Sunday, July 22, 2007 | 1:17 a.m.
WASHINGTON - Nevada Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley took a congressional trip in May with Jim Nicholson, the Veterans Administration secretary, who almost one year to the day earlier she had called on to resign.
Looking back on that trip this past week as Nicholson announced he would step down effective Oct. 1, the congresswoman said her time with him was pleasant enough. They visited American military cemeteries in Europe over Memorial Day, laying wreaths for fallen soldiers from wars past. They checked in on today's soldiers recuperating at a military hospital in Germany.
"I like him as a person; as a VA secretary I thought he was awful," Berkley said.
"Under his administration the VA was a mess He was not an advocate for veterans."
Nicholson, a Vietnam vet and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, endured two tumultuous years running the veterans agency.
Shortly after he was appointed in early 2005, Nicholson was sent to Capitol Hill to defend the Bush administration's budget that critics said woefully under funded veterans' needs during wartime. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, as well as veterans' groups, were not pleased.
Last summer the VA was criticized for its sluggish response after an agency laptop was stolen from an employee's home, potentially exposing 26 million vets' personal data.
Nicholson even got blamed for the substandard care veterans received at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The Pentagon, not the Veterans Administration, runs the facility.
Berkley said last week that she was personally offended when the VA proposed budget cuts for prosthetic research, after she had just visited Iraq war amputees recovering at Walter Reed.
"Is that really where we want to be balancing our budget - on the backs of the veterans? The arms and legs of veterans?" she recalled thinking at the time.
"From the very first day he took over as head of the VA, Secretary Nicholson has failed to ensure the needs of America's veterans are being met," Berkley said in a 2006 statement calling for his resignation. "Nicholson has got to go."
Berkley wasn't alone in calling for Nicholson's ouster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats said as much last year.
But Berkley's battles with Nicholson also struck closer to home. One of the congresswoman's top priorities has been bringing Nevada its first VA hospital to serve the growing veterans population. Vets now make up about one in eight Nevada residents.
Berkley has said she won't leave office until the new medical center is open. But the administration's budget last year failed to include $150 million to complete the facility that has fallen behind schedule and run over budget. She urged Nicholson to commit to the project.
Ground was broken on the hospital last fall, and the Bush administration agreed in the fiscal 2008 budget to fund what has now soared to a $600 million project - almost twice its original cost.
For all the complaints against Nicholson, Bush stood by him last week, saying the former had "served his country and his fellow veterans with distinction."
"As our troops continue to fight in the global war on terror," the president said in a statement, Nicholson has led efforts to ensure the VA is "better prepared to address the challenges facing our newest generation of heroes after they return home."
Berkley was at a House Veterans Affairs' committee hearing on funding for homeless veterans when the news broke. She wished Nicholson well.
"While I have a high regard for him as a human being, he was not the sort of secretary I would like to see for the vets."
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