Barack Obama’s Blog

CHICAGO — President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen.Eric K. Shinseki to be secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department, elevating 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.

In his choice of General Shinseki, which Mr. Obama will announce here on Sunday, the president-elect would bring to his cabinet someone who symbolizes the break Mr. Obama seeks with the Bush era on national security. The selection was confirmed by two Democratic officials.

General Shinseki, testifying before Congress in February 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 so it takes 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 D. 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 to a “surge” strategy of more troops in January 2007, 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 in an interview to be broadcast Sunday on “Meet the Press” on NBC, Mr. Obama said, “He was right.” At the same time, General Shinseki drew criticism in the postwar years for not pressing 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, he 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 Veterans Affairs, 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.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 7, 2008, on page A39 of the New York edition.