Fox senior political analyst Brit Hume said on “America’s Newsroom” that the Obama administration claim that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wasn’t fired was simply “not credible.” (RELATED: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Resigns ‘Under Pressure’)
“We will find out more as the day wears on and we’ll also find out more when we know whom the president appoints to succeed Hagel. But just at first blush, I find it not credible that he wasn’t forced out,” Hume said. “[Fox News correspondent Wendell Goler] just ran through the list of some of the disagreements he made clear he had with the president over ISIS, which was a big deal. Also, those in his command expressed similar misgivings and talked about doing things like adding ground troops the president has forsworn.”
“My guess is that there was clearly some tension between the Pentagon and the White House, and my sense is the president probably had enough of that,” he continued. “He believes he was elected to downsize the U.S. military and diminish its footprint around the world, and here you had people under his command saying we need to enlarge it to carry out the specific mission of dealing with ISIS.”