In his first major address since taking office three weeks ago, Secretary of State John Kerry told an audience at the University of Virginia Wednesday that Americans must invest more in foreign aid and diplomacy in order to protect U.S. security and to cultivate American prosperity.

“Deploying diplomats today is much cheaper than deploying troops tomorrow,” he told an audience of students and others. He noted that he was speaking at a university founded by the very first secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, who also served as American ambassador to France.

“Foreign assistance is not a giveaway. It’s not charity.  It is an investment in a strong America and free world,” Kerry said.

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The former Massachusetts senator, who was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, noted that “our whole foreign policy budget is just over one percent of our national budget. Think about it a bit: over one percent, a little bit more,  funds all of our civilian and foreign affairs efforts -- every embassy, every program that saves a child form dirty drinking water or from AIDS, (or) that reaches out to build a village and bring America’s value.” 

Steve Helber / AP

Secretary of State John Kerry gestures as he delivers his first foreign policy speech, Wednesday, Feb. 20, in Old Cabel Hall at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va.

Kerry said that not spending U.S. taxpayer dollars on foreign aid and diplomacy would leave a vacuum that would “quickly be filled by those whose interests differ dramatically from ours. We learned that lesson in the deserts of Mali recently, in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2001, and in the tribal areas of Pakistan even today.”

Kerry argued that foreign aid need not mean poorer nations being permanent dependents of the U.S. taxpayer. “Eleven of our top 15 trading partners used to be the beneficiaries of U.S. foreign assistance,” he said. “That's because our goal isn't to keep a nation dependent on us forever. It’s precisely to create these markets, to open these opportunities, to establish rule of law. Our goal is to use assistance and development to help nations realize their own potential … and become our economic partners.”

Kerry emphasized the role of the State Department and American embassies in drumming up business for U.S. corporations, citing, for example, the American embassy in Jakarta for helping secure “an order for commercial aircraft – the largest order Boeing has ever been asked to fill.  Meanwhile, the Indonesian state railroad is buying its locomotives from GE.”

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He also argued that the United States must join with other nations to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and “build partnerships” so that “we don't have to fight these battles alone. This includes working with our partners around the world in making sure Iran never obtains a weapon that would endanger our allies and our interests.”

He did not mention in his speech the continuing civil war and refugee crisis in Syria. Kerry and President Barack Obama are under pressure from a bipartisan group of senators to do more, including establishing an no-fly zone over Syria, in order to protect rebels from the armed forces of President Bashar al-Assad.

With the Senate falling short Thursday of the 60 votes needed to move to a confirmation vote on defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, Majority Leader Harry Reid was correct in claiming that never before had the Senate had a cloture vote on a nominee to run the Defense Department.

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But it’s not unprecedented for the Senate to have cloture votes on other presidential nominations – from ambassadors to judges.

The Senate changed its rules in 1949 to allow cloture motions on nominations, but cloture wasn’t sought on a nomination until 1968. From that year until March of 2012 cloture was sought on 99 nominations, including some well-known nominees:

• Abe Fortas to be chief justice in 1968
• William Rehnquist to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1971 and to be chief justice in 1986
• John Bolton to be ambassador the United Nations in 2005
• Ben Bernanke to be chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2010
• Richard Cordray to be head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2012.

But not in every case of a cloture vote is there a prolonged debate on the nomination which ties up the Senate for days – in fact, in most cases there isn’t.

A cloture vote, if successful, allows a final up-or-down vote on confirming the nominee, after up to 30 more hours of debate. For confirmation, a simple majority is usually, but not always, all that is needed.

The decision to seek a cloture vote is in the majority leader’s hands and he can time cloture votes not merely to push forward a nomination and get a vacancy filled, but to paint the nominee’s opponents as obstructionists.

Reid and previous Senate leaders have used cloture votes to drive political messages and to generate enthusiasm among their party’s base.

Case in point: Miguel Estrada, President George W. Bush’s nominee to the federal appeals court in the District of Columbia. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist insisted on seven separate votes on cloture on the Estrada nomination in 2003.

Each of them failed, but they hammered home that Reid and the Democrats were blocking a nominee whom Republicans thought was amply qualified and who happened to be a Latino immigrant.

“This is a dark moment, I believe, in the history of the United States Senate,” Frist said after the final vote on Estrada failed and the nominee withdrew.

Senators, Frist said “have been denied a very, very basic right” to vote on the nominee and “Miguel Estrada has been denied the opportunity to be considered by this body by a single up-or-down vote, whereby individual colleagues could vote either for or against a brilliant, a qualified nominee, all because of the obstruction of a few.”

More than a few: 43 Democrats, including Reid, voted against cloture on Estrada.

After Reid filed the cloture motion on Wednesday, Republicans denied that they really were stalling Hagel’s confirmation by a filibuster.

“What we are doing is not a filibuster,” Sen. Jim Inhofe, R- Okla., said Wednesday on the Senate floor. “We are seeking a 60 vote threshold for a controversial nomination. If the majority really wanted to move forward quickly, all they have to do is agree to a 60-vote margin, like they did with the (Kathleen) Sebelius and (John) Bryson nominations.”

When President Obama nominated Sebelius to head the Department of Health and Human Services in 2009, Republicans and anti-abortion groups delayed her confirmation, partly due to her understating the amount of campaign contributions she had received from a Kansas abortion doctor, Dr. George Tiller, and partly due to her veto, as Kansas governor, of a bill to impose new limits on abortion providers.

In the negotiations over Sebelius, Reid and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell agreed to 60-vote threshold on confirmation – a procedure they could use in Hagel’s case as well.

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Inhofe contended that, “A 60-vote margin is not a filibuster. We are merely saying the Senate is entitled to this information” -- on speeches that Hagel had given in the past few years.

The term “filibuster” evokes images of actor Jimmy Stewart holding the Senate floor until he collapses from exhaustion in the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. And there have been famous single-senator filibusters: Sen. Strom Thurmond holds the record of 24 hours and 18 minutes in opposition to a civil rights bill in 1957.

