tammy Duckworth, director of the Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs, and former Georgia Senator Max Cleeland, had been front runners.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2008/12/06/obama-veterans-affairs-secretary-pearl-harbor-event/

Don't know the guy at all. The only thing that worries me, is that he didn't think we were capable without overwhelming force. I have more faith in our troops than that!

Turns out perhaps he did have a point, but after the Clintoon ****ed the military, we just didn't have the personell at the time. Yet we still managed. I prefer our leaders have more faith in our troops than that!

[Zeus]

Don't know the guy at all. The only thing that worries me, is that he didn't think we were capable without overwhelming force. I have more faith in our troops than that!

Turns out perhaps he did have a point, but after the Clintoon ****ed the military, we just didn't have the personell at the time. Yet we still managed. I prefer our leaders have more faith in our troops than that!

The trouble with all these I told you so guys is they neglect to say they also predicted US military casualties in the 10's of thousands and a bunch of other predictions that didn't even come close to mirroring reality.

[formerlurker]

The trouble with all these I told you so guys is they neglect to say they also predicted US military casualties in the 10's of thousands and a bunch of other predictions that didn't even come close to mirroring reality.

Very true.   

[djones520]

The trouble with all these I told you so guys is they neglect to say they also predicted US military casualties in the 10's of thousands and a bunch of other predictions that didn't even come close to mirroring reality.

Yeah...  but I'd rather those predictions be wrong.  He was right where it counted.

They also predicted the same exact thing with Desert Storm.  Preparing for casualties that may never come is always better then estimated fewer then what actually happens.  Just like showing up with more force then you need is always better then showing up with less then you needed.  Which is exactly what happened.  Yeah, we had just what we needed to stomp the piss out of Iraq's standing army, but lets be serious.  We where not prepared to handle what happened afterwards.  Had we rolled in with 300,000 guys, then maybe the last 4 years woulda been a lot differant.

[djones520]

The only thing that worries me, is that he didn't think we were capable without overwhelming force. I have more faith in our troops than that!

This qoute was recently given about the F-22's performance at last years Red Flag exercise.  It holds true to all US Military doctrine.

"Our joint forces don't want a fair fight," he said. "We want every fight we enter to be patently unfair - to the other guy."

We can never bring enough overwhelming force.

[formerlurker]

In a taped interview on "Meet the Press" tomorrow, Barack Obama will announce his decision to appoint retired Gen. Eric Shinseki to head the Veterans Administration.   From an excerpt provided by NBC:

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA I'm going to be making announcement tomorrow about the head of our Veterans Administration, General Eric Shinseki, who was a commander and has fought in Vietnam, Bosnia, is somebody who has achieved the highest level of military service.  He has agreed that he is willing to be part of this administration because both he and I share a reverence for those who serve. I grew up in Hawaii, as he did.  My grandfather is in the Punch Bowl National Cemetery. When I reflect on the sacrifices that have been made by our veterans and, I think about how so many veterans around the country are struggling even more than those who have not served — higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate — it breaks my heart, and I think that General Shinseki is exactly the right person who is going to be able to make sure that we honor our troops when they come home.

BROKAW:  He's the man who lost his job in the Bush Administration because he said we will need more troops in Iraq than Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld thought we would need at that time.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA:  He was right.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTI0ODE1OTMzYWYyMDFlZjkyMTdhNDc0OWY2NmFlMjI=


Well, technically he wanted 400,000 troops on the ground which is over the top, but more was needed for sure.     Note the bolded text -- "he was right', well yes Messiah, he was right which makes you wrong as you insisted the surge (i.e. more troops) would not work.   

[docstew]

best thing he did was the stryker, i have several good friends who are still alive because of that vehicle...

he was correct about needing more troops, but what more troops were there?

[whiffleball]

I don't know much of him, but if he thinks he can run the VA like a military unit he'd best think again.  It's loaded with dead weight from top to bottom and the AFGE & NAGE exist solely to retain non supervisory dead weight.

