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Hagel Resigns Under Pressure as Global Crises Test Pentagon Hagel Resigns Under Pressure as Global Crises Test Pentagon
(about 7 hours later)
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel handed in his resignation under pressure on Monday, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team to respond to an onslaught of global crises. WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel resigned under pressure on Monday after President Obama determined that he had to shake up his national security team in the face of escalating conflicts overseas and hawkish Republicans reasserting themselves on Capitol Hill.
In announcing Mr. Hagel’s resignation from the State Dining Room on Monday, the president, flanked by Mr. Hagel and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., called Mr. Hagel critical to ushering the military “through a significant period of transition” and lauded “a young Army sergeant from Vietnam who rose to serve as America’s 24th secretary of defense.” It was a striking reversal for a president who chose Mr. Hagel two years ago in part to limit the power of Pentagon officials who had repeatedly pushed for more troops in Afghanistan and a slower drawdown of American forces from Iraq. But in the end, Mr. Hagel’s passivity and lack of support in Mr. Obama’s inner circle proved too much for an administration that found itself back on a war footing.
Mr. Obama called Mr. Hagel “no ordinary secretary of defense,” adding that he had “been in the dirt” of combat like no other defense chief. He said that Mr. Hagel would remain in the job until his successor is confirmed by the Senate. Aides said Mr. Obama made the decision to remove his defense secretary on Friday after weeks of rising tension over a variety of issues, including what administration officials said were Mr. Hagel’s delays in transferring detainees from the military prison in Guantánamo Bay and a dispute with Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, over Syria policy.
Administration officials said that Mr. Obama made the decision to remove Mr. Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, last Friday after a series of meetings between the two men over the past two weeks. The strains were evident in a stilted ceremony on Monday at the White House, where Mr. Obama called the defense secretary he had pushed out “exemplary” and lauded his status as the first enlisted combat veteran to hold the job, saying it had helped him to empathize with American soldiers. “He’s been in the dirt. He’s been in the mud,” Mr. Obama said. “He sees himself in them. They see themselves in him.”
The officials characterized the decision as a recognition that the threat from the militant group Islamic State will require different skills from those that Mr. Hagel, who often struggled to articulate a clear viewpoint and was widely viewed as a passive defense secretary, was brought in to employ. But as the president spoke of the “blood and treasure and sacrifices” of enlisted men and women like Mr. Hagel, turning several times to try to address his defense secretary directly, Mr. Hagel stared ahead fixedly, declining to make eye contact with Mr. Obama.
Mr. Hagel, a combat veteran who was skeptical about the Iraq war, came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestrations. When it was his turn to speak, Mr. Hagel described the president’s national security strategy as a “team effort,” and spoke of trying to “build teams and to work together to make things happen for the good of the country.”
Now, however, the American military is back on a war footing, although it is a modified one. Some 3,000 American troops are being deployed in Iraq to help the Iraqi military fight the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, even as the administration struggles to come up with, and articulate, a coherent strategy to defeat the group in both Iraq and Syria. In reality, Mr. Hagel was never able to penetrate the president’s tight national security team of West Wing loyalists, officials at the White House and the Pentagon said. And faced with the calls for a shake-up of his national security staff to better deal with an onslaught of global crises, Mr. Obama balked at the idea of replacing Ms. Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry or the powerful White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough.
“The next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” one administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that the defense secretary initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave. The president is “too close to Susan Rice, and John Kerry’s in the middle of Iran negotiations,” said one administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “So he went for the low-hanging fruit” — Mr. Hagel, who was criticized by White House aides as largely silent in meetings, and who Mr. Obama had often bypassed in recent months for Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a favorite in the West Wing.
But Mr. Hagel’s aides had maintained in recent weeks that he expected to serve the full four years as defense secretary. His removal appears to be an effort by the White House to show that it is sensitive to critics who have pointed to stumbles in the government’s early response to several national security issues, including the Ebola crisis and the threat posed by the Islamic State. In the view of White House officials, Mr. Hagel has helped to thwart Mr. Obama’s pledge to close Guantánamo with his concerns about the security risks posed by the release of detainees. He recently pulled back from plans to repatriate four Afghans who had been approved for transfer, a decision that annoyed Ms. Rice, officials said.
Even before the announcement of Mr. Hagel’s removal, Obama officials were speculating on his possible replacement. At the top of the list were Michèle A. Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense, and Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense. White House officials also expressed annoyance over a sharply critical two-page memo that Mr. Hagel sent to Ms. Rice last month, in which he warned that the administration’s Syria policy was in danger of unraveling because of its failure to clarify its intentions toward President Bashar al-Assad. Senior officials complained that Mr. Hagel had never made such a case in internal debates, suggesting that he was trying to position himself for history on a crucial issue as he was talking to Mr. Obama about leaving his job. Mr. Hagel’s defenders said he stayed quiet to avoid leaks.
Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former officer with the Army’s 82nd Airborne, was also considered to be a contender, but a spokesman said that the senator was not in the running. “Senator Reed loves his job and does not wish to be considered for secretary of defense or any other cabinet post,” the spokesman said. “When your cabinet officials feel like they have to write you a letter, that suggests a larger problem,” said Vikram Singh, who worked on Afghanistan policy at the Pentagon under Mr. Hagel and who is now at the Center for American Progress, a Washington research organization with close ties to the Obama administration.
