Washington – Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson resigned Tuesday after a two-year tenure filled with tumult including budget shortfalls and thefts of agency computers.
Nicholson, a former Colorado real-estate developer, said he wants to return to private industry work. But he acknowledged he has confronted a series of daunting problems.
The $77 billion VA cares for 5.8 million patients in 1,400 hospitals and clinics. It finds itself strained by the needs of veterans with severe physical and mental injuries.
“It’s a big job. It’s a very big agency with big missions,” Nicholson, 69, said in an interview. “We are at war. We’ve had to adjust this big agency to align ourselves with the needs of our veterans.”
However, Nicholson said, “none of that had an effect on my decision to leave.”
He decided to depart, he said, after assembling a new mental-health program for veterans and nearing completion on the 2008 agency budget.
“Jim has led innovative efforts to ensure that the Department of Veterans Affairs is better prepared to address the challenges facing our newest generation of heroes after they return home,” President Bush said.
Not everyone agreed.
One Iraq and Afghanistan veterans’ activist group cheered Nicholson’s departure.
“This resignation is long overdue, and welcome,” said Jon Soltz, Iraq war veteran and chair of . “Jim Nicholson had no business handling our nation’s veterans and was an inept political appointee like Michael Brown at FEMA.”
Nicholson will leave the agency no later than Oct. 1. He arrived at the VA in February 2005.
Nicholson, who is a lawyer, said he may affiliate with a law firm. That would allow him to move into a consulting role or eventually a lobbying post.
Nicholson said he hasn’t determined whether he’ll return to Colorado.
He has decided that he’s not running for Colorado’s open U.S. Senate seat. After Sen. Wayne Allard announced in January that he’ll retire next year, Nicholson considered running. In February he spoke with former U.S. Rep. Scott McInnis, who also considered running for the seat.
“I looked at it and considered it briefly and decided not to run,” Nicholson said.
Nicholson, a Vietnam veteran, is known locally for transforming Parker into a burgeoning Denver suburb. He headed the Republican National Committee from 1997 to 2000. He then served as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. He had just left that post when President Bush asked him to take over as VA chief.
“It’s difficult to say no to the Oval Office,” Nicholson said.
Just after he arrived in the job, the VA found itself more than $1 billion short in fiscal year 2005. Nicholson had to explain to Congress why his agency didn’t factor in the Iraq war when it developed its budget. The 2005 budget had been based on numbers from 2002 and was not subsequently revised when the war began.
Then in 2006 a laptop computer with 26.5 million veterans’ personal data was stolen from a VA employee’s home. Then a few months later a desktop computer was taken from a subcontractor’s office.
But Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., said she believes Nicholson inherited his agency’s problems and didn’t deserve criticism.
“He’s done a good job with some difficult circumstances,” she said. “I’m sorry to hear that he’s stepped down.”
