Hagel's resignation and White House messiness

[IIOY]

I always love these political insider perspectives.  Susan Rice must have a lot of enemies because stories about White House dysfunction *always* come back to her.  From today's WSJ:

Two months before he was pushed out as defense secretary, Chuck Hagel penned a private letter to the White House, arguing for new measures to rein in Russian President Vladimir Putin and greater efforts to reassure anxious European allies, according to officials briefed on the matter.



Shortly after the September letter, he wrote another memo calling for the administration to clarify its approach to the conflict in Syria. The two messages capped a year of frustrations for Mr. Hagel, who repeatedly found fault with what he saw as indecisiveness by the White House National Security Council, according to current and former officials close to him.



“One of the things that Hagel values most is clarity,” said a confidante of the defense secretary. “That’s not something that this White House has always done well.”



Mr. Hagel wasn’t alone in his frustration. His upset over what he saw as slow decision-making and White House micromanagement of the Defense Department was shared by his two immediate predecessors at the Pentagon.


Congressional officials who will review President Barack Obama’s choice to replace Mr. Hagel said it would be a challenge finding a successor who will be a suitable fit for the White House’s current national-security team.



James Jeffrey, who served as Mr. Obama’s ambassador in Turkey and Iraq, said of Mr. Hagel: “His removal won’t make things better because he was not the source of the problem. The problems seem to be closer to the president.”



Other members of Mr. Obama’s security cabinet have privately voiced similar frustrations, complaining to aides about monthslong discussions that lead to no decision and of having little input in the process, which is tightly controlled by a small number of top White House aides, officials who work for these cabinet secretaries say.



Mr. Hagel’s predecessor, Mr. Panetta, a Democrat, complained to aides that the NSC let proposals “just hang out there” without being acted upon. “You can’t use caution as an excuse not to make a decision,” Mr. Panetta told aides.



White House officials defend their deliberative approach, citing the risk of rushing decisions without fully thinking through all of the possible implications.



Moreover, these officials say, Mr. Hagel’s estrangement from the White House was mutual. Many White House officials said they weren’t impressed with the former Republican senator, who got poor marks for his public appearances and was less popular within the Pentagon than his two predecessors, Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, current and former officials said.



Current and former administration officials said Mr. Hagel simply didn’t click with some top White House advisers, chief among them Susan Rice , the national security adviser. Mr. Hagel and other top officials chafe at the way she runs policy-making meetings, which the officials say focus too much on tactical-level details rather than larger strategic matters.



Current and former White House officials defended Ms. Rice, saying she was balancing multiple crises at once that required hands-on attention.



Patrick Ventrell, an NSC spokesman, denied that there were “tensions between Mr. Hagel and Ambassador Rice over NSC processes,” and said they maintained a good working relationship.



In those meetings, Mr. Hagel sometimes seemed out of place, administration officials said, because he was often uncomfortable speaking out. That silence sowed doubts about him in the West Wing, the officials said.



The confidante of Mr. Hagel said the defense secretary was no fan of what he described as “endless gab sessions” at the NSC under Ms. Rice.Rather than speak out publicly in meetings, officials said Mr. Hagel preferred to offer his advice directly to the president and Ms. Rice in the form of memos or one-on-one meetings.



The clash in styles was compounded by institutional tensions that have been a hallmark of the Obama White House’s relationship with the Pentagon.



“The White House fears what the Pentagon is going to say and do. The Pentagon fears how the White House will react. Both sides are nervous of the other,” said a longtime Pentagon official. “It has persisted through three secretaries now—Gates, Panetta and Hagel—and it will probably persist through a fourth secretary.”



A White House official played down the rift, saying the White House and Mr. Hagel’s Pentagon coordinated closely. Given the tensions between Mr. Hagel and Ms. Rice, Mr. Hagel communicated largely through White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. But Mr. McDonough’s tense relationship with Ms. Rice complicated that dynamic, officials said.



Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon’s press secretary, said policy differences didn’t lead to Mr. Hagel’s removal. At a briefing Tuesday, he denied that there was “bad blood between the building and the White House or between Secretary Hagel and the team.”



Mr. Hagel’s disaffection with the White House started on Aug. 30, 2013, according to people close to Mr. Hagel.



That’s when Mr. Obama, after a private walk with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough in the Rose Garden, informed the defense secretary he was pulling the plug on plans to bomb Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over his alleged use of chemical weapons.



The strikes were slated to begin that next day, and Mr. Hagel told aides he thought the about-face would damage Washington’s standing in the world.



Mr. Hagel’s frustrations grew in 2014.



