By So what does everyone think about former US Army Chief of Staff General
President-elect Barack Obama formally announced Sunday that retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, a decorated veteran and popular figure among critics of the Bush administration, is his pick to be secretary of Veterans Affairs.
“There is no one more distinguished, more determined, or more qualified to build this VA than the leader I am announcing as our next secretary of Veterans Affairs — Gen. Eric Shinseki,” Obama said at a press conference.
“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 added.
Obama said the nation must focus on helping troops who have served their country especially during bad economic times.
“We don’t just need to better serve veterans of today’s wars. We also need to build a 21st century VA that will better serve all who have answered our nation’s call,” Obama said. [CNN]
I have nothing against General Shinseki, I just don’t like the politics that surrounds him, which none of it is his fault. Here is a perfect example of what I am talking about:
In an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama called Shinseki “exactly the right person” for the post.
Host Tom Brokaw said Shinseki lost his job in the Bush administration “because he said that we would need more troops in Iraq than the secretary of defense, Don Rumsfeld, thought that we would need at that time.”
Shinseki did not lose his job because of his disagreement with Rumsfeld. He retired on his prior approved retirement date in June 2003 when his four year tour as Chief of Staff of the Army ended. Brokaw’s claim which is often repeated by the media and the American left is untrue. Shinseki did clash with Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, but so did many other officers there as well. It is widely known how much the Pentagon brass did not get along Rumsfeld. I mentioned before here on the ROK Drop how Rumsfeld treated prior USFK Commanding General Leon LaPorte:
Among the many lessons I learned during that tour of duty, perhaps the most valuable was this: If you want to become a general officer, you’d better be a shrewd politician. General LaPorte exercised extreme caution in everything he did; rarely did he go off script. Preparation and rehearsal were hallmarks of General LaPorte, as they are of any four star general. Sitting in on one of my first video conferences to the Pentagon with General LaPorte, I watched Secretary Rumsfeld stop him cold in the opening minutes of a presentation. Three slides into the briefing, Rumsfeld abruptly halted the briefing and said, “You’re showing me nothing new. I was the secretary of defense in 1975, and this is the same old stuff. If you guys can’t come up with something more creative than that, I will find somebody who can.”
So clearly Rumsfeld clashing with Shinseki was nothing new for much of the brass at the Pentagon. Plus Rumsfeld’s clashing with Shinseki began well before the start of the Iraq War when the two disagreed over continuing the funding of the Crusader system which Rumsfeld wisely cut and Shinseki advocated for.
The only thing that made Shinseki’s disagreements with Rumsfeld different with his other clashes with the Pentagon brass was Shinseki’s comments to the US Congress that he is widely remembered for:
SEN. LEVIN: General Shinseki, could you give us some idea as to the magnitude of the Army’s force requirement for an occupation of Iraq following a successful completion of the war?
GEN. SHINSEKI: In specific numbers, I would have to rely on combatant commanders’ exact requirements. But I think –
SEN. LEVIN: How about a range?
GEN. SHINSEKI: I would say that what’s been mobilized to this point — something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers are probably, you know, a figure that would be required. We’re talking about posthostilities control over a piece of geography that’s fairly significant, with the kinds of ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems. And so it takes a significant ground-force presence.
Notice how no one remembers that General Shinseki first said he “would have to rely on combatant commanders exact requirements” and never gave an exact number of what he thought should be mobilized. So what did Shinseki actually mean? We don’t know because he has never made any public comments to clarify himself and instead the media and political partisans over the years have spoke for him.
Something else about his comments which no one addresses is that if you believe the US military should have doubled the amount of forces in Iraq after the initial combat operations, who would be the force that would replace the soldiers there when their tours were up? The military has been strained maintaining a force in Iraq that has consistently remained under 200,000. How would the military maintain a force of over 200,000 in Iraq?
Plus at least from my experience in Iraq the soldiers that were there were not initially effectively used anyway. As I have often said about any possible troop increases in Afghanistan, first you need a strategy and obviously the initial occupation strategy in Iraq was flawed and more troops with no strategy would not have solved the problem. Ironically when a strategy was finally established more troops were allocated for the surge, however it didn’t take several hundred thousand soldiers to pacify Iraq.