But by the time the Senate voted on cloture Thursday there had been only two days of intermittent floor debate on Hagel’s nomination – with discussion of the defense secretary nominee interspersed with unrelated speeches on global climate change, the Keystone XL Pipeline, kidney transplants, whether certain sites in Plaquemines Parish, La. should be units of the National Park System and various other topics.

Whether those two days of intermittent debate were or weren’t a filibuster, congressional expert Sarah Binder who teaches political science at George Washington University said the Hagel debate “represents a significant change in the Senate's practice of advice and consent.  The issue here is the target of the filibuster-- an appointment to the president's ‘inner cabinet.’ My sense is that there has generally been a strong degree of deference to the president over his appointments to the executive branch-- particularly over the choice of his top appointments to State, Treasury, Justice, and Defense.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee to be Defense Secretary, on Capitol Hill, Jan. 31, 2013.

Binder said, “I don't think we should be surprised to find partisan polarization seeping over into these top confirmation battles. Partisanship has spread almost everywhere else in the Senate.”

In the past filibusters and cloture votes were not always an essential part of delaying a nominee.

In the case of John Tower’s nomination to be defense secretary in 1989, President-elect George H.W. Bush announced his nomination in December of 1988, but it was not until March of 1989 that Tower was defeated – not on a cloture vote but on a confirmation vote. The vote came after six days of Senate floor debate.

Tower’s ally Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., denounced the delay: “I have a large problem with the scenario that we won’t vote until every single allegation that comes over the transom is investigated.”

Of all people, Reid knows how effective the threat of a filibuster can be: he was Senate minority whip in 203 and 2004 when Democrats successfully blocked confirmation votes on ten Bush appeals court nominees, including Estrada.

That Democratic filibuster effort won applause from progressive groups. “For months, Senate Democrats have been heroically holding out against President Bush's nominations of extremist judges to America's most powerful courts,” Moveon.org told its supporter in 2003.

Citing Estrada’s withdrawal, Moveon.org said, “Our campaign to stop Bush's extremist nominees has been extraordinarily successful so far.” Estrada’s defeat “was a major victory -- the first time Bush has conceded defeat on any nomination.”

Now for some progressive groups, the delay in Hagel’s confirmation makes the case for changing Senate rules to further limit filibusters.

In a statement Thursday night, George Kohl, Senior Director at the Communications Workers of America, a union that contributed heavily to Democratic candidates in 2012, said, “A real Senate reform package would have made the obstructionists hold the floor and keep 41 of their colleagues with them over a holiday weekend.” Kohl added “the Republicans in the Senate remain intent on breaking new ground in Senate obstruction,” and “Senate Democrats who worked to scuttle more substantial reforms have forfeited their right to complain.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee to be defense secretary, on Capitol Hill, Jan. 31, 2013.

Senate Republicans on Thursday stalled further work on confirming former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., as the next secretary of defense, likely prolonging the fight over the Pentagon nominee for at least another week and a half.

The Senate voted 58 to 40 to end debate on Hagel's nomination, falling short of the 60-vote threshold they needed to move toward a final confirmation vote, and subjecting the former Republican senator to an unprecedented, de-facto filibuster. Four Republicans supported Hagel and one GOP senator voted present, though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., switched his vote to "no" in a procedural move to be able to bring up Hagel's nomination at a later date.

Related: Five lessons we've learned from the Hagel fight

The vote is only a temporary setback for the White House, which still views Hagel’s eventual confirmation as a likely proposition. President Barack Obama said in a Google+ hangout shortly after the vote that his "expectation and hope" is that Hagel would eventually be confirmed.

“Senator Hagel is going to be confirmed, if not tomorrow then when the Senate returns from recess,” a White House official said Thursday. (The Senate is away from Washington next week and is scheduled to return for work as soon as Feb. 25.)

The Obama administration’s confidence is rooted in statements Thursday by a number of Republicans who have said they intend to switch their vote after the recess and support moving toward a final vote for Hagel.

The delay still incensed Democrats, though, who argued that the delay was without precedent and risked leaving the military essentially leaderless during a time of war and as major cuts to the defense budget loom. (Outgoing Secretary Leon Panetta continues to serve in his role until Hagel is confirmed, though he had intended to finish his service this week.)

"I'm going to go call Chuck Hagel when I finish here and say, 'I'm sorry,'" Reid said after the cloture vote. He set another cloture vote for Tuesday Feb. 26.

Indeed, the White House scrambled for much of the afternoon to find the handful of Republican votes that would have allowed for Hagel’s confirmation this week. They released a letter in response to GOP senators’ questions about the administration’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on a diplomatic posting in Benghazi, Libya, and Vice President Joe Biden worked the phones in hopes of finding the necessary votes to overcome the de-facto filibuster.

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The 60-vote threshold means that Hagel’s nomination is, in effect, being subjected to a filibuster. Because Republicans are objecting to ending debate – often a formality in the Senate, where lawmakers give their “unanimous consent” to moving forward with a vote – Democrats must deliver the same 60 votes that they would need under the circumstances of a filibuster to end debate on the Hagel nomination.

Republicans argued that they were not orchestrating a formal filibuster against Hagel – a maneuver which would be unprecedented in the instance of a nominee for the secretary of defense position.

Some GOP senators – led by Sens. John McCain, Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, S.C. – said that they just needed a little more time to thoroughly vet Hagel’s background, despite having served with the former Nebraska senator during the bulk of his two terms in the Senate. Graham and McCain argued that they needed more time than the two days that have elapsed since the armed services panel approved Hagel’s nomination for consideration by the whole Senate.

This story was originally published on Thu Feb 14, 2013 4:56 PM EST

Chuck Hagel’s nomination just hit a major obstacle.

Hagel will not have the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster at tomorrow’s scheduled cloture vote, Republican leadership told Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday, according to a Senate Democratic aide.

