WASHINGTON – President Biden “has no plans” to fire Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after the military’s top adviser failed to tell his boss that he had been hospitalized for several days last week following complications from elective surgery, the White House said Monday.
“The president’s number one focus is on him [Austin’s] health and recovery, and he hopes to get him back to the Pentagon as soon as possible,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to South Carolina.
Austin, 70, has been hospitalized at Walter Reed Army Medical Center since New Year’s Day, transferring his duties to deputy secretary Kathleen Hicks while he is incapacitated.
Problem? Not only was Biden not immediately informed of the situation, neither was Hicks — who was on vacation in Puerto Rico when she learned of Austin’s hospitalization on Thursday, the day before the news became public.
The White House and the Pentagon said Austin resumed his duties on Friday – albeit from Walter Reed.
“He’s already doing all the functions you normally do. He’s just doing it now from a hospital bed,” Kirby said.”… There [are] there are no plans for anything other than for Secretary Austin to stay on the job and continue the leadership he has shown.”
President Biden has “no plans” to fire Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Reuters
Not only did the Pentagon fail to properly notify the White House of the Austin situation, but it also waited until after the close of business on Friday to publicly announce the situation.
The secretary underwent his mysterious surgery on December 22 at Walter Reed and was released the next day. On the evening of Jan. 1, “he began to experience severe pain,” and was taken by ambulance back to Walter Reed, “where he was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit,” Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder said Monday.
Ryder blamed the delay in notification on Austin’s chief of staff, who he said “has been sick with the flu, which caused this delay in notification.”
“We are studying how we can improve these notification procedures, to include White House and congressional notification,” added the Pentagon representative.
But New Year’s Day wasn’t the first time Austin was hospitalized without the president’s knowledge. The defense secretary’s overnight stay on December 22 at Walter Reed following his initial surgery was also not sent to the White House.
In a letter to a Defense Department spokesman shortly after the notification came, the Pentagon Press Association called it “an outrage” that Austin had been hospitalized for four days “and the Pentagon only told the public late on Friday.”
Three days later, the Defense Department still has not commented on the nature of Austin’s “elective” surgery — or said when he is expected to return to the Pentagon in person.
The mysterious operation and strange secrecy baffled lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, with House Armed Services Committee chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) issuing a joint statement Sunday demanding more information. and said they were “concerned with the way disclosures … were handled.
“Several questions remain unanswered including what the medical procedures and resulting complications were, what the Secretary’s current health status is, how and when the delegation of the Secretary’s responsibilities was made, and the reason for the delay in notification to the president and Congress,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Transparency is very important. Secretary Austin must provide additional details regarding his health and the decision-making process that occurred in the past week as soon as possible,” they added.
Some Republicans – including former President Donald Trump – have called for Austin to be fired from office, with the GOP presidential candidate saying the Pentagon chief “should be fired immediately for unprofessional conduct and dereliction of duty.”
“She has been missing for a week, and no one, including her boss, Crooked Joe Biden, has a clue as to where she is or might be,” Trump, 77, wrote on Truth Social Sunday.
Austin did not tell the White House that he was in the hospital. Reuters
Others, like House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), used the situation to poke fun at Biden.
“Is anyone surprised that Joe Biden doesn’t know where [Lloyd] Austin is?” Jordan said on X Monday.
“What’s worse,” asked Senate Armed Services Committee member Tom Cottom (R-Ark.) Monday on X, “[Austin] didn’t tell President Biden he was in the hospital, or did no one in the White House notice?
“She has been missing for a week, and no one, including her boss, Crooked Joe Biden, has a clue as to where she is or might be,” Trump wrote. @realDonaldTrump / Truth Social
“It raises serious questions about President Biden’s competence and leadership.”
The delayed notification violates the Pentagon’s own “Information Principles,” which hold that “it is the policy of the Department of Defense to provide timely and accurate information so that the public, Congress, and the news media can assess and understand the facts about the nation’s security and defense strategy.” .”
“The public has a right to know when a member of the US Cabinet is hospitalized, under anesthesia or when duties are delegated as a result of any medical procedure. That has become a practice even up to the presidential level,” wrote the Pentagon press corps. “As the top leader of national defense, Secretary Austin has no claim to privacy in this situation.”
“At a time when there are growing threats to US military service members in the Middle East and the US is playing a major national security role in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is extremely important for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making capacity of its top defense leaders, ” they added.
Although Biden plans to keep Austin in the role for the foreseeable future, Kirby also said he expects that the Biden administration will “see what we can learn from this.”
“I fully expect that we will see process and procedure here,” he said. “We will do what is similar to a hot wash and try to see if processes and procedures need to be changed at all or modified so that we can learn from this.”
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
