Opposition to Hagel mounted even before his formal nomination by the White House and reached a fevered pitch following a widely panned confirmation-hearing performance in which the nominee struggled to answer basic foreign policy questions.

Many of Hagel’s most vociferous Republican critics voted in favor of ending a filibuster of the nomination earlier in the day, a pivotal first vote that paved the way for the former senator to win final approval.

Republican failure to stand united against Hagel irked some senior GOP officials on Capitol Hill.

“History will be unkind to those who stood by Chuck Hagel in the face of indisputable facts about his record and in so doing put politics over America’s national security,” one senior Senate aide who was close to the confirmation process told the Washington Free Beacon in the hours before Hagel was confirmed.

Eighteen Republicans in total voted to end debate on Hagel’s nomination and proceed to a final vote, which required a simple majority for approval rather than the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster.

They included: Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), John McCain (Ariz.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Susan Collins (Maine), Bob Corker (Tenn.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Richard Burr (N.C.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Richard Shelby (Ala.), and John Thune (S.D.).

These Republican votes came despite warnings from the Senate Armed Services Committee’s ranking member, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.), who had told his colleagues in a letter sent last week that they would be held accountable if they voted in favor of cloture.

Other Republicans maintained their opposition to Hagel during an early afternoon debate on the nominee’s fate.

“There’s simply no way to sugar coat it: Senator Hagel’s performance before the Senate Armed Services Committee was remarkably inept, and we should not be installing a defense secretary who is obviously not qualified for the job and who holds dangerously misguided views on some of the most important issues facing national security policy for our country,” Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) said Tuesday afternoon on the Senate floor. “Sen. Hagel is clearly the wrong man for the job.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) also held firm in his opposition to a nominee that many have labeled anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic.

“Sen. Hagel’s past views and statements place him far outside the bipartisan mainstream on key issues like Iran sanctions, European designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group and the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Kirk said in a statement.

“During his confirmation hearing, Sen. Hagel instinctively called the Iranian government both elected and legitimate,” Kirk said. “He initially offered strong support for containment of Iran, rather than President Obama’s stated policy of preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon.  He could not clearly explain his past opposition to unilateral sanctions against Iran.”

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) broke with his fellow Republicans to vote in favor of Hagel.

Hagel faced months of scrutiny for making several controversial statements about Israel, Iran, the American Jewish community, and terrorism. He also faced questions about what senators labeled his failure to disclose pertinent financial information, including ties he might have to foreign governments.

Hagel’s past comments about Israel had proven most problematic.

Hagel declined to sign multiple letters of support for the Jewish state and even balked when presented with opportunities to condemn Iran’s efforts to enrich uranium near levels needed to produce a nuclear weapon during his 12-year tenure in the Senate.

Hagel has also been vocal in his opposition to the so-called “Jewish lobby,” which he claimed in a 2010 interview “intimidates a lot of people” on Capitol Hill.

Hagel reportedly said during a separate meeting with pro-Israel activists: “I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president, not to a party, not to Israel.”

Hagel also has faced backlash from the Jewish community for his efforts to close a popular USO port in the Israeli city of Haifa during his stint as president and CEO of the World USO in the late 1980s.

Hagel maintained during a combative 1989 meeting with Jewish officials that the American-Jewish community should pay for the port.

“He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it’,” Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), told the Washington Free Beacon in January.

Hagel also is said to have suggested during a 2007 speech that U.S. Department of State was an adjunct of the Israeli foreign minister’s office, the Free Beacon reported earlier this month.

He is later believed to have said during a 2010 speech that Israel is on its way to becoming an apartheid state.

Even Hagel’s most prominent backers have cast the opposition to Hagel as purely a “Jewish” matter.

A group of anti-Israel activists and journalists coordinated a campaign to stifle criticism of Hagel by attacking the former senator’s Jewish critics, the Free Beacon reported in January after obtaining an email chain sent between Hagel’s defenders.

It additionally came to light that Hagel had long been embedded in a network of pro-Iran groups that later became his most vocal champions.

As a member of the board of anti-nuclear group Ploughshares Fund, Hagel helped direct more than $2 million in grants to organizations that employ some of his most outspoken advocates, many of whom favor lifting sanctions on Iran, oppose military action against its nuclear program, and hope to weaken the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Additionally, Hagel has faced criticism for sitting on the board of a bank that is under investigation for allegedly violating United States sanctions on Iran.

Hagel appeared particularly confused about the Obama administration’s current policy regarding Iran during his combative confirmation hearing, a performance that received poor reviews from many liberals as well as conservatives.

