THOM SHANKER
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel left Afghanistan at dawn on Monday, his anonymous Air Force cargo plane making a grand sweep of the ice-covered peaks that encircle the capital, ending a three-day visit punctuated by attacks.
In his first overseas trip as defense secretary, Mr. Hagel skipped the
usual ancillary stops at allied or friendly nations to focus on the war
in Afghanistan. He was confronted by bloody insurgent attacks so near
that a suicide bombing rattled the windows and ceiling tiles of the
military compound where he was attending briefings.
Equally jarring were the caustic criticisms of American and NATO policy from President Hamid Karzai, which were likewise timed to Mr. Hagel’s arrival.
However, the new defense secretary avoided being drawn into a public
dispute with Mr. Karzai, maintaining his reserve throughout, in
particular during public events surrounding his closed-door meetings
with Mr. Karzai and the security ministers.
“It’s complicated,” Mr. Hagel said when asked about the comments from
the Afghan president. Mr. Hagel used the “it’s complicated” construction
so often that it became a kind of unofficial mantra on the road.
Pentagon officials said later that Mr. Hagel had requested time to speak
privately with Mr. Karzai during their visit and official dinner late
Sunday. During the lengthy one-on-one session, officials said, the
defense secretary was “firm and direct” in making Washington’s case.
On Saturday, the morning after Mr. Hagel arrived, a suicide bomber
wearing a vest packed with explosives struck outside the Afghan Defense
Ministry, killing at least 10 people.
On Monday, an Afghan national police officer killed two American soldiers at a joint military base in Wardak Province, which Mr. Karzai has ordered American soldiers to leave.
Mr. Hagel said his priorities on the trip were to study the allied
campaign plan and the effort to transfer control of security to Afghans,
as well as to ensure that the interests of American and coalition
troops were protected. He acknowledged the central political conflict as
the Afghan leader and the American-led coalition struggle to balance a
thirst for sovereignty from the Afghan side against the realities of
carrying out the combat mission in Afghanistan. The NATO mandate expires
in December 2014.
Mr. Hagel is already accustomed to such complications. He arrived at the
Pentagon after a bruising confirmation in which an unprecedented number
of Republicans voted against him. But Mr. Hagel, a former Republican
senator from Nebraska, had the strong backing of President Obama. The
two men had traveled together to Afghanistan in the summer of 2008 when
both were still in the Senate. This trip was closely watched, as it was
Mr. Hagel’s first major act as a cabinet member, and as such may offer
clues to a new leadership style from other defense secretaries.
Among them, Donald H. Rumsfeld
showed up on Day 1 pledging to be an agent to transform the
bureaucracy, a focus that changed with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,
and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Robert M. Gates immediately set to
work salvaging Iraq — and was kept on to fix Afghanistan. Leon E.
Panetta pushed deeper budget cuts, and pressed on a number of social
issues, like allowing women in combat and expanding benefits for same-sex partners of military personnel.
Mr. Hagel set initial, somewhat narrower goals in his first overseas
foray. The new defense secretary, who retired from the Senate in 2009,
said he wanted to get a clearer sense of the war so he could better
advise Mr. Obama on managing the withdrawal and what to do after 2014.
The effort to define the way ahead in Afghanistan will also define Mr.
Hagel’s tenure. And his description of relations with Mr. Karzai also
described the broader challenges he confronts, whether the war, the
budget or relations with Capitol Hill.
“These are complicated issues,” he said. “These are not easy issues to deal with.”
For the Americans, the changing nature of the war was illustrated when
Mr. Hagel stopped to transfer to a command plane at Ramstein. During
such layovers, defense secretaries traditionally visit wounded Americans
at the famed Landstuhl hospital nearby. But in what was probably a
first for a defense secretary in more than a decade, there was not a
single American service member at the hospital who had been wounded in
Afghanistan.
Mr. Hagel entered the job not beholden to any of the traditional
Pentagon tribes, sects or cliques, displaying an affinity for the troops
that might be expected from a combat infantryman who earned two Purple
Hearts in Vietnam. At one stop in eastern Afghanistan, he even asked the
American soldiers on hand to offer him advice on his new job.
But Mr. Hagel resisted opportunities to portray himself as combat veteran intimate with the brutality of war.
When asked whether he carried lessons from the unpopular war in
Southeast Asia as he takes over management of a nearly forgotten war in
Central Asia, Mr. Hagel shrugged.
“There are always parallels to any war,” he said. “The only thing that I
would say is the world we live in today is so complicated.”
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