Senate confirms Hagel to cabinet post

WASHINGTON — A deeply divided Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm Republican Chuck Hagel to be the nation's next defense secretary, handing President Barack Obama's pick the top Pentagon job just days before billions of dollars in automatic, across-the-board budget cuts hit the military.

The vote was 58-41, with four Republicans joining the Democrats in backing the contentious choice. Hagel's only GOP support came from former colleagues Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Dick Shelby of Alabama and Mike Johanns of Nebraska — all three had announced their support earlier — and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Hagel, 66, a former two-term Nebraska senator and twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran, succeeds Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Hagel is expected to be sworn in at the Pentagon today.

Obama welcomed the bipartisan Senate vote, although 41 Republicans opposed his nominee, and said in a statement that "we will have the defense secretary our nation needs and the leader our troops deserve."

He looked past the divisions and said he was grateful to Hagel "for reminding us that when it comes to our national defense, we are not Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans, and our greatest responsibility is the security of the American people."

Republicans had opposed their onetime colleague, casting him as unqualified for the job, hostile toward Israel and soft on Iran.

"I continue to have serious questions about whether Chuck Hagel is up to the job of being our secretary of defense," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement. "I hope, for the sake of our own national security, he exceeds expectations."

Hagel joins Obama's retooled second-term, national security team of Secretary of State John Kerry and CIA Director-designate John Brennan at a time of uncertainty for a military emerging from two wars and fighting worldwide terrorism with smaller, deficit-driven budgets.