Kathianne
11-24-2014, 11:09 AM
Tensions growing between DOD and administration.
https://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/24/breaking-hagel-fired/
Breaking: Hagel fired? Update: Yes
posted at 9:16 am on November 24, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
Barack Obama will hold a press conference later today to announce that Chuck Hagel has resigned as Secretary of Defense. According to the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html), his departure is not entirely voluntary, either, although their source claims he wasn’t exactly fired:
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and a beleaguered national security team that has struggled to stay ahead of an onslaught of global crises.
The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said.
The officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ. A Republican with military experience who was skeptical about the Iraq war, Mr. Hagel came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestration.
But now “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 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.
That doesn’t sound like a mutual agreement. Making the point that Hagel isn’t a wartime SecDef to the media makes it sound very much like this was a demand for a resignation. That’s what “Mr. Obama’s decison to remove Mr. Hagel” means — Obama canned him. It’s a little silly to pretend otherwise.
With that said, why now? The White House has been fumbling on ISIS and Afghanistan for months now, if not during Hagel’s entire tenure. Obama denied that ISIS was a threat and kept insisting that the US would pull out of Afghanistan on schedule. Only in the last few weeks has that posture changed, and it’s far from clear that Hagel was the problem in either case. Hagel’s Defense Intelligence group had been warning Congress and Obama since January of the grave danger ISIS posed, and it was the military that wanted a broader mission in Afghanistan after the end of this year.
Josh Rogin’s take seems pretty accurate in this regard:
...
https://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/24/breaking-hagel-fired/
Breaking: Hagel fired? Update: Yes
posted at 9:16 am on November 24, 2014 by Ed Morrissey
Barack Obama will hold a press conference later today to announce that Chuck Hagel has resigned as Secretary of Defense. According to the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html), his departure is not entirely voluntary, either, although their source claims he wasn’t exactly fired:
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and a beleaguered national security team that has struggled to stay ahead of an onslaught of global crises.
The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said.
The officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ. A Republican with military experience who was skeptical about the Iraq war, Mr. Hagel came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestration.
But now “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 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.
That doesn’t sound like a mutual agreement. Making the point that Hagel isn’t a wartime SecDef to the media makes it sound very much like this was a demand for a resignation. That’s what “Mr. Obama’s decison to remove Mr. Hagel” means — Obama canned him. It’s a little silly to pretend otherwise.
With that said, why now? The White House has been fumbling on ISIS and Afghanistan for months now, if not during Hagel’s entire tenure. Obama denied that ISIS was a threat and kept insisting that the US would pull out of Afghanistan on schedule. Only in the last few weeks has that posture changed, and it’s far from clear that Hagel was the problem in either case. Hagel’s Defense Intelligence group had been warning Congress and Obama since January of the grave danger ISIS posed, and it was the military that wanted a broader mission in Afghanistan after the end of this year.
Josh Rogin’s take seems pretty accurate in this regard:
...