WASHINGTON, DC. (WOWO): Indiana Senator Dan Coats, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, released the following statement Monday afternoon, after Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced his departure from the Obama Administration:

“I thank Chuck Hagel for his service to our nation throughout his career,” said Coats. “While I did not support Secretary Hagel for this position, ultimately, the buck stops with the president. It is the president who has failed to communicate a serious national security strategy or set conditions that would have allowed Hagel to succeed at the Pentagon. The lack of substantive experience and expertise within the Obama Administration’s national security team remains of grave concern to me. This administration’s confused and weak responses to the flood of foreign crises we face reveals the president’s own indecisive and vacillating foreign policy views and flawed strategies that put our military and national security in an untenable position. This must change now. I urge the president to conduct a top to bottom review of his entire national security team and find experienced advisors who can give him the substantive guidance he is obviously lacking.”