Defense Secretary HAGEL STEPS DOWN

[presence]

"FIRED"

http://www.pinksliprick.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/slideshow/Screen%20shot%202011-04-01%20at%209.08.06%20AM.png


Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html)



15 mins ago

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/chuck_hagel/index.html?inline=nyt-per) is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’s Democratic majority in the Senate and a beleaguered national security team that has struggled to stay ahead of an onslaught of global crises.

..

[willwash]

Whoa!

[presence]

Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure

By HELENE COOPER (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/helene_cooper/index.html)NOV. 24, 2014


Photo http://static01.********/images/2014/11/24/us/25HAGEL3/25HAGEL3-master675.jpg

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's resignation was expected to be announced by President Obama in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday. Credit Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/chuck_hagel/index.html?inline=nyt-per) is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per)’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.
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 are Michèle Flournoy, the former under secretary of defense; Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former officer with the Army’s 82nd Airborne; and Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense.
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, Mr. Hagel 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.
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 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 manner 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.

..

[tangent4ronpaul]

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.

Translation: Obama wants a donkey.

-t

[Lucille]

Translation: Obama wants a donkey.

-t

Looks like they're going for an insider with much larger warboner. That should please the progs in the red jerseys too.

http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/24/chuck-checks-out-hagel-fails-to-adapt-to


...Tuccille noted how Hagel’s leadership played out early in 2013 in regards to fears of chemical weapon use in Syria. One day in April Hagel publicly stated there was no evidence Syria’s government was using chemical weapons on its own citizens. Then he reversed position the very next day, saying that it likely that they had. The Times notes that Hagel also contradicted the White House in descriptions of ISIS. The president had compared the terrorist group to a JV basketball team, while Hagel described them as an "imminent threat to everything we have." A gap that wide does indicate, though, issues bigger than just messaging. The administration chose extremely poorly with that metaphor, but certainly Hagel is exaggerating about the actual threat ISIS represents.

One of the top choices to replace Hagel is Michéle Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense under Hagel’s predecessors. She’s also an administration insider. She was part of Obama’s transition team, and when she stepped down from her work within the administration in 2011, said she was going to work on helping Obama get re-elected in 2012. Her name had been bounced around at the same time as Hagel’s in 2012 as a possible replacement for Leon Panetta.

Flournoy is also a co-founder and CEO of a non-profit military/national security focused think tank named the Center for New American Security. She seems to think it’s possible for America to "achieve its strategic objectives in Afghanistan" as long as we stay committed with money and resources. Read her report here, and then read some of examples of where money sent to Afghanistan is actually going here.

The progressive anti-war group Institute for Policy Studies describes Flournoy’s love of military intervention and spending from the left here. They note she actually has more support from neoconservatives than Republican Hagel, vocal critic of the Iraq war. Rather than proposing a different course for the administration’s foreign policy, she appears to possibly be the person to entrench it for rest of Obama’s term.

Now seems a good time to mention January’s issue of Reason magazine focuses on what a realistic libertarian foreign policy should look like and includes interviews with both Ron Paul and Rand Paul.

[UtahApocalypse]

Hopefully Rand uses the nomination to kill the drone program

[enhanced_deficit]

This is surprise, what pressure led to this why?

Was this lawsuit filed couple of months ago among the factors?

Anaheim Man Sues John Kerry and Chuck Hagel For Aiding Israeli Bombing Of Gaza (http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2014/08/gaza_strip_lawsuit.php)
Court officials in Orange County sent a 60-day summons requesting that Kerry and Hagel reply to the complaint.

[vita3]

Who is next to lead?

[presence]

Ugly ouster: 'Frustrated' Hagel faces unfair sniping on way out, says McCain

Published November 24, 2014FoxNews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/)



WASHINGTON – Ousted Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had become "very, very frustrated" in the post before President Obama sought his resignation, according to a key lawmaker, who blasted the White House for a whispering campaign that accompanied the Pentagon boss' abrupt ouster Monday morning.
“I thank Chuck Hagel for his service, and I know that he was very, very frustrated,” Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is expected to take control of the Senate Armed Services Committee in January, said in a radio interview with KFYI.

McCain spoke following a Rose Garden press conference at which Hagel stood stiffly while Obama announced he would be stepping down. Although McCain, who served in the Senate with Hagel from 1996-2008, opposed his fellow Vietnam veteran's appointment to defense secretary, he said administration sources were wrong to assail Hagel on his way out the door.