Hagel flubbed the administration’s policy when he expressed support for Obama’s “position on containment” of Iran’s nuclear program, a position that the administration does not have.

Hagel was forced to correct himself two times on the issue.

“I was just handed a note that I misspoke that I said I supported the president’s position on containment. If I said that I meant to say that we don’t have a position on containment,” he said during the hearing.

In fact, the administration’s position, as current Secretary of State John Kerry stated during his own confirmation, is one of prevention.

Hagel also claimed Iran has an “elected, legitimate government,” a comment that raised eyebrows on both sides of the political aisle.

Republicans accused Hagel of misrepresenting his views on nuclear cuts as well as his association with the Global Zero initiative during the hearing.

Hagel’s support for looming cuts to the defense budget has also elicited concern among supporters of a robust national security.

“The Defense Department, I think in many ways has been bloated,” Hagel told the Financial Times in 2011. “So I think the Pentagon needs to be pared down. I don’t think that our military has really looked at themselves strategically, critically, in a long, long time.”

Hagel has also opposed job creation at the Pentagon.

“Our Defense Department budget, it is not a jobs program,” he stated in 2011. “It’s not an economic development program for my state or any district.”

Defense insiders who have worked alongside Hagel raised multiple concerns about his ability to effectively manage the Pentagon.

Hagel is known to have a short temper and is prone to yell at staffers, the Free Beacon reported in December.

“Chuck Hagel may have been collegial to his Senate colleagues but he was the Cornhusker wears Prada to his staff, some of whom describe their former boss as perhaps the most paranoid and abusive in the Senate, one who would rifle through staffers desks and berate them for imagined disloyalty,” Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq, told the Free Beacon.

“As a manager, he was angry, accusatory, petulant,” added another source familiar with Hagel’s work on Capitol Hill. “He couldn’t keep his staff.”

Hagel had attempted to walk back most of his past comments during the confirmation process and has even apologized for his previous stances during meetings with lawmakers and Jewish community figures.

Hagel reportedly cried while apologizing for some of his past comments during a meeting with Jewish Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.).

“India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan” in Afghanistan, Hagel said during a 2011 address on Afghanistan at Oklahoma’s Cameron University, according to video of the speech obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

A spokesperson for the Embassy of India told the Free Beacon that Hagel’s remarks are not grounded in “reality.”

“Such comments attributed to Sen. Hagel, who has been a long-standing friend of India and a prominent votary of close India-U.S. relations, are contrary to the reality of India’s unbounded dedication to the welfare of the Afghan people,” the spokesperson said to the Free Beacon in an email.

“India’s commitment to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan is unwavering, and this is reflected in our significant assistance to Afghanistan in developing its economy, infrastructure and institutional capacities,” the spokesperson said. ”Our opposition to terrorism and its safe havens in our neighborhood is firm and unshakeable.”

Hagel’s comments also appear to run counter to the official U.S. policy regarding India and Afghanistan, the spokesperson said.

“India’s development assistance has been deeply appreciated by the people and the Government of Afghanistan, and by our friends around the world, including the United States,” the embassy statement said. “We do not view our engagement with Afghanistan as a zero sum game.”

“India and the United States have a shared perspective and a deep convergence of interests for ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan,” the spokesperson added. “We will continue to work to help the Afghan people build a peaceful, prosperous, democratic and inclusive future for themselves in an environment free from terror and intimidation.”

India experts also criticized Hagel’s remarks earlier Monday as “paranoid” and “over-the-top.”

“It’s both over-the-top and a sharp departure from a U.S. position that has seen democratic India as a stabilizing influence in Afghanistan and Asia more broadly,” Sadanand Dhume, former India bureau chief at the Far Eastern Economic Review and current resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Free Beacon.

“It’s also exactly the sort of statement that would have frayed ties with New Delhi, which has been watching the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan with concern,” Dhume said, referring to the administration’s plan to remove most military forces from the war-torn country in the coming months.

Hagel also stated in his 2011 remarks that India intentionally has fueled tensions with Pakistan.

“India for some time has always used Afghanistan as a second front, and India has over the years financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the border,” Hagel said in the speech. “And you can carry that into many dimensions, the point being [that] the tense, fragmented relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been there for many, many years.”

The Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday reported on a contemporaneous account of the 2010 speech written by former Rutgers law student Kenneth Wagner, who attended the event.

“I want to call your attention to and request a response to a story in the Washington Free Beacon on February 19th, which includes a contemporaneous account from an attendee at your 2010 Rutgers University lecture,” Graham wrote in the letter. “Senator Hagel, did you say this? Have you said anything similar? Does this contemporaneous email reflect your views?”

