WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney told veterans Monday there "will be no excuses" with regard to the reportedly poor conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center, the same day a House panel began hearings on the matter.

"President Bush has made our administration's priority very clear to the Congress and to the country: there will be no excuses, only action," Cheney said during remarks to the Veterans for Foreign Wars National Legislative Conference. "And the federal bureaucracy will not slow that action down. We're going to fix the problems at Walter Reed, period."

Cheney's comments come as the House Oversight and Government Reform National Security Subcommittee convened hearings on the medical center's conditions. The hearings -- conducted at the medical center itself -- included testimony from two Iraq war veterans, as well as Peter Geren, the acting secretary of the Army who assumed the role after Secretary Francis J. Harvey was dismissed last week.