The U.S. must clarify what it’s going to do about Assad, Hagel wrote to Rice. Syria debate roils administration

President Barack Obama’s top national security aides are at odds over the U.S. strategy for Syria, engaged in a debate behind the scenes as the administration endures a rash of withering skepticism on foreign and defense policy.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week sent what’s been described as a sharply critical memo on Syria to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, faulting the administration’s outlook for failing to account for Syrian President Bashar Assad.


The U.S. must clarify what it’s going to do about Assad, Hagel wrote, especially given that it will face a decision about how to respond when the Syrian fighters it wants to train in Saudi Arabia come into conflict with Assad-backed forces.

The memo was first described on Wednesday by The New York Times. A defense official confirmed details about it to POLITICO. And Hagel was asked about it Thursday, as well as whether he has doubts about the current Syria strategy.

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“The baseline is this is a complicated issue,” Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon. “We are constantly assessing and reassessing and adapting to the realities of what is the best approach, how we can be most effective. That’s a responsibility of any leader, and because we [the Defense Department] are a significant element of this issue, we owe the president, and we owe the National Security Council, our best thinking on this. And it has to be honest and it has to be direct.”

The Times’ report followed stories by POLITICO Magazine, Reuters and others questioning Obama’s management of national security as the U.S. grapples with crises in Syria and Iraq, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the ongoing standoff with Russia in Eastern Europe.

Earlier, Obama’s first two secretaries of defense, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, published books criticizing his decisions on national security. Specifically, they complained that Obama has brought so much responsibility into the executive office of the president that it has paralyzed the White House’s ability to think strategically.

The National Security Council itself has grown from about 50 people under President George W. Bush to just under 400 people under Obama, Reuters reported. Critics say that creates bottlenecks in decision making and crowds out senior Cabinet advisers like Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry. One administration official told the Times that Kerry has become Sandra Bullock’s astronaut in the movie “Gravity,” untethered from the administration and floating out on his own, in free fall.

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White House press secretary Josh Earnest responded to the stories on Thursday by restating Obama’s support for his national security team.

“The president and his senior team at the White House are proud of the work that the president’s Cabinet are performing to represent our interests around the globe,” Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One, flying to Maine.

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council declined to comment.

Even though defense officials, including Hagel, didn’t dispute he’d sent Rice the critical memo, he and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey rejected the notion they’re boxed out of the White House. Specifically, Dempsey was asked about a POLITICO Magazine report that described him jumping into Obama’s limousine to urge action in Iraq because that was the only way he could get face time with the president.

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“I don’t know where that came from,” Dempsey said. “I think in the last three weeks I’ve probably spent more time with the secretary and the president than I have with my family … I don’t have any difficulty whatsoever gaining access to the president when I need to have it.”

Obama has appeared out of step with his foreign and defense policy leaders before, including last year, when it appeared he was on the verge of ordering an attack on Assad. Later, Kerry appeared to open the door to collaborating with Iran in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

More recently, Dempsey has continued to make clear he’d recommend sending American special operators into action with Iraqi troops if he feels that’s the right course — despite Obama’s blanket prohibition on the use of U.S. ground troops.

Hagel told reporters on Thursday that the problems confronting Washington are the most difficult in the world and that the number of agencies and governments involvement meant there would probably never be perfect agreement on everything.

“The inter-agency, all of the agencies, relative to national security in this government, are working on the Syria, ISIL, Middle East issue,” he said. “We’re constantly assessing, we’re constantly adapting, we’re constantly working through different options. This is complicated, it’s long-term, there’s no short-term easy answer to it … we look at every option. That’s why we meet so often on this issue.”