The hearing will come to order. We are here to discuss the president s fiscal year 2016 budget request for the department of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the committee. Understand that your testimony will be a little bit different today than what we are accustomed to with reference to chart to help us better understand what you are seeing in terms of the challenges that lay ahead and i would say that is indeed a welcome change. So too is the open as you have had with me with members of this committee and this congress about your plans to change the culture at the va. As your testimony illustrates you have been extremely active in visiting va facilities. I think its well over 90 at this point, talking with employees veteran groups in your private sector colleagues with one aim in mind, putting everyones focus squarely on the needs of veterans. Thank you for your willingness to take the job of secretary and thank you for putting everything you have into that job. Turning t
I met a veteran who has been out two years and 10 disability but the point is he cant get his paperwork from dod. What are we doing . We have asked this question for years. Its a great question. I have to say secretary hagel and i are totally aligned that we want to have a seamless handoff from the department of defense to the va. Thats why we have instituted programs like cap while the person is on active duty and allison can talk about that. Congressman brown some good news to report on this front though it didnt obviously help that particular veteran two years ago we are engaged now in the mandatory program for all of our servicemembers including National Guard and reserve for which there are now nearly a million who qualify for benefits that did not previously. Another thing that is starting literally right now is the mandatory separation health assessment. The choice to the veteran told a session is if you are going to make a claim to be a for anything that va will do a complete s
After the mehta that sis, not going at the root cause. I would like to hear a definition of defeat, definitive one, and then i would like to hear what your root cause is of why there is an isis, why there was an al qaeda, and ive got one other question after that, ambassador, if you would go first. It is a good point and it is the major flaw of this draft. The draft doesnt tell you give this back to the president and it doesnt authorize the president to do anything more than using armed forces against isil. It doesnt say defeat, though thats one of the things he says is his goal, working to defeat in the there is no goal. One reason we have all been debating about how long this thing should be or what kind of troops or what enduring means is there is no goal. My goal is to defeat isis, to destroy its hold on terrain in iraq and syria. Thats what should be in this thing. That is a military mission. We can do it if possible with our allies. Potentially we will have to use our own forces.