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White House assures US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will keep his position amid secretive hospital admit
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin faces scrutiny over delayed hospital disclosure, yet confirmed to retain the position. White House will investigate.
The White House has said that US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin will keep his job, despite the controversy over his delayed disclosure of his hospitalisation last week.
White House spokesman John Kirby told reporters, “There is no plan for anything other than for Secretary Austin to stay in the job.”
Mr Austin, 70, was still in hospital on Monday morning, according to Kirby.
The White House and the Pentagon came under fire after it was revealed that Austin had been in hospital for three days before President Joe Biden was informed.
Austin is second only to the president in the command structure of the US military and is expected to be ready to handle any national security crisis at any moment.
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White House is investigating
Kirby said on Monday that the White House would investigate the incident and learn from it.
“We’ll do what’s akin to a hot wash and try to see if processes and procedures need to be changed at all or modified so that we can learn from this,” he said.
He added that the president’s main concern was Austin’s health and recovery and that he hoped to see him back at the Pentagon soon.
On Sunday, a Pentagon spokesman said that Austin had an elective medical procedure on 22 December and went home the next day.
However, on the night of 1 January, Austin felt “severe pain” and was taken to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington DC, said Air Force Maj Gen Pat Ryder.
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He said that Defense Secretary was put in the intensive care unit (ICU) partly because of “hospital space considerations and privacy”.
Austin resumed his full duties on Friday, but he was still in hospital, though not in the ICU.
In a statement on Saturday, the former four-star general admitted his mistake and promised to do better.
“I recognise I could have done a better job ensuring the public was appropriately informed. I commit to doing better,” he said.