According to Wagner’s notes, which he emailed to a contact at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) during the speech, Hagel said Israel was at risk of becoming an apartheid state, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was radical, that the Jewish state has violated UN resolutions and that Hamas should be included in any Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiation.

Hagel reportedly made the comments during the post-speech question-and-answer session.

A spokesperson for Hagel did not respond to a request for comment as of press time.

Graham and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) sent a letter to Hagel last week after a previous Free Beacon report on an account of a speech Hagel gave at Rutgers University in 2007. The account, written by Hagel-supporting political consultant George Ajjan, stated that Hagel said the U.S. Department of State was an adjunct of the Israeli foreign minister’s office during the question and answer session.

Hagel has since disavowed the comment and says he does not recall making it.

Two of the lecture’s organizers, Iran presidential candidate Hooshang Amirahmadi and Professor Charles Häberl, say they do not recall Hagel making the comment. Ajjan’s account was posted on his website shortly after the speech and is the only known published report of the question-and-answer session.

Ajjan stood by his account in an interview with the Free Beacon on Monday.

“I’m a conscientious person,” Ajjan said. “When I was blogging at that time, I did my best to record things accurately … there’s no way that I would pick a phrase like ‘adjunct of the Israeli foreign ministry.’ That’s a pretty odd combination of words to use. I wouldn’t have just pulled those out of thin air.”

The Free Beacon is working to obtain a transcript and video of both the 2007 and 2010 events, and is continuing to reach out to other attendees.

Hagel had promised lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) that he would release detailed information about every speech he had delivered over the past several years, and that he would “make every effort” to make such speeches available for review.

However, Hagel has not released the video of an October 20, 2011, address he delivered at Cameron University in Oklahoma. This is just one of several speeches that Hagel has failed to turn over to the committee.

University officials said the 2011 tape could be released if Hagel and the Washington Speaker’s Bureau (WSB), Hagel’s booking agency, provide written consent.

“I’m certainly sure if consent was given the video could be found,” Josh Lehman, Cameron University’ senior director of public affairs, said Wednesday when contacted about releasing the speech.

Release of the video is contingent on written consent from Hagel and WSB due to a contract that was signed between the speaker’s bureau the university, Lehman said.

“Per the wording of the contract the video is for archival purposes only,” he said. “Any other use than archival” purposes would require consent.

The video is currently located in an easily accessible archive, Lehman explained.

“Just have them send [the relevant consent information] and we’d go from there,” he said.

Hagel told senators during his confirmation hearing that the decision to release such speeches was not at his discretion. “On paid speeches, most everyone of those paid speeches, in the contract it says that they are private and not videotaped. That wasn’t my decision. That was the contract of the group I spoke to.”

A Hagel spokesperson and the WSB did not respond to multiple requests for comment about whether they would consent to release the video.

Hagel had promised SASC full disclosure during his testimony last month.

“I will commit to [release all speeches] and every request as we have, as I said, some of this I didn’t see until yesterday,” Hagel told SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D., Mich.) during his testimony before the committee. “But everything that is out there that we can find we’ll make every effort to get it and provide it.”

Questions continue to swirl around controversial comments that Hagel made during several speeches he either did not disclose or for which he did not provide recordings or transcripts.

Reporters also have been denied access to a large archive of Hagel-related material located at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.

The Weekly Standard reported Wednesday that one of their reporters was refused access to the Hagel archive despite multiple discussions with university officials, who told a reporter that access to the archive could only be granted with Hagel’s approval.

“The [2008] agreement … signed between the university and former senator precludes anyone from looking at the archives until they are complete,” the Standard reported.

University officials also declined to show the Standard the copy of the agreement Hagel signed with the university.

An Obama administration official maintained that Hagel has been completely transparent despite reports otherwise.

“Chuck Hagel’s record in the Senate is well documented in the public domain,” said Marie Harf, a White House spokeswoman who is working on Hagel’s nomination. “Given his extraordinary disclosures to date, which surpass the threshold applied to nominees, there is no need to make this archived material public.”

Sources on Capitol Hill continue to maintain that Hagel has not been forthright with lawmakers.

“Chuck Hagel knows that the more information that gets disclosed, the more people will learn how anti-Israel his fringe views really are,” said one senior Senate aide close to the confirmation process.

“Every day we learn more and more based on undisclosed information that researchers are digging up,” the source said.

