Chuckie Hagel Under Fire from LGTB’s Over Picked for Defense in US

 

Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator expected to be nominated as defence secretary by President Barack Obama s  Although the White House hoped that Mr Hagel would carry cross-party appeal as the next defence secretary, officials were prepared for him to come under attack from conservatives and pro-Israel groups for his views on Iran, Israel and Afghanistan.

But following a series of leaks to US media this weekend that Mr Obama is preparing to nominate him as Pentagon chief in the next few days, the fiercest criticism has come from among the president's strongest supporters: gay and lesbian rights groups.

They have seized on a comment by Mr Hagel in 1998, when he said that President Bill Clinton's nominee for ambassador to Luxembourg, James Hormel, was not qualified for the post because he was "openly, aggressively gay".

The former Nebraska senator apologised for that last month, but homosexual lobbying groups are unimpressed by what they say is his belated attempt to make amends, or by his record on other gay rights issues.

GetEQUAL, a gay rights group, last night appealed to Mr Obama not to nominate Mr Hagel, a decorated Vietnam war veteran. "GetEQUAL strongly opposes the potential nomination of Chuck. [He] has, time and time again, taken every opportunity to lambast and denigrate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, and the Cabinet is no place for this kind of disrespect," said the group's leader Tanya Domi.

"Hagel's recent apology for his insulting comments about the nomination of James Hormel as US Ambassador to Luxembourg were hollow, politically expedient, and nakedly gratuitous."

And the Log Cabin Republicans, the oldest conservative gay group, also spent $100,000 to take out a full page advertisement in the New York Times to denounce him.

The role of gays in the military has long been a sensitive issue in America public life and Mr Hagel previously argued against allowing them to serve openly, calling it a “social experiment”.

Mr Obama overturned that ban when he ended the policy known as “don’t ask, don’t tell”. The incoming defence secretary will be responsible for overseeing the Pentagon’s new approach.

The Human Rights Campaign, America’s biggest gay lobbying group, gave Mr Hagel a zero score for several years for his voting record in the Senate.

But he has recently said that he now does support open military service and friends insist that his views on gay rights have undergone a “dramatic transformation”.

In a television interview last week, Mr Obama maintained his strong support for his likely nominee and indicated that he believed his apology for his remarks about Mr Hormel was genuine.

Mr Hagel currently serves on the president's intelligence advisory board and was one of the Republican senators who reached out across the aisle to a young Sen Obama when he was first elected to Congress. Mr Obama and his vice-president Joe Biden both have strong and friendly personal relationships with him.

Mr Hagel has come under fire for several weeks since his name was first floated as a replacement for Leon Panetta, who has made clear that he wanted to leave the administration soon after the second inauguration on Jan 20.

Another prospective Obama nominee, Susan Rice, who was the president's preferred choice to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, pulled out of the running after concerted criticism of her handling of the aftermath of the attack that killed the US ambassador in Libya.

The news that Mr Hagel is expected to be nominated in the next few days indicates that the White House believes he has weathered the campaign to derail him.

But under America's nomination system for senior government appointments, he will first have to undergo Senate confirmation hearings before he can take up the job.

He is likely to be grilled by Republicans and Democrats, although it is his former party colleagues on the Right who might try hardest to block his appointment.

Mr Hagel has come under fire for a comment in which he referred to pro-Israel lobbying groups as the "Jewish lobby" and seemed to complain about their influence on politics in Washington.

His conservative foes also say he is soft on Iran, particularly in terms of his scepticism about the efficacy of tougher sanctions over the country's nuclear programme, and view him as inadequately supportive of Israel – a criticism that has also been directed at Mr Obama.

Charles Krauthammer, one of the most influential neoconservative commentators in Washington, has argued that Mr Obama wants to appoint Mr Hagel as a "token" Republican to give his administration a less partisan veneer. The president's first defence secretary, Bob Gates, was also a Republican who had held the same job under Mr Bush.

Mr Hagel gained a reputation as an independent-minded figure during his years in the Senate and he was one of the strongest Republican critics of President George W Bush over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In his television interview with NBC's Meet the Press, Mr Obama strongly defended Mr Hagel, calling him a "patriot" and insisting that there was nothing in his record to disqualify him for the Pentagon job.

The president could announce the selection as early as Monday after returning from a family holiday in Hawaii, officials told The New York Times.

Mr Obama will also this week host President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, for talks at the White House during which the two men will discuss America's 2014 troop withdrawal.

Mr Hagel is understood to support the White House's plans the pull out many of the remaining 66,000 troops as quickly as conditions allow. US generals had lobbied for up to 20,000 troops to remain behind as trainers and advisers, but the White House is understood to want that number to be no more than 10,000 and possibly as low as 6,000.

By Philip Sherwell, New York