Secretary Hagel Was The Wrong Man At The Wrong Time To Lead The Pentagon
(Arlington, VA) Today, Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) CEO Pete Hegseth made the following statement on behalf of CVA in regards to the resignation of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel:
“In 2013, CVA opposed the nomination of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, believing that his past record on defense policy issues and his lack of a clear vision for America’s national security strategy made him the wrong man at the wrong time to lead the Department of Defense (DoD). Unfortunately, Chuck Hagel’s tenure as Secretary of Defense only confirmed our worst fears. As Secretary of Defense, Secretary Hagel, along with the rest of President Obama’s national security team, failed to articulate a clear national security strategy and instead projected weakness and indecision to the rest of the world which has led to increasing chaos from Eastern Europe to the Middle East. Additionally, it also quickly became clear that Secretary Hagel lacked the skills and ability to manage the largest department within the federal government. Under Secretary Hagel’s leadership, even simple tasks like naming a military operation became difficult for the Pentagon. This lack of managerial ability made it impossible for Secretary Hagel to properly address serious inefficiencies within the Pentagon’s bureaucracy and deal with the long-term pressures on the DoD’s budget.
“However, CVA also recognizes that while Secretary Hagel was part of the problem with Obama’s national security team, he was not the only problem. Since beginning his second term, President Obama has routinely placed people in key national security positions who have demonstrated that they lack the ability to lead America’s defense and intelligence establishments or create a long-term national security strategy that strengthens the United States’ national security. While Secretary Hagel had no business being Secretary of Defense, he is not solely to blame for the United States’ national security failures over the last two years and President Obama and his key national security advisers should not be allowed to make Secretary Hagel a scapegoat for those failures.
“Therefore, we hope that this is only the beginning of a larger restructuring of the President’s national security team and that many more advisers will follow Secretary Hagel out the door in the near future. We also hope that the President nominates a strong and experienced leader as the next Secretary of Defense that will help articulate a clear national security strategy for the United States and who will prioritize making the Department of Defense more efficient in order to keep our military potent and ready for today’s threats.”
###
To schedule a TV interview with Pete Hegseth, CEO of CVA, or other CVA experts, please email booking@guestbooker.com. For other media inquiries, contact Emily Laird at elaird@cv4a.org.
Concerned Veterans for America is a non-partisan, non-profit, 501(c)(4) organization that advocates for policies that will preserve the freedom and liberty we and our families so proudly fought and sacrificed to defend.