General Eric K. Shinseki to be next Veterans Affairs Secretary

 FROM THE AP

WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy.

Obama will announce the selection of Shinseki, the first Army four-star general of Japanese-American ancestry, at a news conference Sunday in Chicago. He will be the first Asian-American to hold the post of Veterans Affairs secretary, adding to the growing diversity of Obama’s Cabinet.

“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,” Obama said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” to be broadcast Sunday.

NBC released a transcript of the interview after The ociated Press reported that Shinseki was Obama’s pick.

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.

NAME - Eric K. Shinseki.

AGE-BIRTH DATE-BIRTH PLACE - 66; Nov. 28, 1942; born in Lihue on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

EDUCATION - Bachelor of Science, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, 1965; Master of Arts, Duke University, 1976; National War College, 1986.

CAREER - Chief of staff, Army, June 1999-June 2003; vice chief of staff, Army, November 1998-June 1999; commanding general U.S. Army Europe and commander Allied Land Forces Central Europe, Germany, July 1997-November 1998; commanding general, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas, March 1994-July 1995; istant division commander, 3rd Infantry Division, Germany, July 1992-July 1993; deputy chief of staff for support, Allied Land Forces Southern Europe, Verona, Italy, June 1990-June 1992; commander, 3rd squadron, 7th cavalry, 3rd Infantry Division, Germany; regimental adjutant and later executive officer, 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Bliss, Texas, May 1980-June 1981; commissioned as second lieutenant, June 1965.

QUOTE - “Beware a 12-division strategy for a 10-division army” - Shinseki criticizing Bush administration Iraq war strategy in 2003.