i want to say something about general shinseki. i first met him when i went on an intelligence visit to sarajevo, and he was leading the fight in the balkans. i saw him, this strong leader, cared so much about his troops. effective leadership. we were in awe of him as a commander, and we are in awe of him as secretary of veterans affairs. because he knows how to lead, and he cares about our veterans, as secretary jesse pointed out so clearly. so i want to acknowledge his leadership. and that of president obama's as well and mrs. obama and dr. joe biden as well for caring for our military families. -- and dr. jill biden as well. [applause] when we visited general shinseki on the battlefield, i was reminded of the say in the military, on the battlefield, we need no soldiers in kind. and we say in congress, and when they come home, we leave no veterans behind. no veterans behind. [applause] for us in congress, every day is veterans day. because every day we understand the moral obligation we have to our veterans for making as the home

i am here on behalf of my boss, secretary shinseki. i want to make a comment about his commitment to this. when he was sworn in two years ago, he said one of his primary goals as secretary was to end homelessness by 2015. that is an incredible statement. he said we would end homelessness. that is going to happen not because he said it or because i am here. that is going to happen because of the passion of the local people dealing with this all across the country. it is the people's passion that will make this happen. this is a difficult situation. it will be easy to turn a blind eye to it. it would be easy to ignore it. it would be easy to blame them. we could put a token effort or mandate on it to say we did something. or we can take this on as a national commitment. it is our call. it is your call. i think the fact that you are here today, the work you do every day, says a lot about who we are as americans and how we will continue to support those who have answered our nation's call. we do not owe this to the veterans. as you heard,

>> remember when general shinseki was asked, how many troops do you need in order to secure iraq, that is, after the battle. he said about 250,000 troops. that's what you need in afghanistan. >> so your choice is go big at 250,000, or the other option, which is get out faster, of afghanistan. >> well, that is sort of what we're doing. they've put an end date, the end of 2014, and if you listen to nato, and nato says this is the time to talk about reconciliation and political deals, the taliban doesn't seem to be in the mood for a political deal. there was a reconciliation committee, the taliban killed the head of it. >> that's interesting diplomacy. you would explain to me that an actual withdrawal, an aggressive withdrawal, jack, could be executed in a matter of 9 to 12 months, let's say. >> if you came to me, i was the commanding general and you're a politician and you said, listen, forget about the politics involved here. i know i'm going to catch all of this the -- >> just process. >> i want to get out. how fast can you do it without engaging the troops who were there while you're

secretary shinseki has set a goal of processing all claims within 28 days with 98% accuracy, we have to get a handle on the -- on the back log and claims that are languishing unnecessarily. i think this is misguided, it will stand in the way of the secretary's goal. i don't think we can test our way out of the back log. anyone can pass a test, the question is can they adequately process claims. that's what they need, not an additional burden rutting in work stop ams which is what this will do. we have a certification testing program used for the advancement of v.b.a. employees which we strengthened the ability to pass in 2008 with great bipartisan support. i think that this bill has redundant testing, a waste of $5 million and will only go to the fattening of the contractors' pockets who develop the test. money that i think can be more efficiently used to help our veterans. i should remind the body that this mandatory testing provision never passed out of the subcommittee that was responsible for the bill. it failed. it was withdrawn. but it showed up in the full committee markup and