The nation’s top two military officials told a Senate hearing this morning that they support repeal of the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, but said they’ll need another year of study before they could recommend ways to implement a repeal.
“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee, New York Times reports.
[see video clip of hearing statements at end of post]
He stressed, however, that in endorsing a repeal of the policy he was “speaking for myself and myself only”, Washington Post reports.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told the committee in his opening statement, “I fully support the president's decision. The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it. We’ve received our orders from the commander in chief and are moving out accordingly.”
But he told the committee, “If legislation is passed repealing ‘don't ask don't tell', we would feel it very important that we be given some period of time for that implementation, at least a year," Reuters reports.
In his prepared remarks, Mullen said, “The chiefs and I are in complete agreement with the approach that Sec. Gates has outlined. We believe that any implementation plan for a policy permitting gays and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces must be carefully derived, sufficiently thorough, and thoughtfully executed.”
In a statement issued after the hearing, Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), a DADT-repeal advocacy group, applauded Gates and especially Mullen for their statements to the committee, saying they have “laid out a roadmap for full repeal” of DADT.
But Sarvis said a one-year study period is “too long and unnecessary”. He said the process of repeal “must have finality”. He recommended that Congress immediately act on repeal legislation rather than waiting for another year.
Top military leaders call for one-year study of DADT repeal [contd.]
“SLDN would support a reasonable implementation and transition period if the Military Readiness Enhancement Act—Rep. Patrick Murphy’s legislation that repeals the law and replaces it with a policy of nondiscrimination—was simultaneously moving through Congress this year and the President signed the bill into law this year,” Sarvis said in the statement.
Gates said he had recently ordered a 45-day review interim steps the military might take prior to repeal of the law to modify some of the policy’s impact, Politico reports.
He said he does not believe an outright moratorium on DADT dismissals would be legal, but said “we believe that we have a degree of latitude within the existing law to change our internal procedures in a manner that is more appropriate and fair to our men and women in uniform.”
He said the interim review will consider using a higher standard of evidence before a service member is discharged. He also confirmed that he’s considering ending investigations based on third-party complaints, so DADT proceedings would be brought only when a service member publicly discloses his or her sexual orientation.
Gates said he had appointed a two men to oversee the year-long study of repeal implementation. It will be led by Jeh C. Johnson,the Pentagon's general counsel, and Gen. Carter F Ham, the Army’s top commander in Europe.
Gates said the year-long review is still necessary before full repeal because “a fundamental change in personnel policy” demands “a thorough examination of all the issues”, Bloomberg reports. He said that Johnson and Ham are charged with finding ways “to get this right and minimize disruption to a force that is actively fighting two wars and working through the stress of almost a decade of combat.” He said any repeal plan would be implemented in a way that would “minimize disruption and polarization within the rank”.
“As urgently as some would like this to happen its just going to take some time,” Mullen added.
He said he believes that “the great young men and women of our military can and would accommodate such a change,” but added that he did not know for sure. “Nor do I know for a fact how we would best make such a major policy change in a time of two wars.”
The study by Ham and Johnson will help answer those questions, Mullen said.
Mullen later said that he has spoken with the commanders from NATO partners, including the UK, who allow out gay and lesbian service members. He said they had reported seeing “no impact” on military performance.
After Gates and Mullen had delivered their opening remarks the committee’s chairman, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), said said he fully supported repeal of the DADT policy, which he said has “never made sense”.
But Sen. John McCain, the ranking Republican on the committee, bristled at Gate’s announcement that he’d study ways to repeal the policy. He said he was “deeply disappointed” by the remarks from both officials, and called the study by Ham and Johnson “clearly biased” because it presumes the law should be changed.
McCain solded the the officials, “I’m happy to say that we still have a Congress of the United States to repeal 'don’t ask don’t tell,' despite your efforts to repeal it in many respects by fiat.”
Gates assured McCain that the Pentagon respects Congress and recognizes that only it can repeal the law.
A number of LGBT activist groups are ramping up their efforts to lobby Congress for repeal legislation, DC Agenda reports.
One of those organizations is Servicemembers United. The group’s executive director, Alex Nicholson, told the Agenda’s Chris Johnson that its lobbying efforts were spurred on by President Obama’s commitment in the State of the Union address to end the policy this year.
“We always hoped it would happen sooner rather than later, but I think it’s definitely been a surprise that the president has decided to include this issue in the State of the Union and to move forward on this quickly,” Nicholson said. “So we’re obviously trying to rapidly expand our capacity, roll out a number of campaigns and initiatives that we wanted to get underway.”
Nicholson said Servicemembers United has been getting numerous media calls and has been identifying LGBT service members and veterans to respond to those requests. He also noted that his organization is trying to identify high-ranking retired military members who are straight and support allowing gays to serve openly.
Jarrod Chlapowksi, a gay US Army veteran who supports Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in its Voices of Honor tour, discounted the argument that DADT repeal would disrupt the military. McCain said it again today in the hearing. The argument was repeated by House GOP leader, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH).
“The unit cohesion argument has been disproven numerous times,” Chlapowski told the Agenda. “We have the example of Israel. I don’t think anyone would say Israel has a weak military by any means, and that tends to be a pretty strong example. But there really is nothing supporting McCain’s position that this would be detrimental to unit cohesion.”