Showing posts with label Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Show all posts
Marines Join Chorus Urging Caution on Gay Ban
In testimony before a House committee, Gen. James Conway said he supports a Pentagon assessment to determine how to lift the ban. But he also suggested that civil rights ultimately would have to take a back seat if it meant tampering with the military's ability to protect the country.
"That's what they have been built to do under the current construct and I would argue that we've done a pretty good job bringing that to pass," he told the House Armed Services Committee.
"My concern would be that somehow that central purpose or focus were to become secondary to the discussion," he said.
Conway is seen as the most resistant among the service chiefs to efforts under way in Congress and the Pentagon to repeal the 1993 "don't ask, don't tell" law. But his testimony indicates that he won't stand in the way as Defense Secretary Robert Gates undertakes a comprehensive study on how to lift the ban without hurting the force.
President Barack Obama has pledged to change the policy, saying it unfairly punishes patriots who want to serve their country. Congress would have to agree, and it's unclear whether Democrats would have enough votes to pass the legislation.
The opinion of the service chiefs, and Conway's in particular, is expected to factor heavily into the debate.
It's Conway's job to ensure that young recruits are prepared to deploy to dangerous and remote regions of the world. Because Marines frequently represent the military's first line of attack and are dropped behind enemy lines, unit cohesion and morale are considered vital to their ability to succeed.
In 1993, opponents of President Bill Clinton's proposal to lift the ban on gays argued successfully that it might hurt military effectiveness. Facing resistance in Congress, Clinton settled for "don't ask, don't tell," which allowed gays to serve so long as they kept their sexual orientation a secret.
Conway's concerns have been echoed by other service chiefs.
On Tuesday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said they had serious concerns about lifting the ban with two wars raging.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told House lawmakers on Wednesday that he, too, wants the study to be complete before any changes are made.
"That needs to be done because only with that information can we discuss the force that we have, (and) not someone else's," Roughead said.
Britain, Canada, Australia and Israel allow gays to serve openly. Other nations already allow women to serve on submarines; the Navy lifted its ban this month.
Both Conway and Roughead said they would oppose an immediate freeze on firings under "don't ask, don't tell" until Congress can consider broader legislation repealing the 1993 law.
Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has proposed a freeze as a way of allowing gay troops to fight without worrying that they could lose their job.
"Half measures, I think, would only be confusing in the end," Conway said.
Christopher Preble, head of foreign studies at the Cato Institute think tank, said that the service chiefs recognize that change is inevitable, but that the military shouldn't wait too long to determine its next move.
"The military as an institution should not find itself so out of step with the public at large that it cannot relate to the society it's defending," he said.
Academy Women to Become 1st Submariners
Female Sailors will begin serving on submarines by the end of next year, with Naval Academy graduates leading the way, Navy leaders told a Senate committee.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Navy is in a good position to move forward with integrating women onto submarines.
"We think we learned a lot about integrating women in the services years ago, and those lessons are relevant today," Mabus said. Those lessons, he said, include having a "critical mass" of female candidates, having senior women to serve as mentors, and having submarines that don't require modifications: the SSBN ballistic missile and SSGN guided-missile subs.
Finally, Mabus said, "We have the lesson learned to make sure any questions are answered, ... and we're very open and transparent on how we'll do this. We think this is a great idea that will enhance our warfighting capabilities."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates notified Congress on Feb. 19 of the intended change to Navy policy. Mabus had pushed for the change since taking office in May. Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, endorsed the change, saying in a statement released in September that his experience commanding a mixed-gender surface-combatant ship makes him "very comfortable" integrating women into the submarine force. The Navy changed its policy to allow women to serve on combatant ships in 1993.
"We have a great plan, and we're ready to go for the first women to come aboard in late 2011," Roughead told the Senate committee yesterday. In a prepared statement to the committee, he said the change would enable the submarine force "to leverage the tremendous talent and potential of our female officers and enlisted personnel."
Besides the incoming officers from the academy, the first women submariners will include female supply corps officers at the department head level, Roughead said. The change will be phased in over time to include enlisted female Sailors on the SSBN and SSGNs, he said. Women will be added to the Navy's SSN fast-attack submarines after necessary modifications can be determined, he said.
"This initiative has my personal attention, and I will continue to keep you informed as we integrate these highly motivated and capable officers into our submarine force," Roughead told the committee.
Laser Weapon Knocks Down Missile
A laser weapon mounted on a Boeing jumbo jet tracked the missile as it accelerated over the ocean off the Point Mugu Naval Warfare Center Thursday night, then fired an energy beam that heated the missile until it cracked and broke up, according to statements from the Air Force and two aerospace companies involved in the program.
The test is a boost for a program that has had billions in cost overruns and saw its budget sharply cut last year by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who called the concept "fatally flawed" and destined if for minimal research-and-development.
While the success of the test is a technological triumph, it won't save the airborne laser program from being placed on life-support, a defense analyst said.
"The program results are, unfortunately, two years behind the secretary's decision to cancel the program," said Jim McAleese of Mcaleese and Associates, a lawyer and defense consultant in Virginia who is not affiliated with the project.
The laser program was designed to kill missiles at short range. The 2011 budget for the Missile Defense Agency concentrates instead on two ship-based missiles - the Aegis and the SM-3 - that are more useful for regional conflicts involving, say, Iran or North Korea, Mcaleese said.
"As a practical matter, absent something extraordinary, the program has already receded backwards into a technology incubator as opposed to proceeding into production and fielding," he said.
During Thursday's test, the so-called Airborne Laser Testbed was flown on a modified Boeing 747-400F that took off from Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, Boeing said.
