- By Kathryn Armstrong
- BBC News
Lloyd Austin is claimed to be recovering properly after being admitted to hospital on Monday
The Biden administration was not told for days that US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin had been hospitalised, not less than one official has told US media.
Mr Austin, 70, was admitted to the Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday resulting from issues following surgical procedure.
An official told the BBC’s US associate CBS that the White House was not knowledgeable of this till not less than Thursday morning.
Mr Austin has accepted duty for the dearth of communication.
“I recognise I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed,” he said in a statement.
“I commit to doing better.”
The defence secretary sits just under the president in the chain of command for the US navy.
Mr Austin added that it was “important to say: this was my medical procedure, and I take full responsibility for my decisions about disclosure”.
“I am very glad to be on the mend and look forward to returning to the Pentagon soon.”
He is assumed to nonetheless be in hospital however a defence division spokesperson quoted by the AFP information company stated he resumed his full duties on Friday.
It is not clear what number of of his obligations Mr Austin has been capable of perform resulting from his sickness, nor the extent to which Deputy Secretary of Defence Kathleen Hicks stepped in to assist.
Officials told CNN that she had periodically taken on his duties throughout his time in hospital, whereas she herself was in Puerto Rico on vacation.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is reported to have had a “warm” dialog with Mr Austin on Saturday.
“The president has full confidence in Secretary Austin. He’s looking forward to him being back at the Pentagon,” one official told AFP.
Republicans are amongst these to have expressed severe concern over the state of affairs.
“The secretary of defence is the key link in the chain of command between the president and the uniformed military, including the nuclear chain of command, when the weightiest of decisions must be made in minutes,” Senator Tom Cotton in an announcement.
“If this report is true, there must be consequences for this shocking breakdown.”
Fellow Senator Roger Wicker stated that whereas he was happy to listen to of Mr Austin’s restoration, “the fact remains that the Department of Defence deliberately withheld the secretary of defence’s medical condition for days. That is unacceptable.”
The Pentagon Press Association, made up of journalists who cowl the defence division, additionally criticised the obvious lack of transparency in a letter to the Pentagon on Friday.
“At a time when there are growing threats to US military service members in the Middle East and the US is playing key national security roles in the wars in Israel and Ukraine, it is particularly critical for the American public to be informed about the health status and decision-making ability of its top defence leader,” it stated.
Mr Austin, a retired four-star basic, grew to become the primary African-American defence secretary in 2020.
