Robert Gates

But getting it down through that bureaucracy and getting people willing to change the way they do business is very difficult.

But there's another aspect to it, and it brings us back to one of the principal culprits, and that's the Congress.

The Congress has micromanaged Veterans Affairs in such a way that changing anything that has to do with dealing with veterans requires literally an act of Congress.

So we would try pilot programs where we would expedite disability evaluations and things like that.

But to be able to apply and get them done in 100 or 150 days rather than a year or two years or three years or more,

But we couldn't expand that once we showed it would work without a change in the law.

And that proved almost insurmountable.

Even but in the case of... So you were presiding there... And it's not... This is an interesting case in Washington, because in this case, it's not for a lack of money.

Not for lack of money and not for lack of desire.

It's hard to figure them.

One of the reasons things changed almost immediately was because I fired the commander of the hospital, the surgeon general of the army, and the secretary of the army.

That got people's attention.

And part of the problem in Washington is the unwillingness to hold individuals accountable for performance.

And I tried to do that.

I noticed in the headlines...

in the last day or so that there's more trouble with the Air Force nuclear program.

I fired both the Air Force chief of staff and the Air Force secretary for their unwillingness to tackle problems in the nuclear program.

So you've got to, whether it's Veterans Affairs or anyplace else, and it's not just at the top, you've got to be willing to hold people accountable and show that there are consequences for not getting the job done.

Yeah, I mean, I agree.