Obama picks Shinseki for Veteran's Affairs

Obama announced that he would be appointing retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki as Secretary of the Office of Veteran's Affairs. The following lines from the article on msnbc.com stood out to me.

"Shinseki’s tenure as Army chief of staff from 1999 to 2003 was marked by constant tensions with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which boiled over in 2003 when Shinseki testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the invasion.

"Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, belittled the estimate as “wildly off the mark,” and the army general was forced out within months. But Shinseki’s words proved prophetic after President George W. Bush in early 2007 announced a “surge” of additional troops to Iraq after miscalculating the numbers needed to stem sectarian violence."

:-)

Rumsfeld

OK, why did they wait till today for Rumsfeld to step down? It might have helped them win some elections, keep control of the Senate. Was there some sort of gamble? If so many seats are lost...

Frankly I don't think Rumsfeld is the main problem. Go higher up the food chain. I blame Cheney the most and Bush second. I'm sure Rumsfeld make some crucial errors but I don't know that troop numbers is the main one. We just had no idea how to win the hearts and minds, no idea how to nation build. We build buildings real well, but to understand how a different culture thinks...

Who cares about Rumsfelds resignation! It's almost a shrug. What's done is done, and I don't see anyone in this administration being able to extricate us with a good situation on the ground. This is like changing make-up. Sorry. There's just too much ungly underneath for it to do any
good.