"My Republican colleagues had led us to believe they would not filibuster Senator Chuck Hagel's confirmation as Secretary of Defense,” Reid (D-NV) said in a statement released by his office. “But that has changed. Now, Senate Republicans have made it clear they intend to mount a full-scale filibuster, and block the Senate from holding a final passage vote on Senator Hagel's nomination. Make no mistake: Republicans are trying to defeat Senator Hagel's nomination by filibustering while submitting extraneous requests that will never be satisfied."

All 55 Democrats are supporting Hagel. But just two Republicans have said they would vote for their former colleague, a Republican from Nebraska – Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Mike Johanns (R-NE). Hagel would need three more for his nomination to be able to proceed to an up-or-down vote, which Reid said would happen Saturday.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Susan Collins (R-ME) previously said they would not support a filibuster of Hagel, which would have given Hagel enough votes.

“I just do not believe a filibuster is appropriate, and I would oppose such a move," McCain said, adding, "I will try to make that argument to my colleagues.”

But McCain and Blunt have changed their tunes.

Republicans, like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), ranking member on the Armed Services Committee that considered Hagel’s nomination, are arguing that what they are doing is not a “filibuster.” They just want more information, they say, on his finances and speeches -- despite the answers Hagel submitted to the standard Senate questionnaire, as well as his contentious hearing.

That's something that caused Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) to accuse Republicans of an "unprecedented" double standard.

McCain, for one, wants more information from the White House on the attacks in Benghazi.

On MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown last week, Blunt was asked if he would support a filibuster of Hagel’s nomination.

“I doubt it; I doubt it,” he said. “I think for somebody who’s going to be there the length of time the president serves, as opposed to a Supreme Court judge, that a majority in the Senate should be able to confirm. I wouldn’t intend to be a part of that majority, but certainly my strong inclination would be that this is a vote that should be done by a majority, rather than a 60-vote standard. And this person is going to leave the day the president leaves. That makes a difference.”

Yet, Blunt’s office contends Blunt’s current position is not a switch.

“He hasn’t changed his original position at all,” said Amber Marchand, Blunt’s spokeswoman. “He’s just pointing out that Senator Hagel and the Obama Admin have not produced all of the information that’s been requested, and there has not been time for a full debate in the Senate, therefore the Senate should not move forward on a vote this week.”

Reid argued Thursday morning on the Senate floor that Republicans were playing politics with national security.

“For the sake of our national security, it’s time to put aside this political theater,” Reid said, accusing them of being more concerned about primaries and the Tea Party.

He said opponents were seeking delay after delay, saying there's been "one stall after another."

Hagel would be just the third cabinet secretary to require the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. The other two were Dirk Kempthorne, George W. Bush’s nominee for Interior Secretary in 2006, and C. Williams Verity, Ronald Reagan’s pick to be Commerce Secretary in 1987, according to the Congressional Research Service. 

Both, however, were easily confirmed and cleared the cloture hurdle, 85-8.

There has never been a cabinet secretary nominee who was successfully filibustered.

There have, however, been other high-level, non-judicial nominees, who have also required 60 votes.

For example:

2010- Ben Bernanke (Fed Chair, cloture invoked, passed 77-23)
2009- Hilda Solis (Labor, cloture invoked, but withdrawn)
2006- Dirk Kempthorne (Interior, cloture invoked, passed 85-8)
2005- Rob Portman (USTR, cloture invoked, but vitiated)
2005- John Bolton (US Amb to UN, cloture invoked, nomination rejected 54-38)
2005- Steven L. Johnson (EPA administrator, cloture invoked, passed 61-37)
2003- Michael Leavitt (EPA admin, cloture invoked but withdrawn)
1987- C. Willliam Verity (Commerce, cloture invoked, passed 85-8)

After an angry two-hour debate, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to approve the nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense Tuesday, setting the stage for a Senate floor vote on his confirmation, possibly later this week.

The vote was along party lines, 14 to 11, with another likely “no” vote from Sen. David Vitter, R-La. to be added later.

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Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said although some Republican senators strongly oppose Obama’s policies, the vote on Hagel nomination “will not change those policies.”

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing to become the next secretary of defense on Capitol Hill Jan. 31, 2013.

Levin added that he saw a risk that the defeat of Hagel’s nomination would leave the Defense Department “leaderless” at a time of budget pressures and when “our military is engaged in combat operations overseas.”

Levin said that especially on the day that North Korea had detonated a nuclear device, a delay in approving the nomination would “send the exact wrong message to North Korea.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., cited Hagel’s service as an Army soldier in the Vietnam War as a prime reason to vote for him. “That told me right there everything I needed to know – that he would not hesitate to defend this country,” said Manchin.

But a leading Hagel opponent, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said confirming the former Nebraska senator as defense secretary “will make military conflict in the next four years substantially more likely” because it would encourage the Tehran regime to accelerate its nuclear weapons development program.

Cruz also insinuated that Hagel might have given as-yet undisclosed speeches to “extreme or radical groups” or received money from foreign sources or from defense contractors in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Senate rules require a cabinet nominee to disclose fees and payments he received in excess of $5,000 in the two years prior to the nomination. Hagel complied with that rule, but Cruz sought information about payments he’d gotten in the five years prior to his nomination.

Coming to Hagel’s defense, Levin countered that the nominee had told the committee that in the past ten years he has not received any compensation from foreign governments or entities controlled by a foreign government.

Following Cruz’s harsh criticism of Hagel, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., charged that “Sen. Cruz has gone over the line” by implying Hagel was too cozy with Tehran regime. “He basically has impugned the patriotism of the nominee."

Cruz then answered Nelson, denying that he’d impugned Hagel’s patriotism and said that instead he had questioned his firmness in dealing with Iran.

Levin told Cruz if he had uncovered evidence that Hagel had not truthfully answered the panel’s questions or requests for financial information, he should provide it to the committee.

Two weeks ago, Hagel delivered an often stumbling and awkward performance in his confirmation hearing before the committee, repeatedly having to retract, clarify, apologize for, or amend his views or the manner in which he phrased them.

