Hagel slams Obama

Hagel

Obama Barack Obama lost international credibility when he decided against attacking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2013, former US defense chief Chuck Hagel said in a damning appraisal of his former boss.

In his first lengthy public remarks since being forced from the top Pentagon position in February, Hagel aired a series of gripes against Obama, including that leaders around the world lost confidence in the US president after he backed down from attacking Assad.

In August 2013, Obama said publicly that Assad’s use of chemical weapons would be a “red line.”

After the Syrian leader used the weapons against his own people anyway, Hagel finalized plans to launch cruise missiles against the Damascus regime.

But the order to attack never came -lawmakers did not support the action.

“Whether it was the right decision or not, history will determine that,” Hagel said in interview with Foreign Policy magazine Friday. “There’s no question in my mind that it hurt the credibility of the president’s word when this occurred.”

Hagel said the episode underscores the White House’s struggles on what to do in war-torn Syria.

Officials would hold lengthy meetings on the subject that would often end with no decisions being made, he said.

A senior Obama administration official told Foreign Policy that the president did not want to carry out a military operation without first getting congressional approval. (AFP)