The Washington Free Beacon reported last week that “Hagel said the U.S. Department of State was an adjunct of the Israeli foreign minister’s office,” according to a contemporaneous report of the 2007 event at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Additionally, the Free Beacon reported Tuesday that Hagel said Israel is at risk of becoming an apartheid state during an April 9, 2010 appearance at Rutgers.

Hagel reportedly cried while apologizing for some of his past comments during a meeting with Jewish Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.).

Hagel, a two-term Republican senator from Nebraska, was nominated Monday as President Barack Obama’s pick to head the Pentagon. He faces criticism for opposing a 2005 congressional resolution recognizing Turkey’s genocide of more than one million Armenians.

“What happened in 1915 happened in 1915,” Hagel said during a 2005 trip to Armenia when he was serving in the Senate. “As one United States senator, I think the better way to deal with this is to leave it open to historians and others to decide what happened and why.”

“The fact is that this region needs to move forward,” Hagel continued. “We need to find a lasting, just peace between Turkey and Armenia and the other nations of this region. I am not sure that by going back and dealing with that in some way that causes one side or the other to be put in difficult spot, helps move the peace process forward.”

Armenian-American leaders and genocide experts decried these comments as insensitive and dangerous. They maintain that Hagel’s willingness to overlook the systematic genocide of more than one million people raises concerns about his possible tenure as the nation’s top defense official.

“Senator Hagel’s remarks from 2005 ignore a proud chapter in U.S. history during which America’s diplomatic community played an important role denouncing human rights violations and setting an example of humanitarian assistance on behalf of a people at risk,” said Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the nonpartisan Armenian Assembly of America.

“The fact of the Armenian Genocide is incontestable, and not only recognized by Nebraska’s Governor in 2004, but also has been repeatedly confirmed by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, a preeminent body dedicated to the study of genocide, its consequences, and its prevention,” Ardouny said. “We expect a rigorous confirmation process which will also serve as an opportunity for Senator Hagel to forthrightly acknowledge the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide.”

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) also stated that it is “troubled” by Hagel’s comments, which it claims displays a willingness to adopt Turkish propaganda aimed at whitewashing the genocide.

“We remain troubled by former Senator Hagel’s acceptance of Ankara’s gag-rule on American honesty about the Armenian Genocide—the still unpunished crime against a Christian nation that continues to define Turkey’s present-day policies toward Armenia and much of the region,” ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian said in a December statement released prior to Hagel’s nomination.

“As much as [Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan and his allies might like, the ‘lasting, just peace between Turkey and Armenia’ that Chuck Hagel seeks cannot be built on Genocide denial,” Hamparian said. “The U.S. and the international community must set an example by condemning the Armenian Genocide—and speaking out against all genocides, wherever and whenever they occur.”

Prominent genocide experts and human rights groups also regard Hagel’s comments as a disturbing misunderstanding of history.

“On the eve of the Holocaust, Hitler mockingly asked, ‘Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?’ Not Chuck Hagel, apparently,” Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, told the Washington Free Beacon.

“Sweeping genocide under the rug in the name of political expediency, as Senator Hagel recommended with regard to Turkey and the Armenians, is not only wrong but dangerous, because the failure to acknowledge past genocides paves the way for future genocides,” Medoff said.

Other prominent human rights leaders dubbed Hagel’s remarks as “shameful.”

“What Chuck Hagel said in his press conference in Armenia in 2005 regarding the genocide of Armenians by Turks is shameful,” said Walter Reich, a former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “In his forthcoming confirmation hearings, senators should confront him with what he said and should expect him to address it.”

“I believe he should apologize for it not with the kind of perfunctory apology that’s routine and therefore meaningless in Washington’s public life but with a response that makes clear that he understands why he was wrong,” said Reich, who serves as the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics, and Human Behavior at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Hagel disgraced the memory of those murdered by stating that Armenians should move past the genocide, Reich added.

“It’s a disgrace—and a disservice to the memory of the victims—to say that their murder should be forgotten in the service of ‘the peace process,’ as if a real peace process is possible if one hides or ignores or mischaracterizes what actually happened,” Reich said.

“The victims deserve better. History deserves better. Memory deserves better,” Reich said. “And, in its Secretary of Defense—whose actions and opinions, if Hagel is confirmed, will be central to the formulation and execution of American policies that will affect the world, especially parts of the world in which history and memory are very sensitive matters—America deserves better.”

Human rights scholar Thane Rosenbaum said Hagel’s opposition to U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide “betrays a shocking lack of moral leadership.”

The issue of the Armenian genocide remains a political third rail in Turkey, which refuses to acknowledge its role in the systematic slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians in the early 1900s.

