Hagel takes top US defense job as budget cuts loom

WASHINGTON (AP) — Chuck Hagel took charge of the U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday after a bruising confirmation fight — and two days before billions of dollars in budget cuts are scheduled to hit the military.

The Republican, who still faces skepticism and anger from some former Senate colleagues of his own party, was sworn in after a deeply divided chamber voted Tuesday to confirm him.

The twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran now faces $46 billion in automatic, across-the-board budget cuts that will hit the Pentagon on Friday unless a deal can be made by the Obama administration and Congress to avoid them. The White House on Wednesday said Obama would meet with congressional leaders on Friday, hours after the cuts take effect.

In brief remarks to Pentagon employees after being sworn in, Hagel called the cuts "a reality" that "we need to deal with."

He also struck a tone of humility and cast himself as prepared to take on the full range of national security challenges. He said he would strive to be "the kind of leader that you expect and you deserve — also the kind of leader the country expects and deserves."

Among Hagel's other challenges are deciding on troop levels in Afghanistan as the U.S. military emerges from two wars and fighting worldwide terrorism with smaller, deficit-driven budgets.

He also will have to work with lawmakers who spent weeks attacking him in one of the bitterest fights over a Cabinet choice in more than two decades. Fellow Republicans were angry that he had strayed from the party line on several issues.

The top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe, said Hagel's record on Israel, Iran, defense spending and nuclear weapons "demonstrate, in my view, a profound and troubling lack of judgment on many of the critical issues he will now be confronted with as secretary of defense."

But Inhofe promised to work with Hagel to avoid the deep budget cuts that loom.

Hagel joins President Barack Obama's new, second-term national security team, including Secretary of State John Kerry and CIA Director-designate John Brennan.

Obama alluded to the need for cooperation in his statement welcoming the vote.

The president said he was grateful to Hagel "for reminding us that when it comes to our national defense, we are not Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans, and our greatest responsibility is the security of the American people."

In the course of the nomination fight, Republicans insinuated that Hagel has a cozy relationship with Iran and received payments for speeches from extreme or radical groups. Those comments drew rebukes from Democrats and some Republicans.