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The low point came when Levin had to correct Hagel’s clarification on President Barack Obama’s position on Iran’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon.

“It was the most unimpressive performance that I have seen in watching many nominees who came before the committee,” said Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., at Tuesday’s committee meeting, later adding that Hagel’s testimony was “the worst I have seen of any nominee for office.”

McCain said it was “very disturbing” that Hagel had not answered McCain’s question about the success of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq in 2007.

The Arizona Republican also condemned what he called Hagel’s “gratuitous” rhetorical attacks on President George W. Bush.

Another Hagel foe, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said “there’s the left lane in politics, the right lane, and the middle lane – and when it comes to some of the Iranian-Israeli issues, there’s the Chuck Hagel lane … There are very few people who have been this wrong about so many different things.”

Senate Republican leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., indicated in comments to reporters a few hours before the committee Tuesday that Republican senators might insist on extended floor debate on the nomination, perhaps requiring a cloture vote, needing 60 senators, to end debate.

“I wouldn't be surprised if we do have a cloture vote on the Hagel nomination,” McConnell said.

He added that “Every time the (the Democratic) majority files cloture, they call it a filibuster. Cloture vote actually is designed to end debate and to go to a vote.”

He explained that, “Sometimes cloture is not invoked because there has not been adequate information that been requested, yet received. Sometimes cloture is not invoked because you want to kill a nomination. There are a number of members on the committee who feel the requests for information have not yet been met.”

There are 55 senators in the Democratic caucus so if the Republicans insist on a cloture vote, then five GOP senators would need to join the Democrats in ending the debate and moving to a confirmation vote.

NBC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell contributed to this story

Published 10:25 a.m. ET -- An Obama administration senior official said Tuesday that during the president's State of the Union address he will announce that 34,000 of the 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan will be brought back to the United States within 12 months.

Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters

U.S. Army soldiers react after their comrade was wounded at patrol by an improvised explosive device (IED) in southern Afghanistan June 12, 2012.

By this spring, a senior administration official said, Afghan forces will be “assuming the lead across the entire country, with the United States and ISAF (the International Security Assistance Force) stepped back to a train-advise-and-assist role. In that capacity, we will no longer be leading combat operations, but will provide support to the Afghans” during the 2013 and 2014 fighting seasons.

“By the end of 2014, we will responsibly bring our war in Afghanistan to a close,” the official said.

But the Obama administration is in negotiations on a security accord with the Afghan government that would allow some U.S. forces to operate in the country after 2014 to attack remnants of al-Qaida and to train Afghan forces.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a speech last month “We are still at war in Afghanistan,” but he said the progress the International Security Assistance Force has made in training the Afghan army and Afghan police “has brought us to what I hope will be the last chapter of this war, and the next chapter in NATO's relationship with Afghanistan.” 

NBC White House Correspondent Kristen Welker contributed to this story

Updated at 6:26 p.m. ET: At his confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Central Intelligence Agency, defended Obama’s policy of targeted killings of terrorists, saying that some Americans had a misimpression that “we take strikes to punish terrorists for past transgressions. Nothing could be further from the truth. We only take such action as a last resort to save lives when there’s no other alternative” to avert a threat to the nation.

Despite the questions about Obama’s use of targeted strikes to kill people whom the administration calls “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or affiliated groups, it seemed by the end of the three-and-a-half hour hearing that Brennan was certain to be confirmed. Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called him “a fine and strong leader” and pledged her support for him. 

Alluding to some raucous protesters who had interrupted and delayed the hearing, Brennan said, “They really have a misunderstanding of what we do as a government, and the care that we take, and the agony that we go through” to ensure that innocent bystanders or civilians aren’t hit in targeted killings. “People are reacting to a lot of falsehoods that are out there.”

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He said, “I think the American people would be quite pleased to know that we’ve been very disciplined and very judicious” and that the Obama administration only uses targeted killings “as a last resort.”

On American citizens who become involved in al-Qaida or allied group abroad, Brennan said, “any American who joins al-Qaida will know full well that they have joined an organization that is at war with the United States” and that the U.S. government “will do everything possible to destroy that enemy to save America lives.” When Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., asked if such a person could surrender before the U.S. government killed them, Brennan said “they have the ability to surrender anytime, anywhere.”

Brennan told Wyden if a person is killed by mistake in a targeted killing, the government should acknowledge it publicly.

In answering another question from Wyden about the public’s understanding of the standards Obama uses to determine if he has enough evidence to order the killing of an American who is involved in al-Qaida terrorist plans, Brennan said, “What we need to do is optimize transparency on these issues and at the same optimize secrecy and the protection of our national security. I don’t think it’s one or the other.” He said, “We need to explain to the American people what are the thresholds for action” and what procedures the CIA and the president use to ensure that the killing are legal.

Thursday’s hearing was a chance for senators on the panel to ask Brennan whether Obama is using drone strikes as a less politically troublesome option than capturing detainees and putting them in Guantanamo.

“I never believe it is better to kill a terrorist than to detain him,” Brennan told Intelligence Committee ranking Republican member Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga. “We want to detain as many terrorists as possible so we can elicit the intelligence from them in the appropriate manner so that we can disrupt follow-on terrorist attacks.”

But Brennan did not reveal how many high-value al-Qaida suspects had been arrested and interrogated since Obama became president, promising Chambliss only that he’d get that information for him.

In reply, Chambliss said during Obama’s presidency that only one high-value al-Qaida suspect has been arrested and interrogated.

On the targeted killings policy, Obama directed the Department of Justice Wednesday to give the congressional intelligence committees "access to classified Office of Legal Counsel advice” related to the policy. This move came after NBC News on Monday published a Justice Department white paper giving the legal basis for the targeted killings.

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

John Brennan, nominated by U.S. President Barack Obama to be the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee February 7, 2013 in Washington, DC.

