Senate confirms Carter as Defense secretary

Tom Vanden Brook | USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted 93-5 Thursday to confirm Ashton Carter as Defense secretary, installing a long-time Pentagon insider at the top of the nation's war effort.

Carter, 60, succeeds Chuck Hagel who never really recovered from a bruising confirmation fight in 2013. Carter, by contrast, easily navigated his confirmation hearing and won unanimous support from the Armed Services Committee.

"Ash Carter served as a key leader of our national security team in the first years of my presidency, and with his overwhelming bipartisan confirmation by the Senate today, I'm proud to welcome him back as our next secretary of Defense," President Obama said in a statement.

Ashton Carter: Obama's pick for next Defense secretary President Obama is nominating Ashton Carter, the former No. 2 official at the Pentagon, to succeed Chuck Hagel as secretary of Defense.

A physicist by training, Carter has served under 11 Defense secretaries and most recently was the No. 2 official there. President Obama passed him over in favor of Hagel two years ago, but returned to him after Hagel offered his resignation under pressure in November.

Hagel was confirmed by a partisan 58-41 vote in 2013.

Senate approval for Carter was nearly a foregone conclusion after the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John McCain, R-Ariz., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., offered strong support for him prior to the vote.

"I think Dr. Carter will be a good secretary of Defense, who will always keep faith with our men and women in uniform and work tirelessly on their behalf and that of our national security," McCain said Thursday.

Carter, Reed said, "is the right leader at the right time" for the Defense Department.

Last week, Carter told the committee that he was open to reconsidering the pace of withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, scheduled for the end of 2016, and that he was inclined to send lethal aid to Ukraine to help it defend its borders from Russian-backed separatists. Both stands could put him at odds with the White House.

McCain, however, questioned whether Carter could withstand "micromanagement" from the White House. Former Defense secretaries Leon Panetta and Robert Gates complained late last year of undue meddling by White House aides.

However, Gates, in a recent interview with USA TODAY, said Carter is well qualified to lead the Pentagon. Carter's relationship with Obama and White House officials will serve him well, Gates said.

"The difference is that Ash has served more than five years with this administration," Gates said. "So he knows this president; this president knows him. He knows all the players at multiple levels. They will be familiar to him, and he to them. That'll make a big difference in terms of working relationships."