Hagel Submits Resignation as Defense Chief Under Pressure
WASHINGTON
— Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel handed in his resignation 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.
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.”
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.
President Obama called Chuck Hagel “no
ordinary secretary of defense” during a news conference at which Mr.
Hagel’s announced his resignation.
Video by Associated Press on
Publish Date November 24, 2014.
Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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
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 leak
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.