A senior administration official subsequently confirmed to Business Insider that Hagel would resign. They said Hagel would announce his decision alongside the president at 11:00 a.m.
"A successor will be named in short order, but Secretary Hagel will remain as Defense Secretary until his replacement is confirmed by the United States Senate," the official said.
The official characterized Hagel's decision to step down as normal administration turnover in the wake of the midterm elections earlier this month.
That is the official response to why Hagel is leaving, however the unofficial response is much different:
Senior defense officials confirmed to NBC News Monday that Hagel was forced to resign.
The officials say the White House has lost confidence in Hagel to carry out his role at the Pentagon. According to one senior official, “He wasn’t up to the job.”
Another senior administration official said that Hagel has been discussing a departure from the White House "for several weeks."
As we know President Obama is incredibly loyal to his people, so for Hagel to be "forced out" is a real recognition of his lack of confidence in the Defense Secretary's abilities.
Apparently there will be a press conference in about an hour so there will be more to add to this post then.
So I guess Monday's starting off with a bang.
Update: I just watched the Hagel press conference, and my take away is that he might have been forced from his job for incompetence, but his friendship with the President and Vice President Joe Biden seems quite genuine and deeply affectionate.
At times it almost looked like the President and Chuck Hagel were both there against their will, and Joe Biden simply looked pissed off.
I think in the weeks ahead we will learn more about what instigated this resignation, but I am pretty confident that it was not due to any friction between Hagel and the President.
OT, but funny as hell!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/11/woman_allegedly_kills_herself.html
Cause of death: KARMA!
Delete"The Peter Principle", realized. Good guy, wrong job.
ReplyDelete...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.
ReplyDeleteThe 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 grounds of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that he 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.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html
Our next Secretary of Defense?
ReplyDelete...These problems will largely be in the hands of Michele Angelique Flournoy, a quiet but enormously influential woman who for several years has managed the Pentagon's most intractable problems -- and kept largely out of the limelight. The Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Flournoy has been the intellectual driver behind many of the Obama administration's national security policy decisions, from Libya to nuclear warfighting strategy to China, missile defense, the defense budget and Afghanistan.
She has also been tasked with producing all the Pentagon's long-range strategic plans. She oversees a staff of some 700, but Flournoy is personally responsible for every region of the world, supervising regional commanders and overseeing counterterrorism policy, special operations, homeland defense, arms control negotiations and dialogue with China, to list a handful of her responsibilities.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/06/pentagon-leaders_n_871519.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
The republicans will go apoplectic over this. A woman? In a position of traditional male power? A qualified, capable, already-experienced-in-the-job woman who already works there? Groan, gasp, pant, sputter, combined with name-calling, lies, and the usual smears and accusations. Yup, Obama is paving the way for a woman president; and this will be a fun dress rehearsal to watch, for sure.
DeleteAnd just watch foreign-born, Canadian citizen Ted Cruz try to shut down any discussion of approving her for the job (you know, THE #1 National Defense Job) on the ground that Obama was less bold than Reagan and Bush #1 with respect to Executive Orders about immigration. Yup, you read that right: Reagan gave amnesty to around 5 million illegal immigrants; Obama's order affects fewer people and does not grant amnesty to anyone. Lol, this will be a double-feature comedy movie to watch, for sure.
"At times it almost looked like the President and Chuck Hagel were both there against their will, and Joe Biden simply looked pissed off."
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder who's really running the country, doesn't it? "The man behind the curtain"...
It sure as hell DOES, KaJo!
DeleteCouldn't agree more, KaJo. That was my thought, too. I know from what I have read over the years that Obama is particularly fond of Hegel, and admires him tremendously. Am sure there is more to the picture that we can not see now, and perhaps will never see. Are the military contractors, who contribute to political campaigns, angry with Hegel for reducing the Pentagon budget? Just a thought, though it may not be pertinent or controlling here.
DeleteIn Nicolle Wallace's book "18 Acres" a female whitehouse staffer becomes Secretary of Defense. Yay, let's see that really happen!
ReplyDelete