secretary general eric shinseki. joining me now, general shinseki of the head of the v.a.rst sunday interview. we appreciate you giving it to us and on an incredible issue. >> thank you for having me. >> i want to talk about the backlog. knowing that in october of 2009, you have been in the v.a. for less than a year, 164 in the backlog. it is now 630,000. what is wrong? >> candy, first of all, no one should have to wait for their claims to be processed. let me make sure we understand what we are talking about here. for iraq and afghanistan veterans they have been granted five years medical care to which they have access at v.a. they present and will be enrolled. >> how long does that take? >> they present and they have the proper identification and they are immediately enrolled. so for compensation, which is the disability claims, which is the backlog, that, indeed, is ten years of war, requirements have gone up. more complex claims because of the seriousness. >> multiple claims by one person have gone up. >> that's correct. complexity issue and our paper process has been

secretary general eric shinseki. joining me now general shinseki, the head of the v.a.our first sunday interview. we appreciate you giving it to us on such an incredible issue frankly. >> thank you for having me, candy. >> i want to start talking about the backlog. >> sure. >> knowing that in october of 2009, you've been in the v.a. for less than a year, 164,000 in the backlog. and that's defined as cases pending for more than 125 days. it's now 630,000. what is wrong here? >> well, candy, first of all no one should have to wait for their claims to be processed. let me just make sure that we understand what we're talking about here. for iraq and afghanistan veterans returning today they have been granted five years of medical care to which they have access at v.a. if they present and they'll be enrolled. >> how long does that take? >> they present and they have the proper identification and they're immediately enrolled. so for compensation, which is the disability claims which is the backlog, that indeed has increased. ten years of war, requirements have gone up, more c

. >> reporter: in new york today the secretary of veterans affairs, eric shinseki, toured a jobs fair for veterans sponsored by nbc universal. but shinseki, a veteran himself, wounded in vietnam, is also struggling with a huge backlog in claims for disability benefits. >> i remember coming back from vietnam. we didn't do enough for youngsters then. we're still dealing with those issues today. >> reporter: with a flood of veterans from the wars in iraq and afghanistan, the number of disability claims has exploded. nearly 900,000 veterans are waiting for their claims to be processed. the average wait, 273 days. some have waited as long as three years. >> this is not putting a man on mars. this is fixing a paperwork process. >> reporter: the problem is the v.a. still relies heavily on paper records. the department has spent $500 million on a new program to digitize veterans' claims. but a report from the v.a.'s inspector general found that because of problems with the new new computerized system it took longer to process some claims. the pentagon and v.a. are working together to combine

general shinseki and general hickey insist that this will be done by 2015.hink my increasing urgency in covering this is i have quit believing them. i don't see anything that makes it look better next year or the year after. the transition to electronic records makes it feel like it will wok for you guys, but if it isn't working on the ground, veterans saying it's working for me. it's hard to believe. why isn't there a presidential commission, external force, brought in to ride herd of the v.a. to make sure it happens? >> when i came into the position, i heard all about the backlog and i filed a claim, i've gone through the process, it took about six months, about the historical average over the last ten years, so i wanted to see it, so i went to one of these offices, back in september. you saw piles like this. you featured some of these, and the cumbersome process, and the electronics process, and it looked like windows 3.1. and then i went to winston-salem, the same office you profiled because of the weight of these claims. claims have not just been moved,

let's just say that they are skeptical and hope that general shinseki is right on this but any number these veterans groups say they just see on a daily basis veterans who feel just completely stymied by a system to the extent that many veterans never even go to the va because they think this is not worth my time to get psyched up in a bureaucracy. >> candy crowley, host of state of the union. >>> u.s. secretary of state john kerry made a surprise visit to iraq. will he be able to calm worries that iraq isn't acting like a that iraq isn't acting like a u.s. ally? t leave room for much else. there's no room left for deadlines or conference calls. not a single pocket to hold the stress of the day, or the to-do list of tomorrow. only 14 clubs pick up the right one and drive it right down the middle of pure michigan. your trip begins at michigan.org. ...and we inspected his brakes for free. -free is good. -free is very good. [ male announcer ] now get 50% off brake pads and shoes at meineke. >>> u.s. secretary of state john kerry is in amman, jordan today after a surprise visit to iraq th

