House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman: Hagel Pick 'Impossible'

The chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), told the Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin that it is impossible for him to see how Chuck Hagel is the right man to lead the Department of Defense. 

Royce said, “The long list of policy concerns that have arisen makes it impossible for me to see how Sen. Hagel is the right pick for one of the most important and demanding positions at this very challenging time.”

As previously reported by Breitbart News, Hagel gave a speech at Rutgers University in 2010 after which, in the question and answer period, he reportedly made several anti-Israel comments, including calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a radical, asserting that Israel might become an apartheid state, and accusing Israel of violating virtually every UN resolution since 1967. 

Hagel has also been accused of saying, in a speech at Rutgers in 2007, that the State Department was an adjunct to the office of the Israeli Foreign Minister, although Hagel has said he has no memory of saying that.

Royce, who has been elected to nine consecutive terms in the House, is a foreign policy expert. He was the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade. He authored legislation to target the proliferation of shoulder-fired missiles, a favorite weapon of terrorists. 

The goal is to lock-down or destroy shoulder-fired missiles around the world so that they are kept out of the hands of terrorists. The best defense is a good offense, so this proactive effort makes sense. It is also important that we put producing and proliferating countries on notice that we consider this a significant threat – and that they will be held accountable for knowingly transferring shoulder-fired missiles to terrorists or their state sponsors.

Among many other actions, Royce authored the Radio Free Asia Act of 1997, the Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act (targeting the brutal army that has terrorized Uganda for decades), and led a group to Darfur in 2005 to highlight the genocide there.