Carter gets closer to being new defense secretary
A US Senate panel has voted in favor of backing Ashton Carter as President Barack Obama's next Secretary of Defense.
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 25-0 on Tuesday to pave the way for an easy full confirmation at the Senate as soon as Wednesday, Reuters reported.
The 26-member panel voted 25-0, with one member not voting, in favor of the former Pentagon No. 2 as a replacement for Chuck Hagel, who resigned under pressure in November 2014.
Hagel resigned under pressure after less than two years as the head of the Defense Department. US officials said privately that he had been forced out. "There’s no question he was fired," said one official.
Hagel had expressed frustration over the Obama administration’s strategy in Iraq and Syria. During his time as Senator, Hagel was an outspoken critic of Israel and openly criticized the Bush administration’s foreign policy.
Carter, 60, was the deputy secretary of defense from October 2011 to December 2013, serving as the top deputy to Hagel and his predecessor Leon Panetta. He also served as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy under President Bill Clinton.
At a hearing in front of the panel on February 4, Carter, who would be Obama's fourth defense secretary, said he supports giving lethal arms to the Ukrainian forces to face pro-Russia protesters in the east and called for a “lasting defeat” of the ISIL terrorists, rather than Obama’s pledge to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Takfiri group.
NT/NT
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