she has an exclusive interview with veterans affairs secretary eric shinseki today.lking to him is his biggest challenge? >> paper. as crazy as that sounds, the fact is that these claims -- remember by the end of this month the v.a. thinks it will have about a million pending new disability benefit applications. okay, a million pending cases sitting at the v.a. most of this is done by paper. there are some amazing video this week of one claim center where the building is in danger of collapsing because there's so much paperwork. so the v.a. has been trying now for five years -- remember we've had an administration for five years that has pledged help for immediate help for veterans including the same v.a. secretary saying we're going to computerize this because it will make it easier and faster because the complaint from veterans is they have to wait so long. about two-thirds of the million we're talking about have been sitting around for more than 125 days. so the backlog is tremendous. there are a lot of folks on capitol hill or at least some who have voiced real c

do you think general shinseki has done a good job at v a?we need the pentagon and va to make a senior transfer out of services to the va. it doesn't happen. it's been ten years since the war started and five years, four and a half since the obama administration took over, what's it going to take? >> i think general shinseki is an example of the many public services at the va, he is a decorated veteran himself. i've dealt with va officials in arkansas and washington here and they want to do the right thing. they may lack the resources and best practices. in some ways the department of veteran affairs is like an insurance company or claims processing company. they don't always have the best and most modern practices and one thing we could do in congress through oversight is help to ensure they get the training and resources they need. i think the will and the desire are certainly there to serve veterans if you look at an organization like walmart, my home state just announced a new initiative where they're going to hire every veteran who appli

general shinseki enfranchised a large number of veterans.ult of agent orange in vietnam and pts and so on. it massively increased the franchise. and i asked him, why didn't you wait until your organization was up to speed? it was digitized. you can handle these. and he said, i'm just impatient, i thought it was bad news that these people were not enfranchised. they were not getting benefits, and i decided to do, you know, give them benefits right away even if it would take a long time. but what's happened is, people really irritated when they're waiting a long, long time. the really interesting question is why an organization like the veterans administration in the 21st century is not yet digitized. that's a bigger problem. and it requires a little bit of investigation to find out why that's so and why the va can't talk at the moment can't talk to any of the other departments. >> you know, patrick, you just mentioned, i mean, this issue, 3%, and so, i mean, the research that i've done, a lot of it is, again, just this paperwork problem. ther

. >> you know i expected within a >> sreenivasan: retired four- star general eric shinseki was appointed cabinet secretary for the veterans affairs administration in 2009. he says a big part of the backlog is because the v.a. began making it easier for veterans from previous wars to claim benefits from the side effects of agent orange and gulf war syndrome. >> we added to our workload a bit, because three years ago we decided to take care of some unfinished business: agent orange for vietnam veterans, for gulf veterans, gulf war diseases, nine diseases in 20 years had never been addressed. >> sreenivasan: reporter aaron glantz: >> yeah, i think there is some merit to that, but it's not the complete answer. they have had a 50% increase in the number of veterans filing claims during the obama administration. on the other hand, as i mentioned, the number of veterans waiting more than a year has increased by more than 2,000%. and the overall waiting list has more than doubled. so, it's not just that more people are filing claims or that more people are filing more complicated claims, it's al

that we are not setting a goal and applying those resources to a different population the general shinseki the secretary of the v.a. and president obama have both made a commitment to and veterans' homelessness in five years but the truth is that the housing is going to again people who are not part of their kind of the group that they're worrying about the most which are people coming back from the current campaign. so who is where does the blame why i mean is it the v.a. is it just not treating mental health properly because of course we know almost all homeless people suffer from some sort of mental health disability or maybe not almost all but a lot so where do we really place the blame here well there is lots of blame and so that blame can be spread around and i would be the first one to say that people like me advocates for the homeless certainly deserve a lot of blame we have been promising for decades that we are going to end this problem the federal government needs to be hard at blame they are putting forth just about ten percent of the amount of money that we need so that's just

that we are not setting a goal and applying those resources to a different population the general shinseki the secretary of the v.a. and president obama have both made a commitment to and veterans' homelessness in five years but the truth is that the housing is going to again people who are not part of their kind of the group that they're worrying about the most which are people coming back from the current campaign. so who is where does the blame why i mean is it the v.a. is it just not treating mental health properly because of course we know almost all homeless people suffer from some sort of mental health disability or maybe not almost all but a lot so where do we really place the blame here well there is lots of blame and so that blame can be spread around and i would be the first one to say that people like me advocates for the homeless certainly deserve a lot of blame we have been promising for decades that we are going to end this problem the federal government needs to be hard at blame they are putting forth just about ten percent of the amount of money that we need so that's just