Turkish lobbying groups in the U.S. have long pressured U.S. lawmakers to avoid acknowledging to the genocide.

Many U.S. leaders, including Obama and Hagel, have acquiesced to this demand in order to maintain good relations with the Turkish government, a critical Middle East ally.

Human rights leaders and others maintain that the Pentagon deserves a principled leader who will uphold the moral high ground.

Hagel’s position on the Armenian genocide, they say, suggests that he is willing to forsake morality when it becomes politically convenient.

“These are not principled positions because they’re filled with hypocrisy,” said Rosenbaum, a law professor at Fordham University in New York. Hagel has displayed “a fundamental misunderstanding of humanity,” Rosenbaum said.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center also expressed “deep reservations” about Hagel for this and other reasons.

The Turkish press, however, has praised Obama’s selection of Hagel.

Various Turkish news reports hailed Hagel for his pro-Turkey and anti-Israel views. He also has received support among Turkish columnists for his past efforts to weaken economic sanctions on Iran.

Hagel has faced fierce opposition from lawmakers and Jewish leaders for his comments that they say are anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. He has also been criticized for anti-gay comments and for taking a soft stance on Syria.

Six senators with home-state nuclear bases or membership on the Senate Armed Services Committee said they are either opposing Hagel’s nomination or questioning his judgment for backing the international anti-nuclear movement. Hagel is among some 300 international and national public figures supporting the group’s stated goal of seeking “the elimination of all nuclear weapons.”

“The Department of Defense’s mission is to deter war and protect the security of our country,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), whose state is host to a major strategic missile base that would be eliminated under Global Zero’s plan to cut all land-based ICBMs.

“Sen. Hagel’s proposal to weaken our nuclear triad by eliminating America’s land-based nuclear missiles would undermine our security and empower our enemies,” Barrasso said. “During the confirmation process, he’ll need to answer questions about the Global Zero report and make it clear that he will take no action to weaken our national defense.”

The concern is bipartisan. Newly elected Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D., N.D.) said through a spokeswoman that she expects to put forth questions on Hagel’s nuclear weapons views during the confirmation process.

“Of course any issues that affect the [North Dakota strategic missile] bases will be a top concern for the senator,” spokeswoman Whitney Phillips said.

Sen. David Vitter (R., La.) said he opposes Hagel. “I’ll be a ‘no’ vote on the Armed Services Committee and on the floor,” Vitter said. ”Given his thinking on the New Start treaty, further dramatic U.S. [arms] reductions, and a nuclear Iran, I think he could lead us into a much more unstable, dangerous nuclear world with greatly diminished U.S. deterrence.”

Louisiana is home to Barksdale Air Force Base where U.S. strategic nuclear bombers are based.

Senior Senate Armed Services Committee member Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) also expressed concerns about Hagel’s views on nuclear weapons. The senator plans to question Hagel on the issue during nomination hearings, an Inhofe aide said.

“I am aware of the serious concerns about some of his policy positions, his record, and some of his comments that have been publicly reported,” Inhofe said in a Jan. 7 statement.

Sen. John Hoeven (R., N.D.) is also concerned about Hagel’s positions on nuclear forces.

“While I have great respect for Chuck Hagel’s service in our military and the U.S. Senate, I have serious reservations about his nomination as U.S. secretary of defense,” Hoeven said in a statement.

“As a senator from a state that is home to two legs of the nuclear triad, I am particularly concerned about Senator Hagel’s support for additional, major reductions in U.S. nuclear forces, which I believe puts the United States at a severe disadvantage in a still-dangerous global military environment,” he said.

Sen. Michael Enzi (R., Wyo.) also voiced worries about Hagel’s anti-nuclear views.

Dan Head, an Enzi spokesman, said the senator is withholding judgment on Hagel’s nomination until the hearing process is complete.

“Sen. Enzi believes maintaining a strong ICBM force is a critical part of protecting our country,” said Head.

“They are not only cost-effective and reliable, they are a visual reminder that America stands ready to protect itself and its allies from any who would do us harm,” he said. “By preserving our ICBM force, Wyoming plays an important role in keeping America strong and free.”

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.) said through a spokeswoman that he also has reservations about Hagel and suggested Hagel’s views on nuclear arms could be raised during hearing. Georgia is home to the Kings Bay naval base, homeport to a group of strategic nuclear missile submarines.

“I have serious questions about both appointments,” Chambliss said, referring to Hagel and CIA director-designate John Brennan. “The process is designed to allow for very probing questions and that is what I look forward to.”

