Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday night that it is “dishonest” for lawmakers to make campaign speeches about the threat of the Islamic State without voting for a new authorization for the use of military force.
“Congress has the responsibility to go on the record on this,” Hagel, who resigned as defense secretary about a year ago, said at an Atlantic Council event. “The same people who refuse to vote or don’t want to vote or are making excuses not to vote go out and give campaign speeches about how terrible ISIS is and blame the Obama administration for mishandling it. That’s not just disingenuous, that’s dishonest.”
President Obama also called on Congress to pass a war authorization specific to the Islamic State during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.
So far, Congress has been unwilling for more than a year to take up a war authorization on which leaders on Capitol Hill say there is no consensus. Democrats want strict limits on when and how U.S. ground forces can be deployed, while Republicans refuse to tie the hands or limit the options of this commander in chief or the next.
Hagel was one of the first to say that the Islamic State would pose a major threat to the U.S., calling it a terrorist threat unlike any he had ever seen. Asked how he knew so early that the terrorist group would become such a big problem, Hagel said the Islamic State’s “sophisticated” use of social media and intelligence-gathering capabilities were unlike anything the U.S. had to combat with al Qaeda.
“I really felt strongly that this was a force we had never been up against and we were not prepared to deal with it,” he said. “We didn’t know how to deal with that.”
On the fight against the Islamic State, Hagel said airstrikes alone aren’t going to defeat the terrorist group and could actually make conflicts in the Middle East worse.
“You’re not going to solve this problem by just continuing bombing, bombing, bombing,” Hagel said. “You’re talking about ideology and history and disaffection that you’re not going to solve by bombing. You’ll make it worse.”
Hagel also warned that Congress can not cut defense budgets while the threats facing the U.S. grow and still expect the military to be able to respond in the same way it could when fully funded.
Asked if the military has the resources it needs to keep the nation safe, Hagel said he would have had to say “absolutely not” if lawmakers hadn’t struck a budget deal last year.
“We’re getting perilously close for me to say no. I think we are right on the edge,” he said.
Hagel said he will be watching the testimony of service leaders on Capitol Hill this year when they are under oath to say if their budget is enough for them to complete their mission. He said he expects to hear them say that the country is nearing a point where there is simply not enough money to adequately fund the nation’s defense.
“We’re at a critical, critical time here,” he said. “I am very concerned about the military budget because I don’t think it’s enough.”
Hagel talked about handling the start of sequestration and a 16-day government shutdown during his first weeks as defense secretary and spoke about the toll it took on the nation’s security.
Initially the Pentagon thought it would have to furlough people for 21 days, but after Hagel said that would be impossible, officials managed to cut furloughs to three or five days. Still, he said furloughs, coupled with the abrupt halt of training and maintenance just to stretch the budget through the year under sequestration, took a toll on the Defense Department.
He also urged Congress to avoid another government shut down at all costs because of the repercussions on the military and across the entire government.
“I hope this Congress has got a pretty good understanding of what you do to your country when you shut down a government,” he said. “When you say we’re just not going to function as a government and I’ll make my political point. Well you go make your political point out on the campaign trail, pal, not risk the security of this country.”