[DumbAss Tanker]

Shinseki is a very smart and visionary guy who as I best recall also cares a lot about the troops, he is not only responsible for the extremely-timely fielding of the Stryker brigades (if the institutional bias for tracked vehicles had won out, we would have been totally hamstrung in Iraq and Afghanistan given the thousands and thousands of road miles units have to transit in a tour in either one, for which tracks are completely unsuited), his vision of the Stryker brigades was the foundation of the whole "Expeditionary Army" and BCTs, in the place of the old divisional structure.  He was a damned sight better ACofS than Rumsfeld was a SecDef.  Obama could do a whole Hell of a lot worse.   

[formerlurker]

Shinseki is a very smart and visionary guy who as I best recall also cares a lot about the troops, he is not only responsible for the extremely-timely fielding of the Stryker brigades (if the institutional bias for tracked vehicles had won out, we would have been totally hamstrung in Iraq and Afghanistan given the thousands and thousands of road miles units have to transit in a tour in either one, for which tracks are completely unsuited), his vision of the Stryker brigades was the foundation of the whole "Expeditionary Army" and BCTs, in the place of the old divisional structure.  He was a damned sight better ACofS than Rumsfeld was a SecDef.  Obama could do a whole Hell of a lot worse.   

In all fairness, Shinseki merely pointed to the research documents of the Army War College for direction on how to proceed with occupation of Iraq.   It wasn't his vision, but that of war experts. 

Rumsfeld was on track with his vision of exacting change to our cold war military.   Ground forces do need to be lighter and quicker.   The changes that Rumsfeld directed were long overdue. 

Also note that Shinseki did not become a 4 star without knowing and fully playing the Pentagon drill.  These aren't WWII generals we are talking about here.   They played the insider game to get those stars and don't for a minute think otherwise.  This is far more than a difference of opinion on how to wage this war and occupation.   Shinseki is arguably selling his soul by working for a man who he knows will harm our military and national security, which far outweighs the slights he received from the Pentagon.

The DU crowd don't know their ass from their elbows when it comes to the military.   Shinseki could be a sell out.   Let's hope he doesn't piss on veterans being the Messiah's yes man  - he stands his ground against this administration to do what is right then I will support him 100%.  Until then, I will reserve opinion on this appointment.     

[DumbAss Tanker]

Rumsfeld's vision of the Iraq war ended with taking out Saddam by an airstrike, he was just a zoomie at heart with no real conception of the realities of ground war or what would happen if he didn't get Saddam in the first 30 minutes, who all-too-easily fell in love with any way to spend more money on aircraft or missile systems but not people.  Basically his so-called vision for Iraq was to re-fight DS/DW with the so-called "Powell Doctrine," itself basically "How to cover your ass politically" writ large or more simply "Break shit then split."  It turned into a cluster****, mostly because Rumsfeld really was the arrogant bull in a china shop with tunnel vision that everyone thought he was, it was just fun to have him around to screw with the Leftists when our people weren't actually getting killed by his egotistical attitude and failure to adapt. 

[formerlurker]

Rumsfeld's vision of the Iraq war ended with taking out Saddam by an airstrike, he was just a zoomie at heart with no real conception of the realities of ground war or what would happen if he didn't get Saddam in the first 30 minutes, who all-too-easily fell in love with any way to spend more money on aircraft or missile systems but not people.  Basically his so-called vision for Iraq was to re-fight DS/DW with the so-called "Powell Doctrine," itself basically "How to cover your ass politically" writ large or more simply "Break shit then split."  It turned into a cluster****, mostly because Rumsfeld really was the arrogant bull in a china shop with tunnel vision that everyone thought he was, it was just fun to have him around to screw with the Leftists when our people weren't actually getting killed by his egotistical attitude and failure to adapt. 

You know my husband hated the guy too, and I found myself always defending him as I appreciated the overhaul he did of the pentagon.   However,  I will defer further discussion on Rumsfeld to those who served, and preferably those who served under him.     I really can't argue too much with that level of informed opinion.   

[Zeus]

Yeah...  but I'd rather those predictions be wrong.  He was right where it counted.

