WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary🐎 Chuck Hagel, the first enlisted combat veteran to head the Pentagon, resigned Monday under pressure from a White House that wanted new leadership to tackle growing concerns about issues from ISIS terrorism to Russian aggression.
Officials said publicly the decision that Hagel leave after only 21 months in th💧e ♌job was mutual.
But privately, others said he was forced out.
“There’s no question he was fired,” said one source with knowledge of🍷 the 🅘matter.
Anotꦜher White house source kicked Hagel on the way out thꦕe door, telling NBC that he was not “up to the job.”
But less partisan observers said Hagel never meshed wi🅰th President Obama’s in🌄ner circle.
“He was a very good man who was chosen because he was an independent thinker and the president li🍌ked that,” said David Olive, a homeland security lobbyis♒t at Catalyst Partners in DC.
“What got him into trouble was that he was an i🃏ndependent thinker who spoke his mind.”
Hagel had spoken out of turn on ISIS, c🔯alling the terror group an “imminent threat.” The White House later had to walk back his comments on whether combat♚ troops would be deployed.
ISIS took credit on social media f🤪or Hagel’s resignation, posting his picture with an Arabic hashtag that translated: “The Islamic State Topples the American Defense Minister,” according to Vox Media.
“Hagel was increasingly out of sync with the White House senior advisers who would bypass him and work d🦋irectly with the top generals at the Pentagon because they wanted to control the process themselves,” said John Ullyot, a former Marine officer and GOP spokesman for the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Hagel, the only Republican in the Cabinet and first casualty after the Democrats’ midterm thumping, agreed to stay on until his successor is confiꦏrmed.
Potential successors ♔include Ashton Carter, a former deputy sectary of defense, and Michèle Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense who would become the first female at the helm.
Republicans blamed Obama, not Hag🍰el🏅, for bungled responses on ISIS, Ebola and Russia.
Sen. John McCain, the inco🔴ming armed services chairman, said Hagel “was very, very frustrated” with the la🔥ck of strategy.
“Already White House people are leaking ‘well he wasn’t uꦅp to the job,’ believe me, he was up to the job,” McCain said on KFYI radio in Phoenix.
“It was the job he was given where he really was never really brought into🧸 that real tight circle inside the White House that makes all the decisions which has put us into the incredible debacle that we’re in today throughout the world.”