THE PUBLIC EYE: Chuck Hagel: Obama’s Hatchet Man?
Even though he’s one of their own, many Republicans oppose President Obama’s Secretary of Defense nominee, former Senator Chuck Hagel. GOP leaders fear Hagel will be Obama’s hatchet man, leading the effort to shrink the defense budget.
Hagel is a Vietnam War veteran, an enlisted man who rose to the rank of sergeant as an infantry squad leader. A two-term Republican Senator, Hagel began as a hawk but his ardor for war diminished after he understood the mismanagement of the war in Iraq. In 2005, Hagel compared the Iraq conflict to the War in Vietnam.
If Hagel is confirmed he will oversee a bitter fight on the trajectory of the DOD budget. The 2012 budget was $646 billion – roughly 20 percent of the total US budget. But in 2013 sequestration would cut $55 Billion from the proposed budget. The current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said such a cut would be “a disaster for national defense.” Nonetheless, many Washington pundits doubt that there would be a dramatic impact, pointing to waste in defense spending and noting the US is winding down two wars.
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