The memo said it was lawful for the president to order people who are leaders of al-Qaida or “an associated force” killed when such people pose an imminent threat of attack against the United States and when it isn’t feasible to capture them. This is true even if they happen to be American citizens.

Brennan and other Obama administration officials say that the congressional authorization to use military force enacted after the Sept 11. 2001 attacks provide all the legal authority Obama needs to order the killing of al Qaida terrorists or those plotting attacks on the United States.

Feinstein complained to Brennan that the Justice Department has still not turned over eight Office of Legal Counsel opinions giving legal rationale for the killings. And she complained that only senators on the panel and not their staff members are allowed to read them. “The Justice Department is not yet followed through on the president’s commitment,” added Wyden.
In the opening stage of the hearing senators wanted to ask Brennan, who worked at the CIA for 25 years, about his knowledge of the enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding that were used by CIA operatives prior to 2008 to get information from al Qaida detainees.

“I did not take steps to stop the CIA’s use of those techniques. I was not in chain of command of that program,” Brennan told Chambliss.

“I was aware of the program – I was CC’d on some of those documents -- but I had no oversight,” he added. He also said, “I had expressed my personal objections and views to some agency colleagues” about some of the EIT methods such as waterboarding.

Brennan told Chambliss that he had the impression in 2007 that "there was valuable information coming out" from Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, but that after having read parts of a 6,000-page internal CIA review of the EIT program, he now doesn’t know if those techniques did elicit valuable information.

Published at 1:55 p.m. ET: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sharply criticized Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for not deploying U.S. forces so they could rapidly respond to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.

“It’s one of the more bizarre statements I have ever seen in my years on this committee,” McCain told Dempsey, accusing him of failing to place U.S. aircraft ahead of time at bases such as Suda Bay, Crete, where they could  have reached Benghazi within 90 minutes on the day of the attack.

Given the threats and attacks on foreign diplomats in the weeks leading up to Sept. 11, 2012, McCain contended, Dempsey ought to have placed forces closer to Benghazi.

McCain called Dempsey’s testimony "simply false" regarding U.S. deployments to deter or respond to an attack in Benghazi.

Dempsey “didn’t take into account the threats to that consulate—and that’s why four Americans died,” McCain angrily told the general. In the Sept. 11 assault on the facility, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods and Sean Smith, were killed.

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The Arizona Republican also contended that “it was almost predictable” that “bad things were going to happen in Libya” in the weeks leading up to the attack because the fledgling government was too feeble to maintain control of the country – and he blamed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and President Barack Obama for not deploying a strong U.S. military presence in the country to help keep order.

For his part Dempsey told McCain that “we never received” a request from the State Department to place forces closer to Benghazi to be poised to respond to an attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility.

“So it’s the State Department’s fault?” McCain asked.

“I’m not blaming the State Department,” Dempsey replied. But he said he was concerned on the day of the Benghazi attack about an array of possible assaults on U.S. facilities not only in Libya but in Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan, and other locations in the Islamic world.

Dempsey, along with Panetta, was testifying Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Panetta told the panel there were two short-duration attacks that occurred six hours apart. “We were not dealing with a prolonged or continuous assault which could have been brought to an end by a U.S. military response,” Panetta said.

Both Dempsey and Panetta said the best situation would have been to have had U.S. forces on the ground before the attack to defend the facility.

Two other Republican members of the committee, Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, pressed Panetta and Dempsey on how many times they directly briefed Obama on the attack on the day it occurred – the answer was once.

Both Ayotte and Graham implied that Obama ought to have asked more questions and been more involved in keeping apprised of the events in Benghazi in real time. On her Twitter account, Ayotte said while the hearing was in progress, “POTUS outsourced #Benghazi response.”

While the attacks were underway, Graham asked, “did the president show any curiosity about how is this going, what kind of assets do you have helping these people?”

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Panetta replied – citing his experience a former White House chief of staff, “The purpose of staff is to be able to get that kind of information and those staff (members) were working with us.” He added, “The president is well informed about what is going on.”

Graham also questioned Dempsey about Ambassador Stevens’s Aug. 15 cable warning the State Department that the facility in Benghazi couldn’t defend itself if it came under attack. Dempsey told Graham that he was surprised that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did not know about that cable.

In his testimony, Panetta said the Department of Defense and U.S. armed forces “did all that we could do in response to the attacks in Benghazi.” He explained that “armed UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones), AC-130 gunships, or fixed-wing fighters with the associated tanking – you’ve got to provide air re-fueling-- armaments – you’ve got to arm all the weapons before you put the on the planes” -- were not in the vicinity of Libya.

He said that even if he’d been able to deploy F-16 fighters or AC-130 gunships over Benghazi in time, “the mission still depends on accurate information about what targets they’re supposed to hit. And we had no forward air controllers there” and no communications with U.S. personnel on the ground.

He said, “because of the distance, it would have taken at least 9 to 12 hours, if not more, to deploy these forces to Benghazi. This was, pure and simple,  -- in the absence as I said of any kind of advance warning -- a problem of distance and time.”

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta testifies on the attack on U.S facilities in Benghazi, Libya before the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 7, 2013 in Washington, D.C.

He explained that “unfortunately there were no specific indications of an imminent attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi. Without adequate warning, there was not enough time given the speed of the attack for armed military assets to respond.”

In his testimony Panetta also warned about the effects of the automatic spending cuts – called sequestration - that are mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act and are set to begin on March 1.

“If Congress fails to act and sequestration is triggered, and if we also must operate under a year-long continuing resolution (keeping spending at last year’s levels), we would be faced with a significant shortfall in operating funds for our active forces with only seven months remaining in the fiscal year,” he told the committee. “This will damage our national defense and compromise our ability to respond to crises in a dangerous world.”

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta came to the aid of former Sen. Chuck Hagel, the man President Barack Obama nominated to succeed him, saying on NBC’s Meet the Press, “The political knives were out for Chuck Hagel” during his confirmation hearing last week.