shinseki is still there, but he's he not doing the job. >> i think congress is getting increasingly frustrateds money appropriated, and it's been approved by congress to hire these extra people but it's not happening. people on capitol hill are asking why. they're starting to demand answers. >> reporter: aaron glantz, i wish you could bring better news but you bring it well, and i appreciate you coming in. >> mymy pleasure. >> michael: iran has posted it's review of the film "argo." in short they felt the score was too bland and there were structure issues and oh, it was also the work of satan. that's next when we come back. satirical point of view. if you believe in state's rights but still believe in the drug war you must be high. >> only on current tv. the bar harbor bake is really worth trying. [ male announcer ] get more during red lobster's lobsterfest. with the year's largest selection of mouth-watering lobster entrees. like our delicious lobster lover's dream, featuring two kinds of lobster tails. or our savory, new grilled maine lobster and lobster tacos. my favorite entree is the lob

secretary eric shinseki. watch a preview of that interview on our homepage. and look for the full report tomorrow. and on making sense, an argument for why lower tariffs on foreign goods help-- not hurt-- american producers. all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. ray? >> suarez: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. i'm ray suarez. >> wooduff: and i'm judy wodruff we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks, among others. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> this is "bbc world news." fundin

. >> if you remember famously general eric shinseki said we would need more troops to do this and heas dismissed. remember, paul wolf wits did actually make the claim that iraqi oil revenues would be able to pay for this conflict. and not only would the selling the war point and the costs of the war, you know, in your last segment you made this great point about the media. it's even -- you can go even further than that. the media was complicit. the media took an active role in selling this war. they met with wolfowitz. there was one famous meeting where you had these top columnists and pundits meeting with wolfowitz trying to figure out the best way to sell this thing. it's not a shock the facts we were getting weren't accurate either. >> what do you mean by the media? do you mean opinion columnists on the right or mainstream reporters. >> mainstream reporters to opinion columnists. there's a famous scene in bob woodward's, his last book about the iraq war where paul wolfowitz brings in columnists from "the atlantic," one from what was formally "newsweek" and basically says to them,

what do veterans do in the next year and a half. >> it's become this magic number for shinseki he's going3, as well. the rapture is going to come in 2015. this is five years later now. can you honestly say things are gotten better for iraq and afghanistan veterans? >> no. and it's ten years after iraq started. this is not putting a man on mars. this is fixing a braux where 97% of the claims are on the table. over 10,000 died last year waiting for their claims to be processed. all generations, not just iraq, gulf war, vietnam veterans. did they not know the war was going to end? there was a fail your of planning. are you meeting the needs of the individual veterans under huge financial stress who are trying to get jobs, who have families, that's what this is about. >> that's a key point, the one you just referenced. there's no longer a draft. this army, this marine corps is older. many more are married, have children. many more have been divorced. many more have suffered tbi than ever before. >> many have gone for three and four deployments. >> yeah. >> the claims are complicated. we're co

but as in dancing it takes to come and the announcement publicly by secretary panetta and general shinsekiwhich was certainly not encouraging, i have since heard conflicting reports. and my concern is that interoperability system may not be the same as a seamless fully integrated system that enables real-time tracking of how opioids and other highly powerful medications may be prescribed. >> i'm not an expert, i will confess from the beginning, one of the least literate physicians around i.t. but i'm told that this will be a seamless record. and i share your concern though. i do share your concern. this is a thing that we need va particularly being constant attention to her secretaries, optionally relentless in pushing forward the need for having this integrated record. >> and i am really delighted to hear that point reaffirmed. i have spoken to him about and i know his personal interest and commitment to it, which i command fully and enthusiastically. let me ask you about again, to take senator sanders point about taking a little outside the box, what about take back programs? >> by the w

that gentleman right there, the one who said after the highest ranking general in the army, general shinseki, who testified in congress, before we go to iraq, we'll need several hundred thousand foot, it was that general right there who said, the general is widely off the mark, and we were discounting him. so we had about as half as many troops as we needed. which is one of the reasons why i lost 19 men there who never made it home. >> we just didn't have enough boots on the ground from the beginning? >> no. besides from it not being the right war, if we're going to commit our troops, we should give them enough troops that they need and the equipment. when roadside bombs are blown up every day -- >> and then you had secretary of defense donald rumsfeld saying, you go to war with the army that you have. >> that's right, craig. and this is what ticks most americans off, whether you're a democrat or a republican. these guys are making these knucklehead decisions, have no skin in the game. when it was their generation serving war, none of them served. paul wolfowitz didn't serve in vietnam. geor

