Sen. Skeptic : Chuck Hagel is Bush's #1 war critic in Congress - R., France - Brief Article

National Review, August 12, 2002 by John J. Miller

Republicans wouldn't have let a Democrat get away with the finger- wagging lecture Sen. Chuck Hagel delivered to Secretary of State Colin Powell last February. "Words have meaning. Symbols have meaning," warned Hagel at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing. He accused the Bush administration of harboring "a cavalier attitude" toward the rest of the world. The "folly in the conduct" of the Vietnam War had "destroyed" the presidency of Lyndon Johnson -- and the same sorry fate could befall Bush. "This is serious business," Hagel told Powell. "We have to be very careful here what we're doing."

The Nebraska Republican was worked up about President Bush's State of the Union speech, specifically its most memorable line: "States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil." Hagel regarded this as "name-calling." In May, he went a bit further: "Our potential to lead the world at such a critical time in history calls for creativity, boldness, and vision rather than nostalgia and dividing the world into simplistic categories."

Tom Daschle's own criticism of Bush's "axis of evil" phrase was much gentler: "We've got to be very careful with rhetoric of that kind." Yet those words practically got Daschle accused of treachery, and he took them back almost at once. As a Republican, however, Hagel is immune to charges of partisanship. His assessment of Bush is therefore more interesting. He's become a fixture on the political talk shows, urging "caution" on the president -- especially if the subject is an invasion of Iraq. Today Hagel is the Bush administration's most outspoken war critic in Congress.

Which isn't to say he's its sharpest critic. His speeches are littered with what might be called Hagelian dialect: declamations that may sound weighty when spoken but become insubstantial on the printed page. "We cannot shrink from the reality before us," Hagel told the Council on Foreign Relations in April. "We have no option but to lead," he said in a speech to the Senate a few days earlier. When he actually talks substance, he's prone to self-contradiction. On Fox News in March, he said that Saddam Hussein "is a threat to the stability of the Middle East. He represents a threat to the United States. That issue, I think, we can all agree on." Two months later, however, Hagel himself seemed to disagree. Asked by Time magazine whether anything should be done about Iraq, he replied, "How urgent is the threat?"

Unlike most of his colleagues, the 55-year-old Hagel does know something about war firsthand. He volunteered for service in Vietnam, where he earned two Purple Hearts. Later he worked as a radio newsman, an aide to Republican congressman John McCollister of Nebraska, and a lobbyist for Firestone. He held a few jobs in government during the Reagan years, and also co-founded Vanguard Cellular, a telecommunications company that made him a millionaire. In 1996, Hagel won election to the Senate by beating Ben Nelson, a popular governor who had been considered the favorite.

On most domestic issues, Hagel is a reliable conservative: pro-life, pro-gun, pro-tax relief. He even voted against this year's bloated farm bill. But his primary interests lie elsewhere: On joining the Senate, Hagel sought out and secured a spot on the Foreign Relations Committee -- not exactly a hot property at the time. He started speaking on international issues and quickly earned a reputation for thoughtfulness. "That was partly because nobody else was saying much," comments Gary Schmitt of the Project for the New American Century. "He spoke into a vacuum."

Hagel is often compared to John McCain, the man he supported in the 2000 primaries. McCain, however, has been a strong advocate of American power around the globe, including regime change in Iraq. Hagel is much more apprehensive. "He reacts to everything like a European," says a Senate colleague.

In other words, Hagel is a skeptic on U.S. force. "America must be about enhancing its relationships in the world, not just its power," he said in April. It's not that he isn't willing to unleash the military (he was an early backer of action against Serbia, for instance), but he believes everything must be done in consultation with other countries and with the approval of international organizations. "We are the greatest power that the world has ever known," he said on the Senate floor in April. "But we have limits, too. And these coalitions for peace, coalitions for change will be our future, the world's future."

This type of thinking puts Hagel within a long Republican tradition of internationalism that stretches back to Arthur Vandenberg. It has also encouraged him to break with conservatives on a variety of national- security issues. He has joined with Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy in pushing for a ban on land mines -- something the Pentagon fiercely opposes and that even the Clinton administration wouldn't stomach. In 1997, he helped move the treaty banning chemical weapons to passage. When Republican leader Trent Lott came under fire from conservatives on the issue, Hagel jotted him a short note: "Don't let the ankle-biters get you down." Lott said these communications helped sway him to support the treaty. In 1999, Hagel technically did oppose the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- but not before trying to scuttle a vote on it. Just prior to the roll call, he signed a letter to table the treaty -- a ploy that supporters were advocating as a last-ditch measure to keep the treaty alive for a more amenable Senate.