First the White House publicly promised U.S. support to Ukraine to counter Russian aggression, but then debated for months over proposals to provide Kiev with even nonlethal assistance.



The danger, Mr. Hagel told aides, was that Mr. Putin would interpret U.S. inaction as indifference, and conclude he can do to Ukraine whatever he pleases. Moreover, he thought over-promising and under-delivering would undercut U.S. credibility.



Mr. Hagel tried to move the ball forward with Mr. Obama directly. In a private meeting in late July, he warned Mr. Obama that the U.S. wasn’t focused enough on Russia, and was lurching from crisis to crisis without direction, according to a senior defense official.



Moscow—not the Middle East—posed the most serious long-term threat to international security, Mr. Hagel told the president. He said the U.S. needed to find a way to de-escalate tensions with Russia and counter either the impression or reality of Russia and China moving more closely together.



“We have got to find a way off this track,” Mr. Hagel told Mr. Obama, according to the senior defense official.



Mr. Hagel followed up with the September letter, warning the White House that decisions may need to be taken soon on what officials called “creative” new options to rein in Mr. Putin before the situation escalates.



The White House said Mr. Hagel didn’t need to elevate Russia on Mr. Obama’s list of priorities. “I can’t imagine us focusing more on Russia,” an official said.



While Mr. Hagel may have sent memos on the administration’s Syria and Russia policies, he didn’t advocate a position different than the ones Mr. Obama was pursuing, the White House official said. On Syria, Mr. Hagel never pushed for the president to adopt a policy of ousting Mr. Assad, the official said. His letter, instead, warned of the consequences of leaving the U.S. strategy on Mr. Assad unclear.



A month before his departure was announced, Mr. Hagel brought U.S. military chiefs to the White House to make the case directly to Mr. Obama that “you can’t keep asking us to do more things without adequate resources,” according to a senior defense official. Some White House officials thought the chiefs were pushing too hard for money and were put off by the meeting, according to officials.



Last Thursday, as Mr. Hagel again huddled at the Pentagon with Mr. McDonough, the White House chief of staff, to finalize his departure, Vice President Joe Biden touched down in Ukraine.



A C-17 cargo plane accompanying Mr. Biden delivered three long-awaited radar systems for the Ukrainian army, equipment that could help defend against Russian mortar attacks.



Mr. Hagel had voiced frustration to top aides about the delay in providing the systems, which Kiev first requested in the spring.

[Velar Fricative]

I won't lie, I could easily see why Hagel would be frustrated. Yes, making rash decisions is bad but taking your sweet-ass time when you shouldn't is bad too.

Also, I love how they "pen letters." That's so 1700s.

[lys]

When several qualified people leave the position for the same reason - you need to look at where the problem really exists .
THIS is cleaning up after Bush? I think not.

[lys]

When several qualified people leave the position for the same reason - you need to look at where the problem really exists .
THIS is cleaning up after Bush? I think not.

[ringstrue]

That sucks. What's the point of hiring good people if you aren't going to use their talents?

This mess sounds like my work environment, lol (cries)

[wawa]

I...think I agree with Lys.

[IIOY]

Nov 26, 2014 21:49:15 GMT -5 wawa said:

I...think I agree with Lys.

I do, too. This article actually doesn't say anything new about the environment at the White House because Obama's tenure has been marked by indecisiveness and an unwillingness to reach beyond his closest inner circle. For someone so well versed in Con Law, you'd think Obama would know better than to cloister himself like this. I will say it again: he may be a smart man but he is a terrible leader. I think the history books will be brutal to him.

[KateAggie]

"The White House said Mr. Hagel didn’t need to elevate Russia on Mr. Obama’s list of priorities. “I can’t imagine us focusing more on Russia,” an official said."

Well....that's frightening.

[lys]

Nov 27, 2014 7:31:57 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Nov 26, 2014 21:49:15 GMT -5 wawa said:

I...think I agree with Lys.

I do, too. This article actually doesn't say anything new about the environment at the White House because Obama's tenure has been marked by indecisiveness and an unwillingness to reach beyond his closest inner circle. For someone so well versed in Con Law, you'd think Obama would know better than to cloister himself like this. I will say it again: he may be a smart man but he is a terrible leader. I think the history books will be brutal to him.

Lack of leadership experience and relationship building while in the Senate were some of my major complaints about Obama when he was first a candidate running for office.  People were so blinedd by the "Hope and Change" and the idea of a black president that they could not see past the "Greek columns" theater to really evaluate who this man was. 
And then they voted for him again ---- wake up people.