Update: Senator Deb Fischer Says She Won't Vote for Hagel

By: Associated Press

Updated: Thu 6:39 AM, Feb 07, 2013

The Senate Armed Services Committee has postponed a vote on former Sen. Chuck Hagel's nomination to be defense secretary amid Republican calls for more information from President Barack Obama's nominee.

Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer sits on the Armed Services Committee.

Fischer told an Omaha newspaper she won't back the nomination for Hagel.

She explains why in an opinion piece in the Omaha World Herald.

She says she has issues with his vote on the 2007 troop surge in Iraq while he was in the Senate and his testimony in front of Congress during his confirmation hearings.

Committee Chairman Carl Levin said in a statement Wednesday that he had hoped to hold a vote on Hagel's nomination for when the committee met on Thursday for a separate hearing on the deadly attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Liba, in September.

But Levin said the committee's review of the nomination has not been completed. He said he would schedule a vote as soon as possible.

Hagel, a former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, has faced strong opposition from his former GOP colleagues.

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