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Obama to Name Hagel for Defense, Despite Opposition Obama’s Pick for Defense Is an Ally, and a Lightning Rod
(about 4 hours later)
President Obama has selected a former Nebraska senator, Chuck Hagel, as his next defense secretary, a White House official said Sunday, turning to a prominent Republican to lead the Pentagon as it faces of the challenge of winding down the war in Afghanistan and possible reductions in military spending. WASHINGTON — When President Obama nominates Chuck Hagel, the maverick Republican and former senator from Nebraska, to be his next secretary of defense as early as Monday, he will be turning to a trusted ally whose willingness to defy party loyalty and conventional wisdom won his admiration both in the Senate and on a 2008 tour of war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the nomination, which the White House official said would occur on Monday, has already encountered stiff opposition from Republicans and Democrats alike because of Mr. Hagel’s views on Israel and Iran, and his comments about an ambassador who is gay. The choice of Mr. Hagel, the first Vietnam veteran to be nominated for the post, would add a prominent Republican to Mr. Obama’s cabinet, providing some political cover for the president’s plans to exit Afghanistan and make cuts to a military budget that has roughly doubled since the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Republicans, in particular, have raised objections to statements by Mr. Hagel that they have described as dismissive of Israel and soft on Iran. Mr. Hagel once described pro-Israel lobbying groups as the “Jewish lobby.” He has insisted that he is a strong supporter of Israel. But Republicans made clear on Sunday that they will give Mr. Hagel a rough ride on his path to the Pentagon, questioning his support for Israel, his seriousness about the Iranian nuclear threat and his commitment to an adequate defense budget. And Mr. Obama may also face difficulties from some Democrats who are wary of negative comments that Mr. Hagel made more than a decade ago about gays.
Speaking on Sunday talk shows, several Republican senators indicated that a stormy confirmation process was all but inevitable. Some Obama aides had doubts about the wisdom of the choice, given Mr. Hagel’s frosty relationship with members of his own party, but officials said they were confident that they could corral enough votes from both sides of the aisle to win confirmation in the Senate. White House officials confirmed on Sunday that Mr. Hagel was Mr. Obama’s pick for the job and said the announcement would come on Monday.
“His views with regard to Israel, for example, and Iran and all the other positions that he’s taken over the years will be very much a matter of discussion in the confirmation process,” Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Rather than turning to a defense technocrat, Mr. Obama decided on an independent politician whose service in Vietnam gave him a lifelong skepticism about the commitment of American lives in overseas conflicts. Like Mr. Obama, Mr. Hagel supported the war in Afghanistan but opposed the troop surge in Iraq under President George W. Bush.
Mr. McConnell said he had not decided whether he would support Mr. Hagel. “I think there will be a lot of tough questions for Senator Hagel, but he will be treated fairly by Republicans in the Senate,” he said. Mr. Hagel, 66, served as an enlisted man in Vietnam, won two Purple Hearts and still carries bits of shrapnel in his chest. He was the co-founder of a cellular telephone company and headed an investment banking firm before being elected to the Senate in 1996. He retired in 2009 and now teaches at Georgetown University and serves as chairman of the Atlantic Council, a centrist foreign policy group.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he liked Mr. Hagel, but that he was “out of the mainstream of thinking on most issues regarding foreign policy.” In July 2008, during the presidential campaign, Mr. Hagel accompanied Mr. Obama, who was then in the Senate, on a six-day trip to Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait. When the Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, asserted that Mr. Obama’s motive for the trip was political, Mr. Hagel strongly defended Mr. Obama, saying in a television interview that Mr. McCain was “on thin ground” in trying to impugn Mr. Obama’s patriotism.
“This is an in-your-face nomination of the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel,” Mr. Graham said. “I don’t know what his management experience is regarding the Pentagon — little if any — so I think it’s an extremely controversial choice.” In the Senate, Mr. Hagel voted in favor of the resolution authorizing Mr. Bush to take military action in Iraq, which passed overwhelmingly in October 2002. But he soured on the effort early, and became an advocate of the view that America had lost sight of what it was trying to accomplish and that it was overestimating its ability to change Iraqi society.
