Monday, November 24, 2014

Pentagon Purge: Hagel Forced Out

◼ Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure - New York Times

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 the struggles of his national security team to respond to 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....

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.

◼ How Do You Spell Scapegoat? H-A-G-E-L - Bill Kristol/Weekly Standard

◼ It’s Happened Again: Obama Official Tells the Truth About Inconvenient Subject & Is Promptly Fired - Joseph Perticone/IJReview
Hagel has previously been at odds with President Obama in regard to fighting ISIL, referring to them as:
“[An] imminent threat to every interest we have” and “This is beyond anything that we’ve seen.”
Many believe this is exactly why Hagel was pressured to resign (or what is called in common parlance, “fired”)





◼ Breaking: Hagel fired? Update: Yes - HotAir
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....

The question now will be who replaces Hagel, and when. It won’t be in the lame-duck session; there isn’t enough time. That means Obama has to find a candidate who can pass muster with the new Republican majority in January, while still hewing close to Obama’s middle-of-the-road, hesitationist impulses. It’ll be interesting to see who Obama chooses, but don’t expect the GOP to block anyone who’s capable of handling the new policy. They will have lots of room to fight over Obama’s nominees, but not in national-security positions.
DRUDGE:
Sole Republican on national security team...
NYTIMES: 'First cabinet-level casualty' of election losses...
Blamed for slow response to ISIS, Ebola...
'Wasn't up to the job'...
Rose Garden departure announcement today...

◼ “Fire Hagel,” a Symptom of Obama’s Incompetence - Larry Johnson/No Quarter
This has more to do with the internal dysfunction of the Obama Administration. This is Valerie Jarret and Chief of Staff Denis McDonough trying to do something that makes it appear that Obama is in charge and still has a leadership mojo. And they are going to replace Hagel with who? Michelle Flournoy? You got to be kidding me.
◼ Why the Hagel-Obama relationship broke down - Washington Examiner
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