WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s possible pick of Republican Chuck Hagel to run the Pentagon raises serious concerns among some of his former Senate colleagues, who question his pronouncements on Iraq, Israel and the Middle East.

The reservations publicly expressed by a few Republicans and even a Democrat hardly rival the unyielding GOP objections to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, who withdrew from consideration last week for secretary of state in the face of relentless attacks, mostly over her public statements about the Sept. 11 assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.