AP Sources: Hagel resigning as Defense secretary

AP Sources: Hagel resigning as Defense secretary

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down from President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, senior administration officials said Monday, following a tenure in which he has struggled to break through the White House’s insular foreign policy team.

Hagel is the first senior Obama adviser to leave the administration following the sweeping losses for Obama’s party in the midterm elections. It also comes as the president’s national security team has been battered by multiple foreign policy crises, include the rise of the Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

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

The official said both Hagel and Obama “determined that it was time for new leadership in the Pentagon,” adding that they had been discussing the matter over a period of several weeks. SOURCE

Chuck Hagel is not, at least in MY opinion, the best Secretary of Defense we could have had but he is most likely one of the best people serving in the Obama regime.

Does anyone besides me see a *rats and sinking ship* scenario shaping up?

Obama has canned so many Senior Military Officers, ones rumored to have made no secret of their opinions of Obama and his stupidity on the world stage, one now has to wonder; what in the world is left to choose from now that Obama has purged the Military with his own version of Night of the Long Knives.

Hagel is a Republican who served as senator from Nebraska and became a critic of U.S. involvement in Iraq. Obama nominated him to succeed Leon Panetta as Defense Secretary in his second term.

Hagel served in the Vietnam War and received two Purple Hearts.

Hagel was the only NCO to ever hold the position of Secretary of Defense. That alone makes Hagel a unique individual, he would surely see things through the eyes of the *grunts*, but it may also have been a detriment in his post as Secretary; although the old saying goes *NCO’s run the service*, it’s just not the hard cold fact. NCO’s probably know more about any given situation in their particular area of operation but they are not as well informed or *in the loop* as Senior Officers.

I wish Hagel much luck in his future endeavors; I hope he becomes a hard-core GOP guy and a solid Conservative. If he hasn’t seen the destruction brought on by Obama and his band of crooks and liars, then he is a lost cause.