John Bolton, a former State Department undersecretary for arms control, said support for the Global Zero can be an abstraction, such as the Biblical notion of “when the lions lie down with the lambs.” Or it can be a real policy objective, he said.

“Obama proclaims he is of the latter view and [the Senate Armed Services Committee] should find out where Chuck Hagel is,” Bolton said.

Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, where the U.S. Strategic Command in charge of nuclear forces has its headquarters, served in the Senate from 1997 to 2009. He has come under fire from both ends of the political spectrum from critics upset with a range of issues, from his softline policies toward Iran, to anti-Israel positions, to comments he made on the nomination of an ambassador he deemed to be “aggressively gay.”

A U.S. official close to Hagel said the senator strongly supported the Nebraska-based Strategic Command. The official previewed Hagel’s expected position on senators’ concerns about his Global Zero work during upcoming hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee. A hearing could be held as early as the end of the month.

The official told the Free Beacon the senator “believes we must work towards a world free of nuclear weapons just as President Obama said in his April 2009 Prague speech.”

But Hagel agrees with the president that, as long as the threat of nuclear arms exists, “the U.S. must retain readiness of a strong nuclear arsenal.”

Hagel was one of five members of the Global Zero Nuclear Policy Commission, along with retired Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, former ambassador and New York Times reporter Richard Burt, former State Department official Thomas Pickering, and retired Gen. Jack Sheehan, a former NATO commander.

The report called for cutting U.S. nuclear warheads to 900 strategic weapons by 2022, with 450 deployed and the rest in storage. The cuts should be part of “a path of reductions that lead in verifiable stages with an objective of their total elimination—‘Global Zero,’” the report stated.

A force of 450 strategic warheads would be less than the number estimated to be in the Chinese strategic nuclear arsenal, which is being modernized and expanded, as well as in Russia’s nuclear forces. Such an imbalance would raise questions about whether other nations could be deterred from using nuclear blackmail against the United States and could lead U.S. allies reliant on U.S. nuclear protection to seek their own strategic forces.

The most controversial part of the Global Zero plan is its call for the elimination of all land-based U.S. ICBMs.

Instead, the U.S. nuclear force under Global Zero would include 10 Trident ballistic missile submarines armed with 720 strategic missile warheads and 18 B-2 bombers armed with 180 gravity bombs.

Hagel also co-sponsored legislation in 2007 with then-Sen. Barack Obama advocating that the United States reach an agreement to halt all production of “fissile material for nuclear weapons.” The bill also sought talks with the Russians on cutting tactical nuclear arms and further reducing strategic nuclear arms, continuing to ban nuclear tests and seeking ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty that was voted down by the Republican-led Senate in 1999.

The Zero plan also calls for eliminating all forward-based nuclear weapons, such as tactical nuclear arms currently used to deter North Korea and China in Asia and Russia in Europe.

The plan would also prevent the United States from responding to a nuclear attack for 24 to 72 hours, shift strategic targeting of Russia from nuclear to conventional forces, delay construction of the next-generation U.S. ballistic missile submarine, and require that the missiles on the new submarine be designed for use without warheads.

The planned strategic nuclear cuts and de-alerting measures could be done together with Russia or unilaterally, the report said.

The report also appears to accuse current U.S. nuclear policy of possibly leading to war. “Current U.S. nuclear policy also unnecessarily incurs risks of unintentionally initiating a nuclear conflict,” the report said.

The report claims that the risk of nuclear war is now so low that there is no need for a strong deterrent arsenal.

“The risk of a nuclear confrontation with either Russia or China belongs to the past not the future,” the report said. “It seems increasingly improbable that U.S. relations with Russia or China would deteriorate so severely during the time frame of this report’s plan (2012-2022) that the nuclear balance among them would become a salient factor.”

Both Russia and China currently are engaged in large-scale nuclear weapons modernization programs. They include new long-range missiles, some with advanced capabilities designed to defeat U.S. missile defenses. Other new weapons being developed by both Beijing and Moscow include new ballistic missile submarines and new strategic bombers.

Foreign Policy’s blog Situation Report disclosed Wednesday that Hagel visited the Pentagon Tuesday to receive briefings in preparation for his Senate appearance.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta defended Hagel on Thursday from critics of the former senator’s nuclear weapons views.

“I think a lot of the criticisms that are being made right now are unfair,” Panetta told reporters. “But he’ll have the opportunity to speak to those when he goes for his confirmation hearing.”

Panetta said “confirmation battles” produce a lot of charges and criticism but “ultimatley the truth prevails.” He predicted that Hagel would be confirmed by the Senate.

