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Hagel leaves Saturday for Israel, Persian Gulf

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will travel to Israel on Saturday to kick off a five-nation tour of the Middle East, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday. Israel is the first country besides Afghanistan that Hagel will have visited since becoming secretary. Typically, for security purposes the Pentagon does not announce the secretary of defense’s overseas travel ...

By Kevin Baron

April 17, 2013, 8:26 PM

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will travel to Israel on Saturday to kick off a five-nation tour of the Middle East, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday.

Israel is the first country besides Afghanistan that Hagel will have visited since becoming secretary.

Typically, for security purposes the Pentagon does not announce the secretary of defense’s overseas travel in advance of his departure. But Israel is not a typical destination. Hagel was hotly criticized before his February confirmation as being anti-Israel. Since taking office, Hagel has stressed his support for Israel, and greeted Israel’s then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak as his first foreign visitor to the Pentagon.

Hagel’s Israel stop this weekend follows recent visits by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. There, Hagel will meet with Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, Pentagon officials said.

The secretary then will visit Jordan to assess the U.S. military’s efforts to prepare regional forces for "a number of contingencies" for a post-war Syria, a Pentagon statement said. On Wednesday, Hagel revealed that last week he deployed a U.S. Army headquarters element to Amman, where U.S. soldiers will continue training Jordanian armed forces in how to manage possible loose chemical weapons and post-conflict security.

Hagel then will visit senior military officials in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.

The Egypt visit is the first by an American secretary of defense since July, when then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that newly elected President Morsi was "his own man" at the end of a 45-minute meeting. Panetta at the time said it appeared Morsi and Egypt’s senior defense officer, Field Marshal Gen. Hussein Tantawi, "share a very good relationship and are working together towards the same end."

Less than two weeks later, Morsi forced Tantawi to resign.

Kevin Baron is a national security reporter for Foreign Policy, covering defense and military issues in Washington. He is also vice president of the Pentagon Press Association. Baron previously was a national security staff writer for National Journal, covering the "business of war." Prior to that, Baron worked in the resident daily Pentagon press corps as a reporter/photographer for Stars and Stripes. For three years with Stripes, Baron covered the building and traveled overseas extensively with the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, covering official visits to Afghanistan and Iraq, the Middle East and Europe, China, Japan and South Korea, in more than a dozen countries. From 2004 to 2009, Baron was the Boston Globe Washington bureau's investigative projects reporter, covering defense, international affairs, lobbying and other issues. Before that, he muckraked at the Center for Public Integrity. Baron has reported on assignment from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and the South Pacific. He was won two Polk Awards, among other honors. He has a B.A. in international studies from the University of Richmond and M.A. in media and public affairs from George Washington University. Originally from Orlando, Fla., Baron has lived in the Washington area since 1998 and currently resides in Northern Virginia with his wife, three sons, and the family dog, The Edge. Twitter: @FPBaron