what happened in the va, part of the problem is that general shinseki and others have tried to make agentrange and others more productive to the veterans, to recognize the legitimacy and open access to certain claims, but the capacity of the actual process has not been able to accommodate that. so you have a real mismatch. their belief that the technology is going to fix the problem, i believe the evidence suggests that it is not. the gentleman in the blue tie. >> i worked as the united nations spokesman in iraq for five years. i wanted to comment on the hundreds of billions of dollars that was wasted under something called the project reconstruction teams. prt's. they would start something and it never goes forward. never would it be completed. where did the money go? thank you. >> won the reasons that we wrote the book was that people had the sense that we are spending a lot, but it's very difficult to get your arms around what that means. when it comes to the reconstruction money, that is particularly hard to think about. just to put it in context, in afghanistan we spent $87 billion o

happening at the va as you're well aware is that part of, part of the problem is the general -- general shinseki and does have tried to make others presumptive to veterans to me, to recognize the legitimacy and open access to certain claims. but the capacity of the process has not been able to accommodate that. so you have a real mismatch. and their belief is that technology is going to fix the problem, but i believe the evidence suggests that it's not. okay, the gentleman in a blue tie. >> thank you. i worked as a united nations spokesman from iraq in two years. i want you to comment so much on the trillions but on the much bigotry of hundreds of billions of dollars that was wasted under something called the. e., the project reconstruction, mainly under the pentagon in which they would start something and never goes forward, never would be completed. the iraqis never benefit. where did the money go? thank you. >> you know, one of the reasons that we wrote the book was that people had the sense that we're spending a lot, but it's sort of difficult to get you around you aren't around with a lot m

issues in particular, and it was very important i think to see veterans administration secretary shinseki on sunday his commitment to doing just that, a commitment he reiterated to me yesterday when i talked to him about coming to this event. as i noted, we must also focus on improving the transition veterans go through as they become civilians. this has to include ensuring that all veterans are able to take advantage of the programs available to them, tell them be all they can be as civilians. these actions in support of our veterans are in true sake responsibilities. this event and usc's many other initiatives to support veterans demonstrate that the leadership of trojan nation understands and is intent on meeting its share of these responsibilities. and india that come and for all that yes, he does, i once again want to say thank you and well done to president nikias, chairman rusty, and to all of you. and thank you again for that. [applause] >> as i closed, i want to take this opportunity to say thank you as well to those who provided words of encouragement to my family and me in rece

what happened in the va, part of the problem is that general shinseki and others have tried to make agentand others more productive to the veterans, to recognize the legitimacy and open access to certain claims, but the capacity of the actual process has not been able to accommodate that. so you have a real mismatch. their belief that the technology is going to fix the problem, i believe the evidence suggests that it is not. the gentleman in the blue tie. >> i worked as the united nations spokesman in iraq for five years. i wanted to comment on the hundreds of billions of dollars that was wasted under something called the project reconstruction teams. they would start something and it never goes forward. never would it be completed. where did the money go? >> won the reasons that we wrote the book was that people had the sense that we are spending a lot, but it's very difficult to get your arms around what that means. when it comes to the reconstruction money, that is particularly hard to think about. just to put it in context, in afghanistan we spent $87 billion on afghani reconstruction

these improvements -- and we've talked to general shinseki. i know the gentleman, the chairman of the committee has talked to him, held hearings, been quite vigorous in insistent in his advocacy. i was ballistic about the claims situation in baltimore. but what did we need? we needed increased staff. did you know that we do most of our disability claims by paper? we might as well be doing it by papyrus. we might as well be doing it by papyrus. when you look at it, i'm short here. i'm rarely brief, but i am short. if you look at the average disability claim, which i know you've gone yourself to look at that, sir, it's sometimes 6, 8 and 12 inches. and that's the v.a. but in order to be certified, you've got to get the military to give you information. you have to get social security to give you information. you've got to get doctors' information. and in the meantime, somebody who's lost a leg, somebody who's lost an eye, somebody who's lost so much time fighting a war, and we ask too much from too few for so long are there waiting for their ben