In nearly eight hours of testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee on Thursday, Hagel spent much time revising and clarifying his previous remarks – including a spontaneous error at the hearing itself on whether United States policy toward Iran’s nuclear weapons program was one of containment.

Panetta complained that the members of the committee spent too little time questioning Hagel about the current challenges the Defense Department faces, such as looming budget cuts, and spent too much time examining statements Hagel made in the past.

Panetta insisted to NBC’s Chuck Todd that Hagel was “absolutely” prepared to take his place leading the Defense Department.

Panetta’s backing of Hagel was seconded by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey, who said “in helping prepare him for his confirmation hearings, we had several opportunities to talk about strategy. And I found him well-prepared and very thoughtful about it.”

As the Armed Services Committee prepares to hold a hearing Thursday on last September’s attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Panetta said he looked forward “to presenting what we know about what took place.” Congressional Republicans have questioned why there were no U.S. military aircraft or other forces in proximity to Benghazi that could have been dispatched to help defend Ambassador Chris Stevens and other US personnel. Stevens and three others were killed in the attack.

Addressing the Defense Department’s airlift and intelligence-sharing role in assisting the ongoing French military intervention in the North African nation of Mali, Panetta said, “We are now working with France to make sure that al Qaida has no place to hide, even in North Africa.”

Dempsey added that in North Africa “the regimes that you used to maintain control over that space that would, in fact, be part of the solution of keeping al Qaida and its affiliates at bay are no longer there.”

The popular uprisings of the 2011 Arab Spring, Dempsey said, “stripped that away” leaving “ungoverned space” or “a period at which geography is less governed than it used to be.” That lack of control has allowed jihadist groups such as al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to flourish.

Turning to Iran and its nuclear program, Panetta said, “The intelligence we have is they have not made the decision to proceed with the development of a nuclear weapon. The regime in Tehran is enriching uranium.  They continue to do that.”

He added, “I can't tell you they are, in fact, pursuing a weapon, because that's not what intelligence says they're doing right now. But every indication is they want to continue to increase their nuclear capability. And that's a concern. And that's what we're asking them to stop doing.”

Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday that the Obama administration is “would be prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership,” but that talks would need to be serious, have an agreed-upon agenda, and not be merely an exercise.

On the threat of spending cuts, known in Capitol language as “sequester,” scheduled to start on March 1 that are mandated by the Budget Control Act, Panetta said, “If Congress stands back and allows sequester to take place, I think it would really be a shameful and irresponsible act.”

He added that the spending cuts this year – amounting to about 12 percent of Pentagon outlays apart from overseas operations – would “badly damage the readiness of the United States of America.”

Panetta, who served as head of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton and as chairman of the House Budget Committee in the late 1980s, said, “As somebody who's worked with budgets throughout my life, in order to deal with the deficit problem, you've got to deal with entitlements. You have to deal with revenues. And you have to deal with discretionary (spending).”

Although Republicans such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona have accused Obama of failing to take the lead in finding a way to avoid the cuts required by the Budget Control Act, Panetta said, “I think he's pushing as hard as he can…. The president of the United States has indicated the concern about sequester. He's indicated his concern about maintaining a strong national defense.  And he's proposed a solution to this. The ball is in Congress's court. They have got to take action to delay sequester.”

As John Kerry prepares to take his place Friday in the long line of leaders -- including Thomas Jefferson, Henry Kissinger and Hillary Clinton -- who have served as secretary of state, he and President Barack Obama will face some familiar overseas challenges from the past four years:

• Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions;
• North Korea’s erratic nuclear-armed behavior;
• China’s growing economic power and its potential leverage as a holder of U.S. Treasury bonds;
• The horrific civil war in Syria which threatens to spill over into neighboring countries.

And there’s always the specter of a sudden, unexpected international crisis.

But there are also new and developing challenges for the administration and for Kerry, who will be sworn in Friday afternoon, such as the U.S. role in a country that few Americans have heard of or could find on a map: Mali, in north central Africa.

There, the Obama administration has broadened the post-Sept. 11 struggle against jihadists by sharing intelligence with the French, as well as providing them airlift and re-fueling support, to facilitate the French military intervention against Islamists.

This military assistance underscores again why the United States remains -- to use the well-worn phrase Clinton used in a farewell speech Thursday -- the “indispensable nation.”

When the U.S. or its allies seek to intervene in a place such as Mali, only the United States has an adequate fleet of C-17 cargo planes and KC-135 tanker aircraft to make such an exercise of power possible; the French wouldn't be able to conduct the Mali operation by themselves.

This week the Obama administration also signed a "status of forces" accord with Mali’s next-door neighbor, Niger, allowing U.S. troops to operate in that country and suggesting a new chapter in U.S. engagement in Africa even as Obama is moving to withdraw most U.S. forces from Afghanistan.

The Mali operation is in part an outgrowth of the “lead from behind” U.S. role in the NATO operation to topple Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Professor Michael Mandelbaum of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and author of “The Frugal Superpower” said last October, “In order to get the full benefits of tyrant removal, it may be necessary to put American troops on the ground and that we’re not going to do.”

But with Gadhafi removed from power, his weapons depots were “liberated” and his arms proliferated all over North Africa, including to jihadists in Mali and Algeria, where earlier this month a group of militants attacked a natural gas plant, killing dozens of hostages.

The Pentagon will be Chuck Hagel’s problem (upon confirmation as defense secretary) not Kerry’s, but the new secretary of state is especially worried that America’s role as military enforcer has been hurting its standing in the eyes of other nations.

Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in his confirmation hearing that “American foreign policy is not defined by drones and deployments alone. We cannot allow the extraordinary good we do to save and change lives to be eclipsed entirely by the role we have had to play since Sept. 11, a role that was thrust upon us.”

He also knows that the traditional U.S. role as a preacher of open economies, free trade and dependable sovereign credit is being undermined by its undisciplined fiscal policy, threatening, he said last week, “my credibility as a diplomat -- and our credibility as nation.”

