BROKEN CHAIN: For at least three days last week, maybe five, the second link in the U.S. military chain of command, the man the president would call to order military action in a crisis, was missing in action with no explanation. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in what appears to be an effort to keep his personal medical concerns private, entered the hospital the Friday before Christmas for what was described as an “elective medical procedure.” Austin apparently believed he could have minor surgery and be out the next day and no one would be the wiser. But then it got complicated. As in complications from the procedure, which forced Austin back to the hospital on Monday, Jan. 1, and the Pentagon to fess up late on Friday.
At first, it seemed only the press and the public had been kept in the dark, which provoked howls of protest from two organizations representing defense reporters, the Pentagon Press Association and Military Reporters and Editors. But over the weekend, the slow drip of information revealed a breathtaking level of deception. No one had been informed of Austin’s stay in the intensive care unit at Walter Reed hospital, not the president, not the national security adviser, not the secretary of state, not even Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, who had to assume some of Austin’s responsibilities while vacationing in Puerto Rico.
