200 US troops are headed to Jordan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced today. Their stated purpose is to help contain violence spilling over from the Syrian conflict, and according to Mohammad al-Momani, Jordan’s Minister of State for Information, they should be arriving “in the next few weeks.” This is a significant announcement, but we’re betting it’ll get buried under all the news today about gun control legislation and the Boston explosion. And that’s a shame. source
The public, stated reason for this is to show solidarity with federal workers who were furloughed due to the sequester. An alternate explanation: The President warned for weeks that the sequester would have a disastrous effect on the country, but its effects since hitting haven’t been acutely felt by the citizenry at large. These pledges by the president and his allies serve as a public reminder that yes, the sequester did have tangible, measurable effects—at least for the workers who’ve been furloughed—and thus retroactively lend credence to the president’s warnings. source
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is reviewing a lieutenant general’s decision to overturn a guilty verdict in a sexual assault case.
Hagel wrote in a letter to Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) that he told the Air Force secretary and Pentagon lawyers to review the case after Lt. Col. James Wilkerson’s guilty verdict was dismissed by Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin.
While he’s called for a review of the case, Sec. Hagel was also quick to remind reporters that he has no legal authority to overturn the decision himself; however, many on Capitol Hill are hopeful that this will be a first step towards overhauling the Pentagon’s existing policies for investigating/prosecuting cases of sexual assault.
Only hours after a 12-day filibuster was broken, the U.S. Senate has confirmed Chuck Hagel as the nation’s next Secretary of Defense. The final vote was 57 - 41, with only four Republicans crossing party lines to vote for Hagel’s confirmation.
(Source: reuters.com)
The U.S. Senate is expected to confirm Hagel’s nomination at 4:30pm EST on Tuesday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized Senate Republicans for a 12-day filibuster which delayed the confirmation, saying it earned them “nothing” and sent “a terrible signal to our allies around the world.” source
We do not have, at 12 o’clock today, a Secretary of Defense.Harry Reid, revealing today that Senate Republicans have rounded up the 41 votes necessary to block the nomination of Chuck Hagel to the Defense Department. Today is outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s last day on the job; if Republicans make good on their threats during Hagel’s confirmation vote tomorrow—and this is certainly a big “if”—it will be the first time a nominee for Secretary of Defense has been filibustered, and the country will be left without a Defense Secretary. A couple of Republican senators have threatened to block Hagel’s nomination unless the Obama Administration releases more information about the attack last year on the American consulate in Benghazi, an incident with which Hagel was wholly uninvolved. A Hagel spokesman said today that despite the threats of his former colleagues, the Nebraska Republican is not withdrawing his nomination. source
Powell champions Hagel as defense secretary and rips some Republicans
(Photo: Meet the Press)
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that President Barack Obama’s nominee to be defense secretary, former Sen. Chuck Hagel, was “superbly qualified” and would be a strong advocate for Americans in uniform.
Here’s the sad part: If Powell tried to run for president today, he’d get railroaded in the primaries because he’s too moderate. His words matter in this discussion because of his time as Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but we’re not in an era where arguments favoring a moderate stance, like this one, win easy. Then again, Obama could nominate the reanimated version of Ronald Reagan as Defense Secretary and Reagan would still face an uphill battle.
Former Senator Chuck Hagel is likely to be nominated for Secretary of Defense next week, according to congressional and administration sources, reports The New York Times. Hagel, 66, has been the rumored pick for weeks now, but has weathered a lot of criticism in the intervening time — specifically regarding his denouncement of openly-gay ambassador James Hormel in the 90s, as well as whether his support for the state of Israel is sufficiently rigid enough for congressional conservatives to confirm him. (Photo from Secretary of Defense) source
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