Hagel Assures on Iran, Israel in Senate Confirmation Hearing
Image by Getty Images
Chuck Hagel said he backed the U.S. policy of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as he testified on Thursday before a skeptical Senate panel considering his nomination to be President Barack Obama’s next secretary of defense.
Hagel, a former Republican senator and decorated Vietnam veteran, broadly defended his record on national security issues after a public campaign against his nomination by critics seeking to portray him as soft on Iran and anti-Israel.
“No one individual vote, quote, or statement defines me, my beliefs, or my record,” Hagel told the lawmakers in prepared remarks. “My overall worldview has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world.” (Reporting by Phil Stewart and David Alexander)
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