Kerry’s role as a diplomat and international coalition builder will be difficult for another reason. In the past, when there was a specific threat, American leaders were able to form multinational coalitions to defeat that enemy, as in 1990, when Saddam Hussein’s armies invaded Kuwait. 

But two new threats are more diffuse and can’t be attacked on a battlefield:

• Demographic pressure in the developing world: A surging younger generation in developing countries spurs conflict and unrest, particularly in the Middle East where those citizens have played a large role in the so-called “Arab Spring.” In his confirmation hearing, Kerry noted that in his visits over the years to Syria, “President Assad said to me, I have 500,000 kids who turn 18 every year, and I don't have a place to put them; I don't have jobs for them.”
• Climate change: How could Kerry persuade the Chinese to agree to enforceable commitments to curb greenhouse gas emissions that might cause disruption in an economy that demands job growth? All Kerry could offer last week is a hope that he and the leaders in Beijing “can find a better sense of the mutuality of our interests and the commonality of goals” so that they could work towards an international accord on greenhouse gas.

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Updated at 5:53 p.m. ET – Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama’s choice to be secretary of defense, finished a day-long marathon confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, enduring nearly eight hours of testy and skeptical questions from Republicans.

At the start of Thursday’s hearing, it seemed nearly certain that the Senate would vote to confirm Hagel. But the nominee labored at certain points during the day to clarify and explain his comments. Whether his occasional stumbles were serious enough to jeopardize his confirmation was not clear by the end of the testimony.

There are 55 senators in the Democratic caucus and 45 Senate Republicans, so if there’s no filibuster, Hagel would seem assured of confirmation. The last time the Senate rejected a Cabinet nominee was in 1989 when there was a Republican president and a Democratic-controlled Senate. 

Republican senators confronted Hagel with quotations from statements he had made months or years ago – and sometimes he apologized for them or amended them.

Late in the day Sen. Mike Lee, R- Utah, asked Hagel whether he’d said in 2003 that Israel keeps Palestinians “caged up like animals” and whether he still believes that.

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“Like many things I’ve said, I would like to go back and change the words and the meaning,” Hagel told Lee. “If I had a chance to go back and edit it, I would. I regret that I used those words.”

But he said he’d made his statement “in a larger context … (addressing) the frustration in what’s happening (in Israel) which is not in Israel’s interest” and mentioned the need “to find ways that we can help bring peace and security to Israel.”

Quizzed by both Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Sen. David Vitter, R- La., on a statement he’d made calling the Iranian government a “legitimate” one, Hagel said, “I should have said ‘recognized’ instead of ‘legitimate.’”

At one point he told Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R- Ga., regarding U.S. policy toward Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons: “I’ve just been handed a note that I misspoke and said I supported the president’s position on ‘containment.’ If I said that, I meant to say that obviously – his position on containment – we don’t have a position on containment.”

Hagel then said, “I’ve had more attention paid to my words in the last eight weeks than I ever thought possible.”

This prompted Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D- Mich., to intervene, “Just to make sure your correction is clear, we do have a position on containment – which is we do not favor containment.” Hagel quickly concurred with Levin’s statement.

Hagel told the panel in his opening remarks that he is “fully committed to the president's goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” and that “all options must be on the table to achieve that goal. My policy is one of prevention, and not one of containment and the President has made clear that is the policy of our government.”

At another point, Hagel, explaining his criticism quoted in a 2008 book by Aaron David Miller, of “the Jewish lobby” and his allegation that “it intimidates a lot of people” in Congress – comments for which Hagel has apologized – said he ought to not have used the word “intimidates.”

“I should have used ‘influence,’” he said.

Later, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., challenged Hagel to “name one dumb thing we’ve been goaded into doing” by the pro-Israel lobby or to identify one member of Congress whom the pro-Israel lobby had intimidated. Hagel said, “I didn't have in mind a single person," and did not identify any policy the U.S. government had been goaded into.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, played Hagel a recording of an interview Hagel did in 2009 with an al Jazeera program. A listener submitted a question asking about “the image of the United States is that of the world’s bully” and whether the United States needed “to change the perception and the reality” before asking other nations to reduce their arsenals. In that 2009 program Hagel began his reply by saying, “Her observation is a good one … .”

When Cruz asked Hagel to explain this reply, he said Thursday, “I think my comment was it was a relevant and good observation. I don’t think I said that I agree with it.”

Early in the testimony, the Iraq war and President George W. Bush’s 2007 surge of U.S. troops into Iraq became the heated focus of the hearing.

Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., repeatedly pressed Hagel, a fellow Vietnam War veteran, on whether he had been right or wrong to say that the 2007 surge was “the most dangerous foreign policy blunder since Vietnam.”

When McCain angrily said “Will you please answer the question?” Hagel told McCain “I’m not going to give you a yes or no answer … I’ll defer that judgment to history.”

When McCain shot back that Hagel had been wrong about the surge, Hagel said his “most dangerous blunder” comment had been “not just about the 2007 surge but the overall war of choice going into Iraq” in 2003.

As a senator, Hagel voted for the congressional resolution authorizing Bush to invade Iraq, but later turned critical of Bush’s conduct of the operation.

Other Republicans on the committee repeatedly pressed Hagel on his support for endorsement of Global Zero, the movement calling for abolition of nuclear weapons by 2030.

Hagel served on the Global Zero U.S. Nuclear Policy Commission which issued a report last May calling for an 80 percent reduction in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Hagel told ranking Republican committee member Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma that his position “has never been unilateral disarmament.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Former Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., testifies during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on his nomination to be Defense Secretary, on Capitol Hill, Jan. 31, 2013.

And he said the Global Zero report was discussing “illustrative possibilities” and “scenarios” and wasn’t urging specific policies.

But last May’s Global Zero report, which Hagel signed on to, says that a drastically smaller U.S. arsenal could be negotiated bilaterally with Russia – “or implemented unilaterally.”

In his opening statement Hagel pledged that he would maintain an effective nuclear arsenal. “America's nuclear deterrent over the last 65 years has played a central role in ensuring global security and the avoidance of a World War III. I am committed to modernizing our nuclear arsenal,” he said.

