The Pentagon has rejected assertions from a leading Republican overseeing the Defense Department's budget and policies that the administration's controversial mandate for all troops to receive the coronavirus vaccine "will do more damage to the nation's security than any external threat."

Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a scathing letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday demanding the Pentagon's vaccine mandate for all uniformed troops, Defense Department civilians and private contractors "be immediately suspended." He blasted the orders as unclear, uncertain and needlessly harmful and cited reports that as many as tens of thousands of department personnel may not be able or willing to comply with the order, a prospect he considers dangerous and expensive.