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Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel accuses Obama White House of trying 'to destroy me' after he was forced out of office

Hagel told 'Foreign Policy' magazine that the White House engaged in a campaign to 'destroy' him after he was forced out of the Pentagon
Anonymous Obama aide said as Hagel's departure was announced in 2014 that he had clashed with Susan Rice over releasing Guantanamo terrorists
Another said Hagel 'wasn't up to the job'
'They already had my resignation, so what was the point of just continuing to try to destroy me?' he said of the backstabbing

By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com

Published: 16:25 GMT, 18 December 2015 | Updated: 16:25 GMT, 18 December 2015

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Former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel is accusing the White House of backstabbing him as he prepared to leave the Pentagon in 2014, saying the Obama administration tried to 'destroy' him on his way out the door.

He told Foreign Policy magazine in an interview published Friday that he doesn't know why anonymous White House aides planted stories about why the president demanded his ouster.

'They already had my resignation, so what was the point of just continuing to try to destroy me?' he asked in the interview.

'I don't know what the purpose was. To this day, I'm still mystified by that. But I move forward. I'm proud of my service.'

BLINDSIDED: Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the White House tried to 'destroy' him on his way out the door

He added that he 'would have preferred that my days as defense secretary not end that way.'

The New York Times carried much of the water for backbiting White House aides as Obama publicly praised Hagel for his service during a ceremony in which the humiliated Vietnam veteran and former Nebraska senator never made eye contact with the commander-in-chief.

'Aides said Mr. Obama made the decision to remove his defense secretary on Friday after weeks of rising tension over a variety of issues,' the Times reported, 'including what administration officials said were Mr. Hagel’s delays in transferring detainees from the military prison in Guantánamo Bay and a dispute with Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, over Syria policy.'

NBC News also broadcast an anonymous snipe from a White House official who said Hagel 'wasn’t up to the job.'

Hagel lobbed his own broadside at the Obama Administration in the Foreign Policy interview, insisting that the president should have followed through on attacking Damascus after dictator Bashar al-Assad crossed the now-infamous 'red line' and used chemical weapons in his country's bloody civil war.

NO EYE CONTACT: As Obama called Hagel an 'exemplary' Defense Secretary with a 'steady hand,' Hagel saw the president's aides backstabbing him and leaking damaging snipes to the press

Instead of pulling the trigger on the full-scale attack Hagel had prepared, Obama told his stunned Defense Secretary to stand down.

'Whether it was the right decision or not, history will determine that,' the 69-year-old Hagel told Foreign Policy.

'There’s no question in my mind that it hurt the credibility of the president’s word when this occurred.'

At the time his departure was announced, Hagel took the high road and told the Associated Press that he had 'no major differences' with the president, and that there was no single reason for his resignation.

Asked directly whether he felt he was pressured to resign today, Hagel was not specific. He called it a 'mutual decision' with Obama based on one-on-one talks at the White House.