The US defense secretary has been fired after less than two years in office as the White House reorders a national security strategy upended by the Islamic State (Isis).
Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama’s third Pentagon chief and a former Republican senator, will leave the Department of Defense just weeks after his spokesman said Hagel was looking forward to serving “for the remainder” of the Obama administration.
Confirming his departure during an awkward White House ceremony, Obama said Hagel would stay in post until a successor was confirmed by the Senate, though the president was less effusive than he had been announcing the departure of his friend and closer political ally, the attorney general Eric Holder.
Obama went out of his way to list Hagel’s achievements, but avoided dwelling on US engagement in Iraq and Syria, merely praising Hagel’s work “helping build the international coalition” against the Islamic State.
Culled from The Guardian.
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