General Opposed to the War in Iraq Made Secretary of Veteran Affairs

When the Left Democratic party criticized him for making a “falcon team” of his cabinet, President-elect Barack Obama announced, on Sunday December 7, that he had selected one of the generals opposed to the Bush administration on Iraq. General Eric Shinseki was named secretary of Veteran Affairs, an important position for 25 million people.

At a press conference on the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mr. Obama explained that the United States has a “sacred debt” to veterans, especially at a time when the job market is difficult. General Shinseki, 66 years old, acquired notoriety in the anti-war movement for having been discharged from the army after disagreeing with Donald Rumsfeld. In February 2003, a month before the Iraq invasion, he stated that it would take “several hundred thousand soldiers” to stabilize the country. Mr. Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, laughed at him. Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who asked him the question at the time, said on Sunday that through this nomination, Barack Obama showed he “welcomed expressions of disagreement.”

In the show “Meet the Press” on NBC, Mr. Obama gave several details about the enormous public works programs he intends to implement to restart the economy and the job market. He hopes to finance construction to decrease energy usage in buildings, to repair highways, to renovate schools, and to increase the number of computers in schools and to make the Internet accessible in rural areas.

The plan should be “the most important since the development of the federal highway network under (President) Eisenhower in the 1950s,” he said. “It is on par with the task that awaits us,” he added, anticipating that the situation would continue to “deteriorate.”