Interestingly the controversy surrounding Shinseki’s comments is not what he is most remembered for in the military. To this day I still hear soldiers curse Shinseki over his decision to make everyone wear the black berets. Here is a useless fact for everyone, I was actually in the first unit to don the beret when the 1st Brigade 2ID changed over to the beret in June 2001. There was even a ceremony at Camp Casey in honor of the change over. You should have heard the Sergeant Major griping over not only the fact we were switching to berets, but the fact they had to organize a brigade size ceremony in honor of wearing them.
Anyway I am betting politics probably was a large factor in why Obama picked Shinseki for the job because Shinseki has had no involvement with Veteran’s Affairs since his retirement where like many Generals he has largely been involved with defense contractors. So there is nothing that makes him stand out from other retired Generals for the position other then his name recognition.
However, Shinseki should do a fine job with the position. Years ago when he was still Chief of Staff of the Army I attended a dining out in Washington, DC where I had the chance to speak with the General and listen to a speech he gave. Speaking with him I did get the impression that Shinseki does care alot about soldiers, so hopefully he brings that same attitude to the VA. However he is a not a very charismatic speaker which may hinder his attempts to get things done with the VA considering all the larger then life personalities in the White House he is going to have to contend with. Anyway it will be interesting to see what happens, but I do think it would be hillarious if he issued all retirees VA berets. 
3:54 pm on December 7th, 2008 1
You're missing the point. Gen Shinseki is the "token oriental" in the cabinet. Welcome to the Rainbow coalition. The only other was his Harvard buddy, Chris Lu who is on his staff.
Hey, you guys keep forgetting Shinseki's greatest achievement. All you Army dudes have those nifty black berets… Incidentally, I have no problems with Shinseki's qualifications for the post — and he has demonstrated repeatedly that he cares about the soldiers. I may not have agreed on some of his moves in the past, but I never doubted his love for the military personnel under him. He will do well.
3:59 pm on December 7th, 2008 2
Koreans won't like him because he's Japanese-American.
5:51 pm on December 7th, 2008 3
Everyone still bitches about those silly black berets Shinseki forced us to wear. What a joke – as if wearing a beret would make better Soldiers or something. All it did, as you pointed out, was waste a bunch of time and resources arranging 'put the beret on' cermonies and made everyone buy some new items, which as it turned out supported the Chinese who were largely manufacturing them! That was around the time we were pissed at the Chinese for forcing down our electronic recon aircraft, remember? Following that discovery and its airing in the media, there was the beret shortage as contractors scrambled around to find non-Chinese overseas sweatshops to make 'em. If this is how Shinseki's mind works, I'm willing to bet that his concern for the veterans will largely be reflected in some sort of campaign to have all VA staffers wear "We Care" buttons, or something similar. I'm waiting to see who the next Army Chief of Staff is who'll have the balls to switch everyone back to reasonable headgear.
12:05 am on December 8th, 2008 4
Eric Shinseki is a frequent visitor to military hospitals, where he talks to soldiers about living with the results of their wounds. You don't hear about it, because he does it unannounced, as a soldier speaking from personal experience. He is perfect for this job.
3:39 am on December 8th, 2008 5
I do not think Gen. Shinseki deserves to be grouped in with the likes of Leon LaPorte, even on a blog. LaPorte's ill-conceived policies which directly led to egregious actions against US citizens and third country nationals (such as Aussie and Irishmen) not to mention the trampling of Korea's sovereignty and US citizens constitutional rights are not comparable to Shinseki’s introduction of the beret.
Leon is a prime example of what one should NEVER do as USFK commander. We should not forget him, I won't.
5:47 am on December 8th, 2008 6
"Notice how no one remembers that General Shinseki first said he “would have to rely on combatant commanders exact requirements” and never gave an exact number of what he thought should be mobilized. So what did Shinseki actually mean? We don’t know because he has never made any public comments to clarify himself and instead the media and political partisans over the years have spoke for him."
No. Everybody, except you, knew what Shinseki was saying. The initial part of the statement that you cite was Shinseki's attempt to hedge and deflect the question. If anything, it was Sen. Levin who was extracting from Shinseki a definitive statement about post-conflict needs. He eventually gave it and the Klingons at the Pentagon skewered him for it. The sad part of the whole story is that he let them have their way.