Deutsche Bank made at least $654 million in 2008 from trades pegged to the Libor currently being investigated by regulators, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The German bank’s trading profits resulted from billions of euros in bets related to the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, and other global benchmark rates.

Regulators have been investigating allegations that more than a dozen banks, including Deutsche Bank, rigged Libor and other interest rates underpinning trillions of dollars in loans and other financial contracts. …

So far, an internal inquiry by Deutsche Bank aimed at uncovering evidence of Libor manipulation has found misconduct by just a few individuals, people close to the bank said. As part of its cooperation with investigators, Deutsche Bank still is checking all the trades for any suspicious signs.

Regulators have alleged a conspiracy by global banks to rig interest rates, with some traders brazenly boasting about their prowess at moving the influential rates up or down at their whims. Libor is determined daily using bank-submitted estimates of how much it would cost the banks to borrow in different currencies and over different time periods.

The Free Beacon reported in December that Hagel sits on the board of Deutsch Bank. This is not the first time the bank has been investigated for shady dealings.

The bank is also under investigation for allegedly violating a United States trade embargo on Iran’s oil and energy sector, which is believed to play a key role in Tehran’s nuclear enrichment program.

The Washington Free Beacon reported last week that during his tenure as the USO’s top official Hagel attempted to cut funding for the USO Haifa Center, telling a group of Jewish leaders in a 1989 meeting that the American Jewish community should bankroll the port, according to sources present in the meeting.

“He said to me, ‘Let the Jews pay for it,’” Marsha Halteman, director for military and law enforcement programs at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), told the Free Beacon last week.

Halteman reiterated her recollection of that meeting when contacted by the Free Beacon Monday.

Other sources corroborated this version of events, telling the Free Beacon that Hagel’s desire to cut the USO Haifa’s funding drew a stern reaction at the time from many American Jewish leaders.

Charles Wax, whose father Morris helped raise $60,000 to keep the Haifa USO port operational, recalled his father’s anger over the funding dispute.

“My dad was on the USO board with Hagel,” the former Republican Nebraska Senator who served as CEO of the World USO from 1987 to 1990, Wax said.

“When he heard the Haifa USO was going to be closed, he was very upset,” Wax said. “He used to smoke these foot long cigars and was about ready to eat one whole. He didn’t like what Hagel was doing.”

Morris Wax resolved to raise the necessary funds independently, his son recalled.

“He was very, very angry about it,” said Wax. “[Morris] would get on the phone with people and be fuming. He was really angry about this.”

Hagel viewed the USO Haifa port “as something the American Jewish community should support,” said another U.S. source involved in protecting the port’s funding.

“My conversation with Hagel was that this thing is costing too much money, that I don’t want to pay for it,” the source said. “If the Jews want to have it they should pay for it. It was all about money.”

Hagel is said to have insisted that the USO Haifa hub was costing the USO, which was facing a budget crunch at the time, too much money.

However, insiders disputed this claim.

Hagel “said this thing is costing too much money and if the Jews want it why don’t the Jews pay for it,” said the source involved in keeping the port open. “That’s what really bothered me because all USOs run at a deficit. That’s why you fundraise. But it turns out the USO [in Haifa] wasn’t running in any way a major deficit.”

Hagel “thought, ‘I’ll get it [the money] from the Jews,’” the source said.

These sources dispute a recent Atlantic article written by a prominent Hagel supporter who interviewed two Israeli sources claiming that Hagel was a “gift from God” for the Haifa USO port, which was a popular destination for U.S. troops serving abroad.

However, U.S. sources involved in the effort to keep the USO Haifa port operational said these Israeli sources were neither present at nor involved in the 1989 D.C. discussions that took place with Hagel.

One of the Atlantic’s sources, Gilla Gerzon, the former director of the USO’s Haifa port, told the Free Beacon Monday that she did not recall being involved in the funding battle that erupted between D.C.-based Jewish leaders and Hagel.

“I wasn’t there. I was actually in Israel,” Gerzon said, explaining she did not have any recollection of participating in the D.C. meeting with Hagel.

Gerzon remained effusive in her praise of Hagel but was unable to provide any information about the contentious funding dispute.

Hagel’s conversations took place with Jewish leaders and other advocates in D.C., said one of the U.S. sources involved in keeping the Haifa USO port open.

“That’s not a conversation he would have had with Israelis,” explained the source.

The Atlantic interviewed “two people who had no idea what was going on in the United States,” the source explained. “The people in Israel were not at all involved in the conversations in Washington.”