The system used two low-energy lasers to target the missile as it was boosting into the sky from a sea platform, then fired a megawatt-class Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser, or COIL, according to the Air Force and the Missile Defense Agency.
"This experiment marks the first time a laser weapon has engaged and destroyed an in-flight ballistic missile, and the first time that any system has accomplished it in the missile's boost phase of flight," Boeing Co. said in a statement. "ALTB has the highest-energy laser ever fired from an aircraft, and is the most powerful mobile laser device in the world."
However, the Air Force said the weapon destroyed a solid-fuel target missile in flight on Feb. 3, although the statement did not provide details. It said the same kind of solid-fuel missile was hit by the laser in a second test Thursday night at Point Mugu but the beam shut off before it could destroy the rocket, the Air Force said.
Much of the research on the program was done in Southern California, which would have benefited economically had the program gone operational.
The airborne laser program began in 1996 and is one in a series of missile defense programs that originated in President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983 - the much-maligned "Star Wars" missile shoot-down effort that was criticized as impractical, expensive and overreaching.
The airborne laser program itself was years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget when the defense secretary decided to cancel money for a second aircraft and opted to shunt the existing weapon into research and development.
"This was supposed to put high-powered lasers on a fleet of 747s," Gates said in a speech last year. "After more than a decade of research and development, we have yet to achieve a laser with enough power to knock down a missile in boost phase more than 50 miles from the launch pad - thus requiring these huge planes to loiter deep in enemy air space to have a feasible shot at a direct hit."
Gates said the program would have needed 10 to 20 operational aircraft at around $1.5 billion each.
Army to Punish at Least 6 in Hasan Case
Senior Army officials told the newspaper this week that the move reflects investigators’ belief that the November attack at the Texas base, in which 13 people were killed, could have been prevented if supervisors had reacted to the suspicious and erratic behavior of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.
Colleagues say Hasan, an Army psychiatrist and practicing Muslim, often inappropriately interjected faith into workplace situations, even on occasion evangelizing to patients. Despite knowledge of those actions, Hasan was not reprimanded and was even promoted over the years.
The Journal reports that most of the officers facing punishment are stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where Hasan worked for six years. The punishments will be detailed in an “accountability review” to be delivered to top Army officials as early as today.
A senior Army official told the newspaper that the investigation found military doctors at Walter Reed were so focused on teaching and clinical work that they failed to adequately supervise Hasan or alert authorities when he began to express extremist religious views.
The recommended punishments include a letter of reprimand, which would effectively end the officers’ military careers.
Sources told the Journal that as many as eight officers could end up facing punishment as a result of the investigation.
Separate White House and Pentagon reviews of the shooting found breakdowns in communication between Hasan’s colleagues, military units and even outside law enforcement agencies about Hasan’s radical Islamic beliefs.
Following the release of his department’s report, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said investigators found the military isn’t prepared to prevent similar attacks in the future, because commanders are unsure how to intervene if they think someone within the ranks is a threat. Military leaders were instructed to review policies and procedures to change that.
Defense Chiefs to Discuss Ending Gay Ban
Gates and top military officer Adm. Mike Mullen "are and frankly have been working on an implementation plan" to carry out President Obama's goal of scrapping the ban, press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters on Thursday.
"And they will have more to say about ... their proposed way forward with 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' early next week," Morrell said.
The law introduced in 1993 requires gays to keep quiet about their sexual orientation or face expulsion from the military.
Taking on a politically charged issue, Obama renewed his vow to end the ban in his State of the Union address on Wednesday, saying he would work "this year" with Congress to change the law.
As a candidate, Obama promised to end the policy, but activists have criticized him for moving cautiously on the issue since taking office.
A defense official said Gates and Mullen would describe "a plan on how to proceed with the president's vision."
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said "the secretary has been intimately involved in conversations with the president leading up to the State of the Union on this issue and is still working on it."
Gates has said previously any change in policy needed to be handled "very, very carefully" as the military was under strain from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The defense secretary was expected to describe possible steps that would need to be taken to prepare the way before the law was changed, the official said.
Another defense official said military leaders were still at a preliminary stage and were not ready to publicly lay out a firm plan for implementing a repeal.
In June, Gates said he asked Pentagon lawyers to consider possible ways to interpret the rule in a more flexible, "humane" manner as an interim step until the law is changed.
Gates would address that option as well at a hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Mullen and the joint chiefs of staff "understand perfectly the president's intent to see the law repealed," said Mullen's spokesman, Capt. John Kirby.
"They also take seriously their obligation to provide the president with the best advice about the impact of the repeal of the law and how best the change in policy can be implemented across the force," he told AFP.
Mullen was "prepared to speak to legislators about how that best advice can be developed," he said.
In his speech Wednesday, Obama devoted one sentence to the issue and set no deadline for securing a change to the law.
"This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are," the president said.
About 13,000 U.S. service members have been discharged under the policy since it was adopted in 1993. The ban through 2003 has resulted in an estimated $95.4 million in recruiting costs and $95.1 million in training replacements, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Polls show most Americans support allowing openly gay men and lesbians to serve in the U.S. military.
Opponents of changing the rule have warned it could threaten "unit cohesion" in the all-volunteer force and damage morale among troops in a military under strain from years of war.
Former president Bill Clinton agreed to the compromise rule after meeting stiff resistance from commanders and some lawmakers when he proposed allowing gays to serve openly in uniform.
White House officials are anxious to avoid Clinton's experience, when he ended up bogged down in a damaging battle over the issue, sapping his influence early in his first term.
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, a Democrat who supports ending the ban, said he believes opinion in and outside the military has progressed since 1993.
"I think there's a generational shift that's taken place," said Levin, who stressed the importance of hearing the views of military officers and enlisted personnel before making moves to end the policy.
