Washington – It is still the president’s administration joe biden Unable to reveal why Secretary of Defense General Lloyd Austin waited 4 days to inform White House And leaders Congress The American people admitted him to the hospital and placed him in the intensive care unit at the Walter Reed Military Center in the Besazda neighborhood of Montgomery County in the state of Maryland, adjacent to Washington, DC.
The White House insists that President Joe Biden, who did not learn that Austin had been hospitalized until three days after his admission, still has full confidence in him. The White House said that the two men had a “cordial” conversation last Saturday evening, during which Biden told Austin that he looked forward to his return to work.
Senior White House officials said on Sunday that “the nature of Austin’s medical condition remains a mystery to many senior White House staff,” but they added that the situation was unlikely to affect Biden’s positive opinion of his defense secretary.
Austin was admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit after complications from surgery on December 22, Pentagon officials said.
A special relationship
It is not known that there are any previous differences between Biden and Austin, and the latter enjoys a special relationship with the president due to the minister’s previous friendship with Biden’s late son, Beau, as the two regularly attended Catholic Mass during their military service in Iraq.
Reports indicate that Biden, perhaps due to his great age as he is 81 years old, believes that privacy and lack of complete transparency in some personal matters should be allowed, even for a high-ranking public official. This is why Biden is likely to sympathize with Austin’s cover-up of his health condition and not take any punitive measures such as dismissal or public criticism, despite the crisis caused primarily by the lack of transparency on the part of Secretary Austin.
Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, a former Pentagon official, who requested to remain anonymous, indicated that President Biden’s choice of retired General Lloyd Austin 3 years ago was primarily an emotional choice to please his friend, the black Democratic representative from South Carolina, James Clyburn, who played a major role in tipping the balance. Biden in the party’s primaries in the previous election.
The official added that Clyburn was angry with Biden for not nominating any black person among his new cabinet team under formation at the time, which necessitated Biden’s haste to choose an African American woman and man to fill the position of America’s ambassador to the United Nations and the position of Minister of Defense. “In fact, those working in the Pentagon realize that General Austin lacks the decency and confidence necessary to hold the highest military position in the country.”
Lost transparency
The astonishment of experts and commentators at the Pentagon’s delay in revealing Austin’s health condition was compounded by what American ministers were doing regarding health issues related to them. When Attorney General Merrick Garland underwent surgery in 2022, for example, the Department of Justice issued a detailed statement regarding the procedure and diagnosis. The medical information required, including how long the surgery will last and how long Garland will stay in the hospital afterward.
In August 2022, Austin issued a statement on the day he tested positive for the Coronavirus, providing details about his infection, and about President Biden’s contact with him to check on his health condition.
In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, an expert in American affairs, who requested to remain anonymous, said, “The lack of transparency by General Austin regarding the nature of his health condition is primarily related to his lack of self-confidence, and his unwillingness to appear weak resulting from the disease, which is considered a fundamentally human instinct.” But this is not consistent with political traditions in American government administrations, especially in high and sensitive positions in the field of national security.”
The Pentagon is without a leader
Austin’s hospitalization coincided with his deputy, Kathleen Hicks, spending a family vacation on the island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea, amid escalating tensions in the Middle East.
While he was in the intensive care unit, the United States launched an air strike, killing the leader of one of the Iranian-backed factions in Baghdad, where American military bases had been the target of attacks at least 6 times during the previous days.
The Biden administration is also considering options to strike the Houthis in Yemen due to their ongoing attacks on ships in the Red Sea in response to Israel’s aggression against Gaza strip.
This prompted Republican Representative Mike Waltz, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, to launch a major attack on Secretary Austin and President Biden.
“Who has been communicating with the National Security Council about the ongoing threats against our soldiers in the Middle East? I don’t know if it’s more troubling that the chain of command has literally been non-existent for days, or that the White House is on the verge of… “It seems that there is so little communication with the Pentagon that no one noticed the missing Defense Minister at a time when we are witnessing two major wars.”
On the other hand, Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder confirmed that Austin “has no plans to resign” over the incident. It is not clear when the 70-year-old Defense Minister, a retired general who served 41 years in the US Army, will be released from the hospital.
For his part, Austin said in a statement issued last Saturday that he is “on the mend, and looks forward to returning to the Pentagon soon.” He added, “I also understand the media’s concerns about transparency, and I realize that I could have done a better job to ensure that the public was better informed” about my health condition.
