WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama offered strong support for former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel as the potential next US defence secretary but said in remarks aired yesterday that he had not yet decided on a nominee for the Pentagon post.
Hagel is considered a leading candidate to replace outgoing Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta, but the former Nebraska lawmaker has come under criticism for his record on Israel and for a comment that being of unconventional sexual orientation was an inhibiting factor for being an ambassador.
“I’ve served with Chuck Hagel. I know him. He is a patriot. He is somebody who has done extraordinary work both in the United States Senate, somebody who served this country with valour in Vietnam,” Obama told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview taped on Saturday and broadcast yesterday.
Any nomination for defence secretary must be approved by the Senate where some lawmakers have voiced criticism about their former colleague.
“I think a lot of Republicans and Democrats are very concerned about Chuck Hagel’s positions on Iran sanctions, his views toward Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah, and that there is wide and deep concern about his policies. All of us like him as a person,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said.
“There would be very little Republican support for his nomination, at the end of the day, there will be very few votes,” Graham said on Fox News Sunday.
Republican Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma said bluntly: “I cannot vote for Chuck Hagel.”
Aside from his controversial statements, “he does not have the experience to manage a very large organisation like the Pentagon,” Coburn said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If there’s a place that we need great management it’s the Pentagon.”
Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, said on the same television show that Hagel deserved “respect for the service he’s given our country in the military and in the Senate” and should be given consideration. “He at least deserves a hearing and an opportunity,” he said.
Obama said he had seen nothing that would disqualify Hagel.
The president said Hagel had apologised for his comments related to unconventional sexual orientation, referred to by NBC’s David Gregory in the
interview.
“With respect to the particular comment that you quoted, he apologised for it,” Obama said.
“And I think it’s a testimony to what has been a positive change over the last decade in terms of people’s attitudes about gays and lesbians serving our country. And that’s something that I’m very proud to have led,” he said.
Obama came out in favour of unconventional marriage in the middle of his re-election bid this year. Earlier in his term he presided over the end of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibited people of unconventional sexual orientation men and women from serving openly in the U.S. military.
Hagel, who left the Senate in 2008, has faced questions about his record on Israel.
Some of Israel’s leading US supporters contend that Hagel at times opposed Israel’s interests, voting several times against US sanctions on Iran, and made disparaging remarks about the influence of what he called a “Jewish lobby” in Washington.
REUTERS
