Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Hagel’s record nevertheless would be given a fair shake in the Senate. McConnell stopped short of saying whether he would support his former colleague.
“He’s certainly been outspoken in foreign policy and defense over the years,” McConnell said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” He added: “The question we’ll be answering, if he’s the nominee, is: Do his views make sense for that particular job? I think he ought to be given a fair hearing, like any other nominee. And he will be.”
Brennan, a veteran CIA analyst who rose to become deputy executive director during the first term of President George W. Bush, was also considered for the top CIA post in 2009, when Obama first took office. He was forced to withdraw from consideration after liberal groups accused him of complicity in the agency’s use of brutal interrogation measures under Bush — criticism that Brennan denounced as unfair and inaccurate.
His nomination now — after serving for four years as Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, a position which did not require Senate confirmation — could spur scrutiny of his role in escalating the CIA’s drone war and renew debate over the agency’s use of harsh methods.
But the level of opposition appears to have subsided. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently said she believes that Brennan could be confirmed.
Brennan, 57, would be filling the vacancy created by the resignation of David H. Petraeus, following the discovery that Petraeus was having an adulterous affair.
“Brennan has the full trust and confidence of the President,” an administration official said in a statement Monday. “For four years, he has seen the President every day, and been by his side for some of his toughest decisions.... Brennan is as close to President Obama as any member of his national security team.”
The nominations of Hagel and Brennan begin what White House officials have said will probably be a busy week of announcements about who will fill Obama’s second-term Cabinet and senior staff positions. The president returned Sunday from a curtailed holiday in Hawaii and must start making final personnel decisions that were delayed by the year-end negotiations with Congress over taxes and spending cuts.
Foreign policy tussle
Despite the opposition to a Hagel nomination that has arisen on Capitol Hill, a senior administration official said Sunday that the White House expects him to receive the support of Democrats, as well as many Republicans who served with him.
“Having a name floated and having one officially put forward are two different things,” the official said.
Hagel, who was twice awarded the Purple Heart for wounds suffered in Vietnam, served in the Senate for two terms, ending in 2009.
He was an outspoken and often independent voice as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, breaking with many in his party to sharply criticize the management of the Iraq war after he initially supported the U.S.-led invasion.
“A lot of Republican opposition is rooted in the fact that he left his party on Iraq,” the senior administration official said. “And we think it will be very hard for Republicans to stand up and be able to say that they oppose someone who was against a war that most Americans think was a horrible idea.”
Hagel also has been a strong advocate for veterans, an issue that Obama has spoken about frequently as tens of thousands of U.S. troops return from battlefields after more than a decade of war. The administration official said Hagel, as a result, is “uniquely qualified” to help wind down the war in Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and make budget decisions to support the returning troops.
Some of the recent criticism directed at Hagel has focused on his mixed record over the imposition of sanctions on Iran. As a senator, Hagel opposed several bills to impose unilateral sanctions on Iran. But he also supported measures to put in place sanctions as part of multinational efforts, and he endorsed labeling Iran a state sponsor of terrorism.
Hagel’s record has raised concern among some of Israel’s supporters in the United States, who fear that he may not be sufficiently committed to that country’s security.
But his defenders point to his record as a senior senator on the Foreign Relations Committee, where he voted for nearly $40 billion in military aid to Israel over his tenure.
Obama, who worked with Hagel on nuclear nonproliferation issues and other foreign policy matters in the Senate, has vowed to prevent Iran from using its uranium-enrichment program to develop a nuclear weapon.
Obama has worked to tighten both U.S. and international sanctions to pressure Iran into giving up the effort, moves that Hagel has supported in recent interviews. The Iranian government has said that it is pursuing nuclear power, not weapons.
A network of supporters
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