They also predicted the same exact thing with Desert Storm.  Preparing for casualties that may never come is always better then estimated fewer then what actually happens.  Just like showing up with more force then you need is always better then showing up with less then you needed.  Which is exactly what happened.  Yeah, we had just what we needed to stomp the piss out of Iraq's standing army, but lets be serious.  We where not prepared to handle what happened afterwards.  Had we rolled in with 300,000 guys, then maybe the last 4 years woulda been a lot differant.

Being 10's of thousands off on a body count,even if under,is a tremendous miscalculation because all actions are planned around that "estimate".  Along with that miscalculation those same folks calling for the bigger numbers to begin with are some of the same folks talking about the military being over stretched because of forces in Iraq and there are currently fewer forces in Iraq than these folks intially called for.

Not saying there weren't mistakes made in Iraq. Just stating that fewer were made than if the Admin had listened to the folks that supposedly "Got it right".

[DumbAss Tanker]

Really neither one of them got it right, the generals were just as in love with that Powell Doctrine bullshit as Rumsfeld was, as far as the main battle went.  They had an equally dim idea about the possiblitiy that an insurgency that would emerge.  The two differences are that (1) they happened to also understand there was a need for military government and large supporting constabulary forces (a normal part of the Civil Affairs mission) once the enemy main force was defeated, necessary to maintain order and suppress banditry and warlords as a basic principle with no clairvoyance required at all, and (2) their large overestimate of Iraqi main force resistance capability (driven by the avoidance of any possible adverse press, also part of the Powell Doctrine, which caused them to 'worst case' literally everything in their estimates) would have had no negative consequences on the outcome, vice Rumsfeld's failure to look beyond breaking the Iraqi government to what the result of that would be - think of it this way, the consequences of showing up to a gunfight with 'way too much ammo are a whole lot less severe than the consequences of showing up with 'way too little.

[Chris_]

Shinseki did NOT "lose" his job, nor was he fired. He served a four year term, just like all Army Chief's of Staff serve.
The Rangers, and those who love and support them, hate his ass.

[Jim]

Rumsfeld's vision of the Iraq war ended with taking out Saddam by an airstrike, he was just a zoomie at heart with no real conception of the realities of ground war or what would happen if he didn't get Saddam in the first 30 minutes, who all-too-easily fell in love with any way to spend more money on aircraft or missile systems but not people.  Basically his so-called vision for Iraq was to re-fight DS/DW with the so-called "Powell Doctrine," itself basically "How to cover your ass politically" writ large or more simply "Break shit then split."  It turned into a cluster****, mostly because Rumsfeld really was the arrogant bull in a china shop with tunnel vision that everyone thought he was, it was just fun to have him around to screw with the Leftists when our people weren't actually getting killed by his egotistical attitude and failure to adapt. 

you sound like a Stormin Norman fan.

[DumbAss Tanker]

you sound like a Stormin Norman fan.

Kind of mixed opinion about him really, he at least did have a commendable preference for decisive action once the die was cast, I've got to give that to him.  He did have quite the rep for being a total dick to the people who worked for him (don't know if it was deserved or not, however).  Ironically he was put in CENTCOM as a retirement tour because the Pentagoners didn't like him and they figured it was a safe place to stick him until the clock ran out. 

I also have no sympathy for Ranger whining on the stupid hats, they really ought to have more important things to sweat, especially since they were not the fonly people to ever wear the damned thing in the US to begin with, and the US was about the only country in the world at that particular time where a black beret meant anything besides either "Armor/Cav" or "Everybody."  And they are a uniquely stupid and useless piece of gear.  However the Ranger whining about it reached the point where I was wondering if they were invading Communist bitches instead of Soldiers, since Soldiers generally wear what they are ordered to and then STFU, which seemed to be beyond their capabilities.

[Eupher]

All the same, I'm glad as hell I retired before I had to wear that freakin' stupid hat.

Somebody once told me that the beret likened itself to a dead cat that one wore on his head.

If that's the case, I'm wondering if the damn thing ever went into heat.