Those sentiments were echoed by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who said Mr. Obama was being overly dismissive of criticism about Mr. Hagel. In some ways, Mr. Hagel bears a resemblance to Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations and Mr. Obama’s first choice for secretary of state. She withdrew her name from consideration, making way for the selection of Senator John F. Kerry. Ms. Rice, like Mr. Hagel, is a trusted Obama ally who spoke up for him during the 2008 presidential campaign and became a lightning rod for Republican attacks.
“I think this is a president right now who has drunk the tea,” Mr. Cruz said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He is feeling very good about himself; he is feeling like there can be no opposition to his position. And so, it doesn’t seem — he doesn’t seem terribly concerned that there’s not a lot of support for Chuck Hagel in the Senate.” “The president wants someone whose judgment he respects on the big questions of war and peace,” said Philip D. Zelikow, a senior State Department official under Mr. Bush and now a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. Mr. Hagel is co-chairman of the board.
Mr. Cruz said he would probably vote against Mr. Hagel’s confirmation. The White House is calculating that opposition to Mr. Hagel may be loud but not broad and that in end, the Senate will confirm him. Administration officials argued that voting against a Republican war hero to run the Defense Department would not be an easy vote for fellow Republicans, and they are confident that disgruntled Democrats will ultimately not deny their president his choice.
“At the end of the day, Republicans will support a decorated war hero who was their colleague for 12 years and has critical experience on veterans issues,” said an administration official who requested anonymity to discuss a nomination before it was announced. “It would be hard to explain a no vote just because he bucked his party on Iraq, a war most Americans think was a disaster.”
When he took office in 2009, Mr. Obama asked Robert M. Gates, the defense secretary during Mr. Bush’s last two years in office, to remain in his job. But Mr. Gates, a former C.I.A. chief and deputy national security adviser, belonged to the mainstream of Republican defense orthodoxy. Mr. Hagel does not, as was evident in harsh comments from Republicans on Sunday.
Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said he personally liked Mr. Hagel but considered him “out of the mainstream of thinking on most issues regarding foreign policy.”
“This is an in-your-face nomination of the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel,” Mr. Graham said on the CNN program “State of the Union.” “I don’t know what his management experience is regarding the Pentagon — little, if any — so I think it’s an incredibly controversial choice.”
The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” “I think there will be a lot of tough questions for Senator Hagel, but he will be treated fairly by Republicans in the Senate.”
For weeks, some Jewish groups sought to dissuade Mr. Obama from choosing Mr. Hagel, who once referred to advocates of Israel as “the Jewish lobby.” Having failed, opponents over the weekend shifted to trying to block Mr. Hagel’s confirmation.
Regional chapters of the American Jewish Committee, which has bipartisan bona fides, began circulating letters to their Democratic senators, urging them to oppose Mr. Hagel.
One such letter, obtained by The New York Times, said: “While A.J.C. recognizes Senator Hagel’s record of service to our country and the people of Nebraska, his opinions on a range of core U.S. national security priorities run counter to what A.J.C. advocates and what President Obama has articulated — notably, on the efficacy of Iran sanctions, on a credible military option against Iran, on branding Hezbollah as terrorist organization, and on the special nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Mr. Hagel and his supporters have dismissed criticism of his views on Israel, noting that he voted on several occasions to provide billions of dollars in military aid to the country. He also co-sponsored legislation that urged the international community to avoid contact with Hamas until it recognized Israel’s sovereignty.Mr. Hagel and his supporters have dismissed criticism of his views on Israel, noting that he voted on several occasions to provide billions of dollars in military aid to the country. He also co-sponsored legislation that urged the international community to avoid contact with Hamas until it recognized Israel’s sovereignty.
In his 2008 book, “America: Our Next Chapter,” Mr. Hagel wrote: “There will always be a special and historic bond with Israel exemplified by our continued commitment to Israel’s defense.” On one of the biggest security challenges the administration faces — how to slow or stop Iran’s progress toward a nuclear capability — Mr. Hagel’s views appear somewhat at odds with the president’s. White House aides have been seeking to minimize the differences in advance of the expected nomination.
