{"id":23731,"date":"2024-02-12T03:12:41","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T09:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=23731"},"modified":"2024-02-12T03:12:45","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T09:12:45","slug":"us-defense-secretary-lloyd-austin-back-in-hospital-transfers-duties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=23731","title":{"rendered":"US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin back in hospital, transfers duties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Feb 11 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin<\/u><\/a> was hospitalized in Washington on Sunday for treatment of “symptoms suggesting an emergent bladder issue”, a Pentagon spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin, 70, later transferred the duties of his office to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers criticized Austin last month for failing to disclose a cancer diagnosis and subsequent hospitalizations in December and January, including to President Joe Biden<\/u><\/a>. Some prominent Republicans, including former President Donald Trump<\/u><\/a>, called for Austin to be removed from his job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incident was an embarrassment for Biden, and Austin apologized during a televised news briefing.<\/u><\/a> He is scheduled to testify before Congress on Feb. 29 about the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden, a Democrat, has said he has confidence in Austin despite what the president agreed was a lapse in judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With its announcement of the secretary’s trip to the hospital and the quick decision to transfer his duties to a deputy, the Pentagon appeared determined to avoid a repeat of last month’s political uproar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin, a retired four-star general who led forces in Iraq and is America’s first Black defense secretary, was still in hospital<\/u><\/a> last month as U.S. forces launched a retaliatory strike against an Iranian-backed militia leader in Baghdad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are now three different investigations into Austin’s behavior, including one by the office of the Pentagon’s Inspector General, a watchdog agency that tracks military waste, fraud and abuse. The Republican chair of the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers, has called Austin to testify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin is scheduled to travel to Brussels for a Wednesday meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group. It was not clear if his hospitalization would affect those travel plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Feb 11 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was hospitalized in Washington on Sunday for treatment of “symptoms suggesting an emergent bladder issue”, a Pentagon spokesperson said. Austin, 70, later transferred the duties of his office to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, Pentagon Press Secretary Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement. Both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26561,4980,6754,1500,24751,26560],"class_list":["post-23731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-handover","tag-hospitalization","tag-lloyd-austin","tag-pentagon","tag-responsibility","tag-us-secretary-of-defense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23733,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23731\/revisions\/23733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}