Obama to Name Eric Shinseki to Head Veterans Affairs

By Julianna Goldman

Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- President-elect Barack Obama will name former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki to head the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“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 during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” parts of which aired tonight ahead of tomorrow’s broadcast.

Shortly before the 2003 U.S. invasion to oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Shinseki told Congress it would take several hundred thousand troops to stabilize postwar Iraq, more than then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had estimated.