Given the threats we face, is it too much to ask for the most powerful military to have competent Pentagon leadership?
On the first of this month, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center, necessitating intensive care and incapacitating him from his Pentagon duties for nearly an entire week.
An incapacitated Secretary of Defense would be a concern for the Pentagon under the best of circumstances, but there was a terrible twist in this story: With the Secretary Austin in the ICU, Pentagon officials did not bother to update the National Security Council until three days after his hospitalization. (READ MORE from Philip Reichert: The Military’s F-35 Fiasco)
Public concern was immediate and outspoken, and for good reason. The White House, National Security Council, and Congress were kept in the dark by the Pentagon even as the Deputy Secretary of Defense began to assume Secretary Austin’s duties. As if things couldn’t get worse, the Deputy Secretary of Defense was on vacation in Puerto Rico.
This shocking news comes at the heels of a very bad year for the Pentagon, featuring shocking crises such as the Chinese spy balloon controversy and a hundred-million-dollar game of hide-and-seek with an F-35 in the skies over South Carolina.