Mr. Hagel, a respected former senator who struck a friendship with Mr. Obama when they were both critics of the Iraq war from positions on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has nonetheless had trouble penetrating the tight team of former campaign aides and advisers who form Mr. Obama’s closely knit set of loyalists. Senior administration officials have characterized him as quiet during cabinet meetings; Mr. Hagel’s defenders said that he waited until he was alone with the president before sharing his views, the better to avoid leaks. Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, credited Mr. Hagel for managing the Pentagon after it had spent more than a decade at war. “It’s easy to go from peace to war,” Admiral Kirby said. “It’s more difficult to go from war to peace.” He called Mr. Hagel “the first defense secretary in nearly two decades to be confronted with the reality of shrinking budgets as well as the actual impact” of automatic defense budget cuts.
Whatever the case, Mr. Hagel struggled to fit in with Mr. Obama’s close circle and was viewed as never gaining traction in the administration after a bruising confirmation fight among his old Senate colleagues, during which he was criticized for seeming tentative in his responses to sharp questions. Mr. Hagel, he said, “led the department in making difficult budget choices, particularly in the military’s force structure, and compensation and benefits programs, while sustaining and expanding programs relevant for the future,” such as cyberwarfare and the Joint Strike Fighter.
He never really shed that pall after arriving at the Pentagon, and in the past few months he has largely ceded the stage to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who officials said initially won the confidence of Mr. Obama with his recommendation of military action against the Islamic State. In many ways, Mr. Hagel’s demise was reminiscent of that of another marquee outsider who was never able to penetrate the inner circle — Gen. James L. Jones, the former Marine commandant who Mr. Obama named as his first national security adviser, but who never struck a close bond with his boss or the rest of the national security team.
In Mr. Hagel’s less than two years on the job, his detractors said he struggled to inspire confidence at the Pentagon in the manner of his predecessors, especially Robert M. Gates. But several of Mr. Obama’s top advisers over the past few months have also acknowledged privately that the president did not want another high-profile defense secretary in the mold of Mr. Gates, who went on to write a memoir of his years with Mr. Obama in which he sharply criticized the president. Mr. Hagel, they said, in many ways was exactly the kind of defense secretary whom the president, after battling the military during his first term, wanted. If the ouster of Mr. Hagel was intended to minimize coming fights with Congress, the Republicans were not impressed on Monday. “The Obama administration is now in the market for their fourth secretary of defense,” Representative Howard (Buck) McKeon, Republican of California, said. “When the president goes through three secretaries, he should ask, ‘Is it them, or is it me?’ ”
Mr. Hagel, for his part, spent his time on the job largely carrying out Mr. Obama’s stated wishes on matters like bringing back American troops from Afghanistan and trimming the Pentagon budget, with little pushback. He did manage to inspire loyalty among enlisted soldiers and often seemed at his most confident when talking to troops or sharing wartime experiences as a Vietnam veteran. Mr. Hagel, who followed Robert M. Gates and Leon E. Panetta at the Pentagon, will continue to serve until Mr. Obama’s next defense secretary is confirmed, which could take some time. Administration officials said that the list of possibilities include Michèle A. Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense. But she is viewed as close to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and could find herself facing the same outsider issues as Mr. Hagel had. Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense, is also on the list, administration officials said.
But Mr. Hagel has often had problems articulating his thoughts — or administration policy — in an effective manner, and has sometimes left reporters struggling to describe what he has said in news conferences. In his side-by-side appearances with both General Dempsey and Secretary of State John Kerry, Mr. Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran and the first former enlisted combat soldier to be defense secretary, has often been upstaged. Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former Army Ranger, was also considered to be a contender, but his spokesman said that he was not in the running. “Senator Reed loves his job and does not wish to be considered for secretary of defense or any other cabinet post,” the spokesman said.
He raised the ire of the White House in August as the administration was ramping up its strategy to fight the Islamic State, directly contradicting the president, who months before had likened the Sunni militant group to a junior varsity basketball squad. Mr. Hagel, facing reporters in his now-familiar role next to General Dempsey, called the Islamic State an “imminent threat to every interest we have,” adding, “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.” White House officials later said they viewed those comments as unhelpful, although the administration still appears to be struggling to define just how large is the threat posed by the Islamic State. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, suggested the administration consider former Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, calling on the president to give “full and fair consideration for this critical position.” But Mr. Lieberman’s views on national security echo those of Senator John McCain, who is sharply critical of Mr. Obama, and he would likely be viewed as far too conservative by the White House.
In his two years in the job, Mr. Hagel’s national security views closely followed Mr. Obama’s, which made his dismissal more noteworthy. Mr. Hagel largely carried out Mr. Obama’s orders on matters like bringing back American troops from Afghanistan and trimming the Pentagon budget, without the pushback that characterized the tenure of Mr. Gates.
“The next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that the defense secretary initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave.
Now, however, the American military is in escalating crises. Some 3,000 American troops are being deployed in Iraq to help the Iraqi military fight the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, even as the administration struggles to come up with, and articulate, a strategy to defeat the group in both Iraq and Syria.
Even Mr. Hagel’s defenders say that articulating strategy is one of his biggest weaknesses. He never entirely gained traction in the administration after a bruising confirmation fight with his old Senate colleagues, when he was criticized for being tentative in his responses to sharp questions.
In the past few months he has been overshadowed by General Dempsey, who officials said had won the confidence of Mr. Obama with his recommendation of military action against the Islamic State.