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On Monday, US President Barack Obama announced that US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel resigned from his post, with the White House coming under fire for its perceived fumbling of the response to extremist group Islamic State (IS). Hagel was at the White House during Obama’s announcement confirming his departure.
The former Republican senator and 68-year-old Vietnam War veteran was on the job for less than two years – he was chosen to oversee a change to a peacetime military with lesser defense budgets. However, rapid advances made by the IS in Iraq and Syria had forced him into managing a complicated campaign, as the US found itself at war again.
“When I asked Chuck to serve as secretary of defense we were entering a significant period of transition: the drawdown in Afghanistan, the need to prepare our forces for future missions and tough fiscal choices to keep our military strong and ready. Last month, Chuck came to me to discuss the final quarter of my presidency and determined that, having guided the department through this transition, it was an appropriate time for him to complete his service”, Obama said.
Both Hagel and Obama presented the decision as a mutual one, with Hagel thanking Obama for his “friendship” and “leadership”, saying he believed he put the nation and the military on a “stronger course toward stability.”
The White House did not comment on Hagel’s replacement, but politicians in Washing feel three candidates are in the running for the job – former under-secretary of defense Michele Flournoy, who’ll be the first female chief of the Pentagon, is thought of as the front-runner, along with former deputy secretary Ashton Carter and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
Republican Senator John McCain, a blunt critic of Obama’s foreign policy, said that spoke he with Hagel over the phone on Monday.
“I know that he was very, very frustrated. Already the White House are leaking, ‘Well he wasn’t up to the job.’ Believe me, he was up to the job”, McCain said. He added that the Obama administration had “no strategy” to fight the IS and that Hagel was never allowed into a White House inner circle to help take decisions.