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I received a number of e-mails in response to my piece on about Gen. Eric Shinseki that ran Monday on NRO. Since the article focused on how the announcement of his nomination to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs had become the occasion for the media to trot out old falsehoods about the Bush administration and the Iraq War, the result was that I left out some important things about Shinseki. First of all, I believe that General Shinseki is a good and honorable man. I think that his nomination to head the Department of Veterans Affairs is a good thing....

December 08, 2008, 0:00 a.m. The General ChoiceShinseki returns. By Mackubin Thomas Owens The report that President-Elect Barack Obama will name retired Army general and former Army chief of staff Eric Shinseki as secretary of veterans affairs has led to the recycling of a popular falsehood — that, in the words of the New York Times, General Shinseki had been “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.” In fact, Shinseki’s February 2003 statement before Congress suggesting that “several hundred...

Democratic officials say President-elect Barack Obama has selected retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary. The officials said Obama will announce his selection Sunday. They spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the official announcement. Shinseki is the former Army chief of staff who upset his civilian bosses in 2003 when he testified to Congress that it might take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to control Iraq after the U.S. invasion. He was forced out of his job within months for being "wildly off the mark." But his words proved prophetic after President George...

A report commissioned in mid-1999 by Rep. Curt Weldon (R) looks into possible Chinese front companies in the US seeking technology for the Chinese military. Dr. Eileen Preisser and Michael Maloof are commissioned to make the report. Dr. Preisser, who runs the Information Dominance Center at the US Army's Land Information Warfare Activity (LIWA) and will later become closely tied to Able Danger, uses LIWA's data mining capabilities to search unclassified information. According to Maloof, their results show Chinese front companies in the US posing as US corporations that acquire technology from US defense contractors. When the study is completed...

WASHINGTON — Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department official who leaked the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War, is urging government insiders to provide similar classified documents about the invasion of Iraq. Joined by other whistle-blowers and former government employees, Ellsberg said at a Sept. 9 news conference that claims of government deception and lies have “little credibility” unless supported by documentary evidence, which often is available only in classified materials. The document that came to be called the Pentagon Papers was a 7,000-page study of U.S. decision-making in Vietnam that was classified “top secret.” Ellsberg leaked the study to...

The Bush administration wants Air Force Secretary James Roche to be the next Army secretary, InsideDefense.com has learned. Two industry sources tracking the issue said Roche is the favorite to fill the shoes of outgoing Army Secretary Thomas White, who recently resigned at the request of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Whether Roche will accept the position remains to be seen. Roche is viewed as a trusted aide who could “fix” problems in the Army, said one of the sources, noting Rumsfeld's well-publicized disagreements with White and outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki. White's effective date of resignation is...