“Already White House people are leaking, ‘Well, he wasn’t up to the job,’" McCain said. "Well, believe me, he was up to the job. It was the job he was given, where he really was never really brought into that real tight circle inside the White House that makes all the decisions which has put us into the incredible debacle that we’re in today throughout the world.”

McCain noted that Hagel characterized the Islamic State as the greatest threat in the Middle East, while Obama was calling them the jayvee (junior varsity) team less than a year ago. He also criticized Obama for failing in areas like the Middle East, Ukraine, and responding to a newly aggressive China.
“We’ve had our disagreements but Chuck Hagel is an honorable man,” McCain added.

At the news conference, Obama said Hagel concluded it’s an “appropriate time” for him to complete his service. Hagel has had a rocky tenure of nearly two years in which he's struggled to break through the White House's insular foreign policy team. He stepped down under pressure amid multiple foreign policy crises, including the rise of the Islamic State group.

But in remarks at the White House, Obama praised Hagel as "an exemplary defense secretary" and steady hand for strategy and budget. Obama said he'll always be grateful that Hagel has always "given it to me straight."

The Vietnam veteran and former Republican senator took office less than two years ago, and was charged with overseeing the winding down of decade-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hagel, 68, also steered the military during sweeping changes involving gays and women in the military. But in recent months, the Pentagon has taken on new challenges, including fighting Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and deploying military personnel to Africa to fight Ebola.
Sources told FoxNews.com that Obama's dissatisfaction with Hagel, as well as a desire to shake up the cabinet following the devastating midterm elections, played a role in the president seeking Hagel's ouster.

“Make no mistake, Secretary Hagel was fired,” a senior U.S. official with close knowledge of the situation told Fox News.


“Make no mistake,
Secretary Hagel was fired.”
- Senior U.S. official



This same official discounted Pentagon claims it was a mutual decision claiming President Obama has lost confidence in Hagel and that the White House had been planning to announce his exit for weeks.

“The president felt he had to fire someone. He fired the only Republican in his cabinet. Who is that going to piss off that he cares about?"
In a swipe at the resume of Hagel, who served as U.S. Army sergeant in Vietnam and received two Purple Hearts, the official added, “This is why you don’t send a sergeant to do a secretary’s job.”

Hagel took office Feb. 27, 2013, five years after retiring from the Senate. Prior to his political career, Hagel co-founded Vanguard Cellular, worked for an investment banking firm and ran American Information Systems, a company that makes computerized voting machines. He also taught at Georgetown University after stepping down from the Senate.

A senior defense official said that Hagel submitted his resignation letter to Obama Monday morning and that the president accepted it. Hagel agreed to remain in office until his successor is confirmed by the Senate, the official said.

The president is not expected to nominate a new Pentagon chief Monday, according to one official.

The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter by name ahead of Obama's official announcement.
Hagel, the only Republican on Obama’s cabinet, served as senator from Nebraska for two terms, beginning in 1996, and became a critic of U.S. involvement in Iraq. Obama nominated him to succeed Leon Panetta as Defense Secretary in his second term.

Recent questions about Hagel's future at the Pentagon were prompted in part by his decision to postpone a long-planned trip this month to Vietnam. At the time, officials said he needed to remain in Washington for congressional consultations, but that did not stop speculation that the White House might be looking for a replacement for the final two years of Obama's term.

Just last week, Hagel was asked about the speculation during an interview on the Charlie Rose show. He was asked whether he's concerned by the speculation.

"No. First of all, I serve at the pleasure of the president," Hagel said. "I'm immensely grateful for the opportunity I've had the last two years to work every day for the country and for the men and women who serve this country. I don't get up in the morning and worry about my job. It`s not unusual by the way, to change teams at different times."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/24/defense-secretary-chuck-hagel-stepping-down-fox-news-confirms/

[presence]

Sen. Reed, ex-Defense official Michele Flournoy surface as possible Hagel replacements (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/24/sen-reed-ex-defense-official-michele-flournoy-surface-as-possible-hagel/)
Michele Flournoy is front-runner to replace Hagel as Defense Secretary (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/nov/24/michele-flournoy-front-runner-replace-chuck-hagel-/)
Flashback: When DoD Hopeful Flournoy Attacked Romney for Saying Iraq Withdrawal was Mistake (http://freebeacon.com/national-security/flashback-when-dod-hopeful-flournoy-attacked-romney-for-saying-iraq-withdrawal-was-mistake/)




1st Female DOD secretary????

