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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid praised retired Army Lt. Gen. James Peake, President Bush's choice to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, but he said Monday that the Senate should proceed with caution on the nomination.

"As we've learned with some of these nominations, you never know what's going to come up in the hearings," Reid said in an apparent reference to the hearings for Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey. That nomination is expected to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee this morning, despite concerns by some Democrats that he has not said whether he considers waterboarding to be torture.

If the committee clears Mukasey, Reid said the full Senate would probably consider the nomination next week. Reid has not said how he will vote. He spoke highly of Mukasey before the waterboarding issue surfaced at confirmation hearings.

Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had separate meetings Monday with Peake. Both said they hoped hearings on his nomination would begin quickly. A spokesman for Senate Veterans Affairs Chairman Daniel Akaka said the hearings would probably be held in late November or early December.

If confirmed, Peake would succeed Jim Nicholson, who resigned Oct. 1 after announcing his intention to leave in July.

Peake would take over the VA at a time when the agency is struggling to treat large numbers of wounded soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This morning, Akaka's committee will hold a hearing on conditions at the VA Medical Center in Marion, Ill. Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, both of Illinois, have expressed concerns about a reported spike in the death rate at that facility.

COMMENTS

• I don't think waterboarding has anything to do with running the VA, as long as it's not a VA procedure. I think the colonel got the Attorney General nominee Mukasey confused with the VA Secretary nominee Peake, both in varoius stages of the Senate Confirmation process this month. What I think America's 24 million veterans need is a capable and competent leader, and not some Republican lapdog. The secretary needs to be able to stand up to civilian leadership and provide agency services that veterans need, and fight for the funding and resources necessary for the VA Department to accomplish it. Nancy Gertner Posted November 16, 2007 12:35 PM
• Veterans for Common Sense strongly opposes President George W. Bush's nomination of retired Army Surgeon General James Peake to become Secretary of Veterans Affairs. We have two reasons for our opposition. First, while Dr. Peake was the Army’s top physician from 2000 to 2004, he failed to plan for long-term outpatient medical care and benefits. There are now 70,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war military battlefield casualties. Furthermore, his failure created additional hardships for those with mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) or anxiety/depression, because they were not promptly screened after their return home, as required by law. The Army still lacks key medical professionals and disability benefits personnel to properly and promptly assist all our wounded, injured, and ill from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In Congressional testimony in January 2004, Dr. Peake painted a rosy picture of the catastrophe that hit veterans at Walter Reed, Fort Stewart, and Fort Knox. On-the-scene reporting by journalists and veterans' advocates provied our veterans were living in squalor for months without adequate care. Second, Dr. Peake lacks experience at VA. Although he may be the new head of a for-profit corporation with a VA contract, Dr. Peake has never worked at VA and is unfamiliar with the healthcare and disability benefits bureaucracy. In VA's time of enormous crisis - treating an unexpected flood of 250,000 new patients and 200,000 new disability claims from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans without any plan - Dr. Peake's lack of detailed familiarity will be an enormous handicap in the remaining 14 months of President Bush's term. Therefore, VCS urges Senators to reject Dr. Peake's nomination as VA Secretary on the grounds of incompetence while in the Army and inexperience with VA. As one of the top military officials personally responsible for creating the conditions leading to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal and fiasco, Dr. Peake must not be rewarded with the position of caring for our Nation's 24 million living veterans and their families. His disappointing performance during the early years of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, when so many problems could have been addressed more aggressively, harmed service members and veterans, and tarnished the reputation of the military, Walter Reed, and VA. Paul Sullivan Posted November 7, 2007 7:22 AM
• What has waterboarding got to do with running the VA? We need a capable proven leader, not some democratic lapdog. LtCol James Moorhouse ( US Army-Ret) Posted November 7, 2007 3:13 AM