Defense chief nominee Ashton Carter, unlike Obama, backs arming Ukraine

WASHINGTON – Ashton Carter, President Barack Obama’s nominee for secretary of Defense, said at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday that he was “very much inclined” to provide lethal arms to Ukrainian forces fighting Russia-backed separatists, staking out a position that goes beyond White House policy.

“We need to support Ukraine in defending themselves,” Carter told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Carter’s comments fueled a growing debate inside the administration and Congress over whether the White House should start providing defensive weapons to the embattled government in Kiev to try to force Moscow to withdraw its support for eastern Ukraine’s separatist insurgency.

Since the conflict erupted early last year, the U.S. has given only nonlethal aid to Ukraine’s military, including medicine, night-vision goggles and armored vests. Some White House, State Department and Pentagon officials have begun to revisit the policy because of the failure of an agreement with Russian officials in September intended to bring about a cease-fire.

A bipartisan group of 11 senators, led by Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., and the panel’s ranking Democrat, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, scheduled a news conference for today to urge the administration to provide “defensive lethal assistance” to Ukraine.

But the White House said Wednesday that Obama had not changed his views and that the administration remained focused on applying economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure on Moscow to bring Russia to the negotiating table.

“That’s going to continue to be our strategy,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters.

Obama is always reviewing his policy, however, and “is certainly interested in the views and insight” of his top advisers, Earnest said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to visit Kiev today to meet with President Petro Poroshenko, but aides said Kerry was not expected to announce new policy there. The outgoing Pentagon chief, Chuck Hagel, will meet with NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

The NATO meeting is the first since leaders agreed in September to beef up NATO’s defense posture in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and threats to Ukraine.

Carter’s comments on Ukraine suggested he intended to speak his mind if confirmed, although he also vowed he would be “a stickler for the chain of command.”

Carter, 60, appeared to sail through the Senate panel’s questioning. The former senior Pentagon official and Harvard University professor was warmly welcomed by many on the committee, and his confirmation appears all but certain.

He underwent back surgery in December and was limping during breaks. Lawmakers repeatedly asked him about his health and whether he was comfortable sitting and answering questions for extended periods.

When the daylong hearing ended, McCain said he expected the full Senate to vote on the nomination early next week. Speaking to Carter, McCain said he wanted to move quickly “so you can get to work.”

In his testimony, Carter decried the “malignant and savage terrorism” of Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, Iran’s expanding influence, and congressionally mandated governmentwide spending cuts known as “sequestration.”

“I very much hope that we can find a way together out of the wilderness of sequester,” he said. “Sequester is risky to our defense, it introduces turbulence and uncertainty that are wasteful, and it conveys a misleadingly diminished picture of our power in the eyes of friends and foes alike.”

The hearing also gave lawmakers a chance to voice concerns on military matters, including detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, upgrading the nuclear weapons complex, and curbing sexual assaults in the military.

Carter said Iran and the Islamic State group posed the biggest threats to U.S. security, diverging from an assessment delivered to Congress on Tuesday by the Pentagon’s intelligence chief, who identified Russia and China as the greatest potential threats to U.S. interests.