WASHINGTON – A bitterly divided Senate panel on Tuesday voted to approve President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel to be the nation’s defense secretary at a time of turmoil for the military with looming budget cuts, a fresh sign of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The Armed Services Committee voted 14-11 to send the nomination to the full Senate, with all the panel’s Democrats backing the president’s choice to succeed Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. The committee’s Republicans were unified in their opposition to their onetime colleague, a former two-term Republican senator from Nebraska and twice-wounded Vietnam combat veteran.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he would move ahead with a full Senate vote despite Republican complaints that he was “jamming it through.” A vote is expected Thursday, and barring any surprises, the Senate is likely to confirm Hagel for the president’s second-term national security team.

Democrats, who hold a 55-45 edge in the Senate, have the numbers to confirm Hagel on a majority vote, but they would need the support of five Republicans before an up-or-down vote on the president’s Cabinet choice would be allowed.

More than a dozen Republicans oppose the nomination, and Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., the committee’s ranking Republican, is insisting that any confirmation be based on 60 votes rather than a majority of the Senate. But several Republicans reject what would be an unprecedented effort to delay a vote on a Cabinet nominee for defense secretary.

Hagel, 66, faces fierce opposition from Republicans who have challenged his past statements and votes on Israel, Iran, Iraq and nuclear weapons. Just hours before Tuesday’s vote, foes circulated a memo arguing for more information about Hagel’s personal finances and highlighting past statements by Democratic senators demanding further disclosures when the Senate considered nominees by Republican presidents.

The panel’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said the GOP demands were beyond the scope of those traditionally asked of previous nominees, Republican and Democrat – a point echoed by his Republican colleague, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

But Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, continued to demand that Hagel provide personal financial information for the past five years instead of the standard two years of committee and Senate rules, and suggested that the panel doesn’t know whether Hagel received compensation from “extreme and radical groups.” He also suggested that Hagel was hiding information.