It took the Pentagon three and a half days to tell the White Home that Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had been hospitalized on New 12 months’s Day following issues from an elective process, two U.S. officers mentioned Saturday.
The extraordinary breach of protocol — Mr. Austin is in control of the nation’s 1.4 million active-duty army at a time when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine have dominated the American nationwide safety panorama — has baffled officers throughout the federal government, together with on the Pentagon.
Senior protection officers say Mr. Austin didn’t inform them till Thursday that he had been admitted to the intensive care unit at Walter Reed Nationwide Army Medical Middle in Bethesda, Md. The Pentagon then knowledgeable the White Home.
The Pentagon’s belated notification, first reported by Politico, confounded White Home officers, one Biden administration official mentioned. A spokeswoman for the Nationwide Safety Council declined to touch upon Saturday.
On Saturday night time, Mr. Austin issued a mea culpa.
“I recognize I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed,” he mentioned in a press release. “I commit to doing better.”
Mr. Austin added, “This was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decision about disclosure.”
President Biden and Mr. Austin spoke by phone Saturday night time, a U.S. official mentioned, including that the president was glad to listen to that Mr. Austin is recovering. One other official mentioned that the president has full confidence in his protection secretary. The officers spoke on situation of anonymity due to the delicate state of affairs.
It was late Friday night when Mr. Austin’s spokesman, Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, put out a press release to the information media that the secretary had been hospitalized. Normal Ryder mentioned affected person privateness prevented him from elaborating about Mr. Austin’s medical subject.
Within the Friday assertion, he mentioned the protection secretary, who’s 70, was “recovering well and is expecting to resume his full duties today.”
Mr. Austin was nonetheless within the hospital on Saturday, a protection official mentioned.
Pentagon officers needed to name Deputy Protection Secretary Kathleen Hicks whereas she was on trip in Puerto Rico to deal with affairs whereas Mr. Austin was hospitalized, a Protection Division official mentioned on Saturday, confirming a report by NBC News. The division mentioned on Friday that Ms. Hicks had assumed Mr. Austin’s duties quickly. The secretary has delegated authority to her prior to now, when he has been on trip and off the grid.
However simply Thursday, whereas Mr. Austin was out of motion, america launched a retaliatory strike in Baghdad that killed a militia chief who Pentagon officers mentioned was accountable for latest assaults on American troops within the area.
A Biden administration official mentioned that the pinnacle of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, already had authorization for the strike.
Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas and a member of the Armed Providers Committee, demanded on Saturday that Mr. Austin clarify why he had not instantly knowledgeable the White Home that he had been hospitalized and was unable to carry out his duties.
“The secretary of defense is the key link in the chain of command between the president and the uniformed military, including the nuclear chain of command, when the weightiest of decisions must be made in minutes,” Mr. Cotton mentioned in a press release. “If this report is true, there must be consequences for this shocking breakdown.”
Criticism was rising in different quarters as properly.
“The public has a right to know when U.S. cabinet members are hospitalized, under anesthesia or when duties are delegated as the result of any medical procedure,” the Pentagon Press Affiliation mentioned in a press release Friday night time. “As the nation’s top defense leader, Secretary Austin has no claim to privacy in this situation.”
Mr. Austin is notoriously non-public and has saved a low profile throughout his time as protection secretary. It has been greater than a yr since he appeared on the lectern within the Pentagon briefing room to deal with members of the information media, and he has been identified to typically keep away from reporters who journey with him abroad.
On these journeys, he prefers to dine alone in his resort room when he doesn’t have an engagement with a overseas counterpart.
In his assertion Saturday, Mr. Austin mentioned, “I am very glad to be on the mend and look forward to returning to the Pentagon soon.”
Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.