Mr. Hagel, 66, has also received criticism for opposing several bills to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran. His supporters point out, that he has backed several rounds of sanctions aimed at preventing Iranian weapons proliferation. He also supported the Iran Freedom Support Act in 2006, which, in addition to imposing sanctions, provided funding for human rights and pro-democracy groups in the country. Mr. Hagel has long been an opponent of unilateral American sanctions against Iran — among other American adversaries — viewing them as counterproductive. Notably, he was one of only two senators to vote against the Iran-Libya sanctions act in 2001, arguing that it would undercut any efforts to engage with Tehran.
Coming confirmation battles for Mr. Hagel and other cabinet appointees will most likely open a new schism between the White House and Congress. Fierce Republican resistance has already derailed the candidacy of one cabinet nominee. Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations, withdrew her name from consideration for secretary of state after lawmakers threatened to disrupt her nomination over statements made about the death of the American ambassador in Benghazi, Libya. But today, the Obama administration describes the policy of tough sanctions against Tehran as the key to its strategy for forcing the country’s leadership to reverse course on its nuclear program.
Mr. Obama instead nominated Senator John Kerry to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton. As secretary of defense, Mr. Hagel would not be directly involved in designing or enforcing those sanctions; that is the work of the Treasury and State Departments. But he would be in charge of one of the other major elements of pressure: the huge buildup of American naval might, antimissile capability and special operations in the Persian Gulf. That force is intended not only to keep the Strait of Hormuz open but also to make credible Mr. Obama’s threat to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Heidi Heitkamp, the newly elected Democratic senator from North Dakota, criticized the rancor surrounding Mr. Hagel’s nomination, calling it symptomatic of Washington gridlock. “So far, Obama’s big problem is that the threat to use force has not seemed credible,” a former official who has worked on Iran issues with Mr. Hagel and frequently advises the administration on Iran said last week. “The question is whether if Chuck is defense secretary, the Iranians would take seriously the thought that he is willing to use force if it comes to that.”
“This kind of fight is the fight that the people of this country get so frustrated about and with,” Ms. Heitkamp said. “Let Chuck Hagel get nominated, if he’s going to be nominated, and let’s hear what the senator has to say.” In efforts to spur liberals to oppose the nomination, Mr. Hagel’s critics have also focused on a comment he made in the late 1990s, opposing a Clinton administration ambassadorial nominee for being “openly, aggressively gay,” and his past stances on gay rights issues.
Mr. Hagel’s candidacy has also raised questions among some liberal groups because of a statement he made 14 years ago about President Bill Clinton’s nominee for ambassador to Luxembourg, James C. Hormel. Mr. Hormel, he said, was not qualified because he was “openly, aggressively gay.” Mr. Hagel has since apologized. Mr. Hagel has since apologized for the remark and in a recent statement said he supported the right of gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. Gay rights groups like the Human Rights Campaign, which tend to lean Democratic, have not yet taken a position on Mr. Hagel’s nomination.
The president has praised Mr. Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, as a “patriot,” saying nothing in his record would prevent him from serving as defense secretary. He spent 12 years in the Senate, retiring in 2009 after serving on the Foreign Relations Committee. As senator, he called for trimming the defense budgets and often expressed skepticism about involving American troops extended missions abroad, particularly without international support. White House officials pointed out that Mr. Hagel apologized for his comments offending Israel supporters and noted that opposing him because of his Iraq stance would not help war hawks since Mr. Obama, who opposed the invasion from the start, would simply pick another like-minded nominee. As for his past opposition to a gay nominee, officials said it would be hard to imagine a Nebraska Republican whose views have not evolved in the last decade.
Though he voted for the resolution allowing President George W. Bush to take military action in Iraq, he was among the most outspoken Republican critics of the war. In 2004, he declared that he had “no confidence” in Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s leadership, and he later joined Democrats in opposing Mr. Bush’s plan to send more troops to Iraq.

Nicholas Confessore and Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting from New York, and Peter Baker from Washington.

Whatever the criticism of Mr. Hagel’s views on Israel, perhaps his most pressing concern if confirmed as defense secretary will be the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. This week, Mr. Obama is expected to meet with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan to discuss the withdrawal set to begin in 2014.
Mr. Hagel has indicated that he would be comfortable with quickly drawing down the remaining 66,000 troops as Pentagon officials say the White House desires.

Peter Baker, David E. Sanger and Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington.