Right then, right now

The New York Times has an article by Jackie Calmes about the selection of the new chief of the VA:

Pesident-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired General Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff who was vilified by the Bush administration on the eve of the Iraq war for his warning that far more troops would be needed than the Pentagon had committed, to be secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department. In his choice of General Shinseki, the president-elect would bring to his cabinet someone who symbolizes the break Mr. Obama seeks with the Bush era on national security.
General Shinseki, testifying before Congress in February of 2003, a month before the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, said “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to stabilize Iraq after an invasion. In words that came to be vindicated by events, the general anticipated “ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems", adding, “and it will take a significant ground force presence to maintain a safe and secure environment". The testimony angered Donald H. Rumsfeld, the defense secretary at the time, whose war plans called for far fewer troops. Mr. Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, publicly rebuked General Shinseki’s comments as “wildly off the mark", in part because Iraqis would welcome the Americans as liberators.
With the subsequent years in which Americans battled ethnic insurgents, and after President Bush agreed in January of 2007 to a “surge” strategy of more troops, General Shinseki was effectively vindicated, and military officials, as well as activists and politicians, publicly saluted him. By then, however, General Shinseki had been marginalized on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and quietly retired from the Army.
When asked about General Shinseki’s early troop estimates, Mr. Obama said, “He was right.”
At the same time, General Shinseki drew criticism for not having pressed more aggressively for more troops before the war. In an interview in Newsweek in early 2007, he said of the critiques, with characteristic brevity: “Probably that’s fair. Not my style.” In the past, he would say to his associates, “I do not want to criticize while my soldiers are still bleeding and dying in Iraq.” When other retired officers publicly called on Mr. Rumsfeld to resign, General Shinseki did not.
The controversy made General Shinseki popular with soldiers in Iraq and veterans of the conflict who resented what they saw as inadequate troop strength. In taking over the Veterans Affairs Department, he would inherit an agency struggling with increasing numbers of veterans with physical and mental wounds from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the many aging veterans of past conflicts.
General Shinseki, 66, who was the highest-ranking Asian-American in the military, also commanded the NATO peacekeeping force in Bosnia. Like Mr. Obama, the general is a native of Hawaii. He is a veteran of the Vietnam War, where he suffered serious wounds and lost much of a foot.

Rico says he sounds like the right guy for the job, and another poke in the eye for the Bush administraton...