MICHELE FLOURNOY

http://cdnph.upi.com/collection/fp/upi/3687/ecd93b862603f6f3cf24d6a67b3f5616/Possible-successors-to-Defense-Secretary-Robert-Gates_2_1.jpg

[alucard13mm]

Obama is going through these defense secretary faster than rick james goes through cocaine.

[devil21]

When is his resignation/firing effective as of? I can't find anything specifically stating whether he was officially out as of the announcement and if so, who is SecDef right now? The main reason this concerns me is because if S-really-HTF in Ferguson and elsewhere, will the military be deployed? Is Obama himself currently SecDef? Has there ever been a time when there was a (possibly) major event that could have ramifications to our military yet there was no SecDef? Who then directly controls the military? Not good if it's Obama himself as both CIC and 'acting' SecDef.

[Lucille]

http://www.voxday.blogspot.com/2014/11/casualty-in-cabinet.html


He's fired an awful lot of generals too, come to think of it. I don't know if there have any bigger purges among the brass since pre-WWII Stalin.

Hmmm.

[CPUd]

Perhaps John McCain or Peter King will be nominated to replace him.

[presence]

He's fired an awful lot of generals too


That strategy worked out really well for Maliki.

[Dianne]

Hagel was just put in there to begin with as the only Republican on the Obama team to take his political hits for him, while he funds ISIS with your tax dollars. ISIS is the U.S. Government/CIA ... why do you think they have all the American arms in their fight against Syria? The entire plan is to take down Syria pursuant to the instructions given Obama by the Saudi government.

[Warlord]

The neocon replacement should make us shudder...

[H. E. Panqui]

Hopefully Rand uses the nomination to kill the drone program

(hint: I believe you'll find Rand has a little 'war-boner' himself!...good grief, it's like teen idol around here!)

[FindLiberty]

...(hint: I believe you'll find Rand has a little 'war-boner' himself!...)

No way, please say it isn't so.

Hope he don't go be all poke'n it in dat ole hole in da fence!

[Lucille]

PJB: Hagel Didn’t Torch the Middle East
The same warmongers crowing over Hagel’s departure are the ones who broke the world’s order.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/buchanan/hagel-didnt-torch-the-middle-east/


And John McCain’s assessment is dead on. Hagel, he said, “was never really brought into that real tight circle inside the White House that makes all the decisions which has put us into the incredible debacle that we’re in today throughout the world.”

Undeniably, U.S. foreign policy is in a shambles. But what were the “decisions” that produced the “incredible debacle”? Who made them? Who supported them?

The first would be George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, a war for which Sens. John McCain, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton all voted. At least Senator Hagel admitted he made a mistake on that vote.
[...]
Who made these decisions that created the debacle?

Was it those isolationists again?

[Lucille]

Speaking of Stalin:

New York Times Alters Hagel Story to Eliminate Obama's Dismissive Analysis of ISIS
http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/25/new-york-times-alters-hagel-story-to-eli


One notable example was how the two men discussed the Islamic State (ISIS). Early in the year, President Barack Obama compared the terrorist group to a junior varsity basketball squad putting on the Lakers' uniform. This seemed a bit dismissive of what ISIS might be able to accomplish, especially in retrospect (a United Nations expert estimates ISIS has made up to $45 million in ransoms in the past year). By contrast, Hagel described ISIS as an "imminent threat to all we have," an exaggeration in the other direction. The New York Times included a paragraph in his story with both examples to show the difference between the two men's positions.

Now that paragraph is gone. It was there when I wrote about Hagel stepping down yesterday. Now it has disappeared. Erick Erickson at Red State notes the change here, as well the removal of a sentence where sources said that Hagel had been the kind of defense secretary the president had wanted.

What's left behind is a story that has purged any reference that the president ever downplayed ISIS while Hagel played it up and makes it appear that Gen. Martin Dempsey was the main guy pushing for action against ISIS.

The story has had content added as well, as The New York Times folded in more responses to Hagel's resignation as it unfolded yesterday morning. But there is no explanation as to why that paragraph was deleted or any acknowledgment that it even happened.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/08/22/weekinreview/29702017.JPG

[FindLiberty]

Pre-Photoshop shopped photo still looks Shopped.