And it is this fact that I'm a apprehensive about Shinseki at VA. Of all the prognostications about post-war Iraq his was dead on. He had all the face cards in his hands and he decided to fold and not be assertive when it could have done a lot of good. Given all the issue that the VA is going to face with returning veterans, the VA needs a leader who is going to be more assertive and far less meek.
7:55 am on December 8th, 2008 7
Sinseki was the NATO SFOR commander in Balkans back in the late 90's when I was deployed there. GEN Shinseki was most qualified individual to know how much soldiers were needed to do successful occupation duty. His comment on Several hundreds of thousands made perfect sense from his previous occupation force commander experience.
I was stationed in Kuwait back in March 2003 prior to invasion. When I found out about the operation planning for the 4 US Divisions (3 Army and 1 MEF) and one UK Division, I thought about when will we have rest of troops for occupation duty? It did not make any sense to me to have such a few number of troops to occupy entire Iraq with 22 Million population.
As for not having enough troops for replacement? I still see so many soldiers (CPT and above, SSG and Above) w/o combat patch in the Pentagon. Even some of the Army reservists got deployed 2-3 times already. How could there still are mid career soldier who still have not been deployed yet?
11:04 am on December 8th, 2008 8
Yes, Gen. Shinseki's testimony on troop levels was mostly symbolic. He did little more than what was expected of him. He did his job. But by doing his job, he posted a standard to which we could measure the performance of his fellow generals.
I remember before the war, in the Army particularly, there was a big promotion to get the troops to instill the mantra of Core Values. They included Duty, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage . I kept waiting to see leadership by example from the top, but it was hard to find.
Is that why we promote people to four-stars? To become political flacks and tell their bosses what they want to hear? What ever happened to that cliche about speaking truth to power?
Shinseki's conflicts with Rumsfeld became public early on, but we learn anecdotally from several of the books written since that he was not alone. There were many more who held their disagreements privately.
Many of the four-stars involved in the run up to Iraq were Vietnam vets. From some books and comments we hear about their take away lessons from that war; they were committed not to allow the same mistakes to be committed on their watch. Was I the only one who recognized a lot of McNamara in Rumsfeld and the McNamaraization of the Pentagon at the start of this? Where or when did the generals come forward and stand on principle? Would it have made a difference?
So, if congress had heeded Shinseki or more generals supported his testimony, would it have made a difference? I think it would. We would have had to have gone about it differently, if we still felt it was something we really had to do. After accepting it was not doable with the resources we had, we would probably have done a better job of getting help. If we had been more diplomatic in making our case and less we-are-the-world-leader-follow-us-or-else belligerent approach, we may have had a more substantial alliance.
If Shinseki had been listened to, it would have been much more apparent to mandate in the post war plan the need to keep as much of the Iraqi army and Baathist party as we could and not disband them as we did.
But too many of our generals, in and out of uniform, couldn't see that or were afraid to speak out. They failed us and their country. They didn't do their jobs. Lt. Col. Paul Yingling spelled it out in his article "General Failure."
We no longer expect them to show physical courage on a battlefield, but we do expect them to have moral courage.
Out of uniform, we had men like Gen. Zinni on one side, but we had a raft of generals who we since learned were acting as shills for Rumsfeld's group, by being fed loaded briefing at the Pentagon and then going on television and acting as independent, objective analysts.
In uniform, we had too few men like General Shinseki who did what we expect from our generals. Against that, it seems we had too many like general [small "g"] Sanchez, who while inferring that political decision were being made that endangered the lives of troops, felt he was in no position to say anything about it. Well, general Sanchez, there was something you could have done. When ordered to participate in something against your moral convictions, you could have asked to resign.
12:11 pm on December 8th, 2008 9
I think Shinseki will do well as head of the VA. He has the credentials for organization and leadership. On the other hand, if he wasn't a symbal of the anti Bush people, would he have been chosen?
12:31 pm on December 8th, 2008 10
JoeC, I recommend you read the book, War & Decision which spells out why the DOD used the troop levels they did for the war. I will eventually get around to writing a book review on the book because it is the best one yet I have read on OIF.
