Senate confirms new defense secretary

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

The Senate on Thursday confirmed President Barack Obama’s choice to run the Pentagon, handing Ash Carter the unenviable task of steering the military as the United States confronts Islamic State militants, conflict in Ukraine and other worldwide threats.

The overwhelming bipartisan vote in the Republican-controlled Senate was 93-5. Carter will replace Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator who had a rough relationship with Obama’s insular group of national-security advisers.

Carter will be Obama’s fourth defense secretary in six years, joining a line of succession that began with Robert Gates and included Leon Panetta and Hagel. In a statement, Obama welcomed the bipartisan vote and Carter’s return to the president’s national security team.

One of Carter’s first tasks will be helping to win support for Obama’s call to Congress for new authority to use force against the IS extremists. Republicans and Democrats have reacted negatively to Obama’s draft proposal, criticizing both its limitations and vagueness.

In endorsing the 60-year-old Carter, Republicans expressed little hope that he would have better success in jelling with Obama’s inner circle than Hagel did. The former Republican senator and Vietnam War veteran often was the outsider, and he announced in November he was stepping down.

The president’s relationship with the Pentagon often has been strained.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who backed Carter, said he “needs to have the courage to speak truth to power — to Congress, yes, but also to his commander in chief.”