Chuck Hagel

A group of 15 Republican senators have sent the following letter to President Obama asking for Chuck Hagel's nomination as secretary of defense to be withdrawn:

February 21, 2013

Last week, Alana Goodman of the Washington Free Beacon discovered a contemporaneous account of a 2007 speech Chuck Hagel gave at Rutgers University. The account, from Hagel supporter George Ajjan, was posted on Ajjan’s website the day after the speech. During the Q&A segment of his appearance, Hagel argued the U.S. State Department had become an adjunct of the Israeli government.

Omaha, Nebraska
Chuck Hagel’s archive is housed here at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. But despite his nomination for secretary of defense, reporters, as well as the public writ large, are being denied access to the thousands of papers, speeches, audio and video files, and artifacts in the archive.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD is told that Hagel supports the university’s decision to keep the archives sealed.

Chuck Hagel, Barack Obama's defense secretary nominee and a former Nebraska senator, said in a 2008 interview that he agreed that the United States has not been a "fair or credible peace broker" in the Middle East, specifically with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Omaha, Nebraska
The largest known Chuck Hagel archive is located here, at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. But good luck accessing it: Despite intense national focus on the defense secretary nominee’s record, this reporter was shunned from taking a look inside the trove of Hagel’s videos, audio recordings, documents, pictures, and artifacts.

At a 2010 appearance at Rutgers University, former Nebraska senator and current defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel reportedly said that the state of Israel risks "becoming an apartheid state if it didn't allow the Palestinians to form a state." Hagel also referred to current Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "radical." Alana Goodman at the Washington Free Beacon reports:

Journalist Bob Woodward reported on Fox News this morning that Democratic senators are calling the White House to see whether Chuck Hagel will withdraw his nomination as secretary of defense:

The American Jewish Committee released a statement yesterday urging the Senate to continue to examine the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense. 

The statement reads:

Two U.S. senators have written a letter to Chuck Hagel to ask the defense secretary nominee to explain his assertion that "the State Department was becoming an adjunct of the Israeli Foreign Ministry." Hagel, the Washington Free Beacon reported yesterday, made the comment in 2007.

Former Defense Secretary William Cohen says that Hagel is now "in a difficult position." Politico reports:

John Podhoretz, writing in the New York Post:

The Emergency Committee for Israel releases this statement from Bill Kristol on the Senate's decision to delay the nomination of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense: