CNN analyst and Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin slammed U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for delaying telling the White House and people at the Pentagon’s highest levels that he was in the hospital treating his prostate cancer.
In a Post column published Wednesday, Rogin claimed that Austin’s team waiting at least three days to notify other high-level government officials he had been recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center was "a combination of hubris, terrible staff work and real dysfunction at the top of our national security policymaking system."
Austin, who was reportedly hospitalized for a urinary tract infection following treatment for prostate cancer, irked multiple figures in the media, Democratic Party leaders, and other government officials after waiting until last Thursday to notify the Biden administration and people on his staff that he had been in the ICU since that previous Monday.
Austin’s prostate cancer diagnosis was not publicly revealed until this week.
Rogin is the latest media figure to blast the move, writing in his column, "Austin’s problematic actions and those of his senior staff go well beyond his failure to tell [Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen] Hicks why she was assuming some of his duties and his failure to tell the White House he was in the intensive care unit."
He added, "Austin also failed to disclose his diagnosis for several weeks. And the way this was handled constituted a breakdown in the United States’ national security bureaucracy."
The author continued, mentioning the threats that the U.S. was facing abroad while Austin was indisposed and other military command was in the dark about it.
"Austin was partially incapacitated while U.S. forces were conducting lethal operations against militia groups in Iraq and fending off attacks in Syria and the Red Sea. His deputy was on vacation in Puerto Rico. The president, national security adviser and Secretary of State didn’t know where he was."
Rogin surmised this move was symptomatic of Austin’s pride and "incompetence." He wrote, "As a general, he was never a big fan of speaking to Congress or the media. Even now as a Cabinet official, he apparently doesn’t feel he owes them basic transparency. That’s hubris."
"And the fact that Austin’s senior staff thought they could keep a secret this big from his own deputy and his boss, the president, shows they are operating as their own island with little connection to reality. That’s incompetence."
After mentioning that Austin is under fire for dropping the ball, particularly from Republican lawmakers – who he said are "calling for Austin to resign" – Rogin expressed his belief that he probably won’t abdicate his role.
Still, he mentioned, "his credibility and confidence in his leadership have taken huge hits, as have the credibility of his chief of staff and press secretary."
He concluded with a condemnation of the government official and his staff, stating, "They undermined the public’s trust in the U.S. government and created a completely avoidable scandal for Biden at the worst possible time."