“I never met any Israelis in the U.S. coming to the USO for this purpose ever,” said the source. “If you were Hagel, there was no reason to have that conversation with Israelis. He wasn’t saying Israel or the government of Israel should pay.”

The source recalled having expressed concern about Hagel to Gerzon.

“I had that conversation with Gilla more than once because I expressed reservations about Hagel,” recalled the source.

“I tried to explain to her the problem of the money in the U.S. and the problem of the USO system wanting the American Jewish community to fundraise for Haifa explicitly,” the source said. “[Gilla] said that’s not the part of the USO I deal with.”

“This was entirely separate from any trip to Israel [Hagel] was going to take because that’s not what it was about,” the source said. “It was about the money. It was about the books.”

The events are detailed in a forthcoming book about Morris Wax, the American who helped save the USO Haifa.

“Gerzon became especially grateful to Morris [Wax] in the early 1990s, about the time of the First Gulf War, when Chuck Hagel, the new director and future U.S. Senator from Nebraska, announced plans to shutter the facility in Haifa because of a budget deficit,” the book states.

“Marsha Halteman, program director for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), said that the shortfall was between $25,000 and $50,000, and ‘Morrie came through,’” Halteman recalled in a 2011 interview for the book. “It’s a short story; that USO stayed open in Israel because of Morrie, no doubt about it.”

“It was not only a question of [Wax] partially contributing and partially raising the necessary funds, [Halteman] added,” according to a copy of the manuscript obtained by the Free Beacon. “As a member of the USO board, he also pressured Hagel to make the USO in Israel a permanent entity.”

The Cable has learned that a large chunk of that pro-Hagel money is coming from one Democratic donor, gambling legend Bill Benter, who is working with the Podesta Group, a Washington lobbying firm, to support pro-Hagel advertising. Podesta facilitated Benter’s funding of a week of ads in Politico’s Playbook must-read daily newsletter, written by Mike Allen, a spokesman for Benter confirmed to The Cable.

This isn’t Benter’s first effort to use his fortune to advance the career of someone with a history of anti-Israel rhetoric. Benter donated to the world of liberal foundations, specifically the two anti-Israel groups J Street and Media Matters, following his horse race gambling success. Benter told the Daily Caller he has “been a contributor to Media Matters for many years.”

Benter is suspected of donating to Media Matters in an attempt to install M.J. Rosenberg as the foreign policy voice at Media Matters.

M. J. Rosenberg was accused of being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic last year for using the term “Israel firster,” for saying AIPAC “has Obama’s back to [the] wall on Iran,” and for saying the Jewish “lobby” is pushing for war. Rosenberg left Media Matters in April 2012 after months of controversy.

J Street, the progressive organization focused on Israel, originally defended Rosenberg. J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami said, “it’s a legitimate question” when Jewish Americans and Americans sympathetic to Israel are accused of putting the interest of another country before the United States. Ben-Ami later retracted his defense.

Benter is also one of J Street’s most important backers. He solicited and facilitated an $811,697 donation from an individual in Hong Kong for the group. The controversial anti-Israel group has faced questions since its founding. The organization denied ties to the controversial billionaire George Soros on its website but it was later revealed that Soros and his family had donated $750,000 to J Street. Soros has faced criticism for blaming the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe on the policies of the Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’ administrations and for writing that Israel was “the main stumbling block” for the Egyptian revolution.

In addition to the Podesta Group being paid by persons unknown to support Hagel, the Center For American Progress, founded and chaired by Tony Podesta’s brother, John, has simultaneously taken an aggressive role in defending Hagel from charges of hostility to gays and Jews as well as from questions about his views on Iran and Israel among other controversial issues. CAP’s Think Progress website, recently mired in its own anti-Semitism scandal, defended Hagel’s record on Israel while outside criticisms have been dismissed as “neocon smears.”

John Podesta cofounded the Podesta Group with his brother before leaving to found CAP.

Tony Podesta, the current president of the Podesta Group, has a history of representing often anti-democratic foreign powers, including Egypt from 2007 to 2012. Podesta’s Egypt contract was worth at least $90,000 per month. The contract, which began under the deposed Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, brought in more than $6 million over its duration.

Hagel has been criticized by many members of the Jewish community for being antagonistic toward Israel and the Jewish community in the U.S. Remarks Hagel made in 1998, opposing an ambassador for being ‘openly and aggressively gay,’ have angered many in the LGBT community, including many members of President Obama’s own party. Hagel opposed abandoning ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy, which Obama succeeded in removing, claiming ‘The U.S. armed forces aren’t some social experiment.”