Also Petraeus proved strategy more then troop levels was what was needed to pacify Iraq. If Shinseki said we need more troops and specified a strategy then I would give him more credit. He simply said more troops were needed only after qualifying his statement by saying the commanders on the ground would know best.
More troops with no strategy would have done little to solve the problems that occurred after the invasion.
12:48 pm on December 8th, 2008 11
CPT Kim, it's simple. If your branch won't send you, then you don't go no matter how many times you volunteer.
1:24 pm on December 8th, 2008 12
GI Korea,
I might read that book, but I hope it is not written only from the perspective of hindsight. I am talking more from the perspective of what was known at the time.
The basic dispute between Shinseki and Rumsfeld surrounded assumptions on how the war would proceed. Shinseki was relying on conventional assumptions of that type of war and the likely following conditions that were probably outlined in existing war plans. Rumsfeld insisted on throwing out existing ideas and planning because he was presold on the neocon assumption that the war would be won quickly with a limited force, we would be greeted as liberators, and Iraq would become the Shangri-la of the Middle East.
We know Rumsfeld's crew bullied the generals into thinking and planning this way. Anyone who didn't fall in line with this publicly to the media or congress, or fall inline operationally with the planning proposals Rumsfeld would accept was black listed.
So, if there was an honest debate in the prewar planning about worst cases and contingencies, and some visionary officer had proposed a Petraeus type strategy on the management of post war Iraq, he would have probably been quickly slapped down and sent away.
There were plans and planners though. Consider how things might have turned out differently and how many lives might nave been saved if we followed retired Lieutenant General Jay Garner's plan as the head of the group that preceded the Coalition Provisional Authority. He had made arrangements and agreements to key most of the Iraqi army employed and working for us. And, also keeping many of the people who understood how to keep the machinery of the country running, the Baathists, employed. Then Bremer came in and threw it all away.
But, that is hindsight; looking back at what could have been. Unfortunately, that did not and possibly could not happen because of the political leadership we had at the time, especially at the Defense Departments. And, because there were just too few people able or willing to speak out against it.
2:22 pm on December 8th, 2008 13
Hamilton,
My point was that there are still many soldiers who have not deployed to Middle East yet. There were no shortage to replace the ones in Iraq as GI mentioned.
I attended the US Army SDDC conference last year. All Reserve unit officers and NCOs were wearing combat patch, but their active duty counterparts were not wearing any. I thought the logic was to send the first string full-timers to the war and not the second string part-timers. It looks like logic was not utilized in this case.
How does one "escape" to the unit where you never get to deployed? I wish Army has preferencial treatment to combat veterans compared to their non-combat veteran counterparts when it comes to promotion and schools.
3:51 pm on December 8th, 2008 14
CPT Kim,
If you are a low density specialty then you don't get sent. I may have another chance after my current tour ends or if I get fired which has some potential.
Branch Chief: "Officer X, we don't have a branch qualifying job for you but do you know the broom closet next to the ZCOM watch officer desk?"
Me: "So…I'd be the janitor?"
BC: "No that position is filled, you'd be kinda working with that loser getting him coffee..er documents when he needs them(aka assistant crack bitch)and if he doesn't want the ZCOM watch job in a year you will get it. How does that sound?"
"Can I go to Iraq or Afghanistan instead?"
"No, but I can irreparably damage your career if you keep asking, do you know how much money we spent training you?."
—
3:56 pm on December 8th, 2008 15
JoeC you need to read the book because you are repeating some media fallacies. Did you know Rumsfeld was the only one who listed all the things that could go wrong with making the decision to go to war to the President in a memo that became known as the Parade of Horribles. Rumsfeld even listed finding no WMD's in Iraq as a possibility. You can read the memo for yourself in the book along with a host of other memos.
That is why I like this book because it is not based off of rumors or unidentified sources but instead facts to include memos scanned into the book's bibliography. There are even powerpoint slides scanned in the book used during Pentagon briefings.
After reading this book you will have a very clear idea what the DOD leadership was thinking and why certain decisions were made.
6:16 am on April 25th, 2009 16
Rumsfeld's 'snowflakes' i.e. memoes were well-known, in Woodward's books (and an understandable management technique). But…his treatment of Shinseki and other officers to quote, "do you get this?" "do you?"…seemed a bit disresputful of the US Army.