Hagel, who was seriously wounded while serving as an Army infantryman in Vietnam, was a Republican senator from Nebraska from 1997 to 2009 but did not support Republican presidential candidates McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney last year.

At what’s sure to be a contentious confirmation hearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Republican critics of President Barack Obama’s secretary of defense nominee former Sen. Chuck Hagel will explain why they think he’s been soft on using force against Iran. And they’ll voice worry about how firm a supporter of Israel he’ll be at the Pentagon, giving his criticism of what he called the “Jewish lobby.”

But there’s another front in the Hagel battle: his endorsement of Global Zero, the movement calling for abolition of nuclear weapons. This is what makes Thursday’s hearing a chance for Republicans to raise questions about Obama’s nuclear weapons policy and the overall debate over the reduction and modernization of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

With endorsements from former president Jimmy Carter, ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and other international leaders, the Global Zero movement has proposed a plan to reduce and ultimately eliminate all nuclear weapons by 2030.

Of course, Hagel’s Global Zero support doesn’t make him a maverick in the Obama administration. If confirmed, he’ll be working for a president who in 2009 called for “a world without nuclear weapons,” although Obama acknowledged, “This goal will not be reached quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime.”

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The ranking Republican member of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, said in an interview on C-Span Sunday that Hagel’s endorsement of Global Zero “concerns me a lot.” Inhofe also charged that Obama “wants to reduce our nuclear arsenal, he refuses to modernize it.”

Most nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal were produced 30 to 40 years ago, and no new ones have been produced since the end of the 1990's. So the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), an agency within the Department of Energy, is charge of replacing some aging components and assessing the warheads for reliability.

Charles Dharapak / AP

President Barack Obama announces in the East Room of the White House, Monday, Jan. 7, 2013, that he is nominating former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, as the new Defense Secretary.

The Oklahoma Republican said the nuclear threats from North Korea and the potential for Iran to deploy a nuclear-armed ballistic missile make the reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent especially important.

(Inhofe announced he’ll oppose Hagel, but implied that he expects the former Nebraska senator will win confirmation.)

Hagel served on the Global Zero U.S. Nuclear Policy Commission which issued a report last May calling for an 80 percent reduction in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

In contrast with Inhofe, the report said, “We surely do not need thousands of modern nuclear weapons to play this [deterrent] role vis-à-vis a country with a handful of primitive nuclear devices.”

It also said that a drastically smaller U.S. arsenal could be negotiated bilaterally with Russia “or implemented unilaterally.”

And it said that dramatic cuts in the size of the arsenal would allow downsizing of the “the costly modernization of the nuclear complex currently underway,” including plutonium facilities at Los Alamos, N.M. and the uranium processing facility called Y-12 in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Those plants help extend the service life of the warheads that go on missiles in U.S. submarines.

Sen. Bob Corker, R- Tenn., brought up Hagel’s Global Zero role at last week’s confirmation hearing for Obama’s secretary of state nominee, Sen. John Kerry, D- Mass.

“For those of us who care deeply about our nuclear arsenal, and modernization… some of the things that were authored in this (May 2012 Global Zero) report candidly are just concerning,” said Corker.

He told Kerry that normally there's a tension between the Defense Department which “presses for weaponry” and the State Department which “presses for nuclear arms agreements and reductions. And so in the event this person (Hagel) is confirmed, that balance is not going to be there.”

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Corker voted for New START treaty with Russia in 2010, one of 13 Republican senators to vote to ratify the pact. Twenty-six Republicans, including Inhofe, voted against ratifying the treaty. The treaty will cut the number of deployed strategic warheads from more than 1,700 last year to 1,550 by 2018.

Corker and other Republicans supported the treaty because of assurances from Obama that more money would be spent on modernizing the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal and using means other than nuclear tests to ensure that U.S. warheads would still work if they were ever used in a war.

But Corker said last summer he’d been “highly disappointed in the follow-through on modernization” of the arsenal. And according to a report this month from the Congressional Research Service, Republicans have been battling with the Obama administration over the building of a chemistry and metallurgy research facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which the administration wants to delay for at least five years, but which Republicans want built in 2013.

Nuclear weapons manufacturing and maintenance is important to Corker’s home state, as was noted in a 2011 speech by Thomas D’Agostino, who was then the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) who told a crowd in Chattanooga, Tenn., “At NNSA, we are committed to doing our part to support the economic vitality of the Tennessee Valley. With roughly 8,000 people working at Y-12 on a given day, Y-12 is one of Tennessee's largest employers.”

He added that the Y-12 facility “has a tremendous impact on local businesses. Local procurements originating from Y-12 totaled $310.1 million for Tennessee businesses in 2010, including more than $254 million for small businesses.”

Thus, any move toward scrapping the U.S. nuclear arsenal or toward downsizing the nuclear modernization process – as recommended by the Global Zero report Hagel signed on to --would hurt Tennessee’s economy.

Trying to soothe Corker’s concerns about Hagel last week, Kerry said the abolition of nuclear weapons is “not something that could happen in today's world.” Kerry said. “It's a goal. It's an aspiration. And we should always be aspirational….it's worth aspiring to, but we'll be lucky if we get there in however many centuries the way we’re going.”

Kerry said “there's talk of going down to a lower number” than the 1,550 warheads in the New START treaty. “I think, personally, it's possible to get there if you have commensurate levels of inspections, verification, guarantees about the capacity of your nuclear stockpile program, etc.”

He said to Corker, “Now, Senator, I know you're deeply invested in that component of it, the nuclear stockpile proposal.” Kerry said the United States must maintain a reliable nuclear weapons stockpile, “because that's the only way you maintain an effective level of deterrence.”

Although Corker isn’t on the Armed Services Committee, Inhofe and other Republicans on the Armed Services panel are sure to press Hagel on whether he intends to follow through on the arsenal cut recommendation Global Zero made last May.