WUNRN
USA - LIFT OF MILITARY COMBAT BAN
FOR WOMEN
Lance Cpl. Stephanie Robertson of the Marines in Afghanistan in 2010. Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
January 23, 2013 - WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary
Leon E. Panetta is lifting the military’s official ban on women in combat,
which will open up hundreds of thousands of additional front-line jobs to them,
senior defense officials said Wednesday.
The groundbreaking decision overturns a
1994 Pentagon rule that restricts women from artillery, armor, infantry and
other such combat roles, even though in reality women have frequently found
themselves in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan; according to the Pentagon,
hundreds of thousands of women have deployed in those conflicts. As of last
year, more than 800 women had been wounded in the two wars and more than 130
had died.
Defense officials offered few details about
Mr. Panetta’s decision but described it as the beginning of a process to allow
the branches of the military to put the change into effect. Defense officials
said Mr. Panetta had made the decision on the recommendation of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.
Women have long chafed under the combat
restrictions and have increasingly pressured the Pentagon to catch up with the
reality on the battlefield. The move comes as Mr. Panetta is about to step down
from his post and would leave him with a major legacy after only 18 months in
the job.
The decision clearly fits into the broad
and ambitious liberal agenda, especially around matters of equal opportunity,
that President Obama laid out this week in his Inaugural Address. But while it
had to have been approved by him, and does not require action by Congress, it
appeared Wednesday that it was in large part driven by the military itself.
Some midlevel White House staff members were caught by surprise by the
decision, indicating that it had not gone through an extensive review there.
Mr. Panetta’s decision came after he
received a Jan. 9 letter from Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, who stated in strong terms that the armed service chiefs all
agreed that “the time has come to rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for
women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service.”
A military official said the change would
be implemented “as quickly as possible,” although the Pentagon is allowing
three years, until January 2016, for final decisions from the services.
Each branch of the military will have to
come up with an implementation plan in the next several months, the official
said. If a branch of the military decides that a specific job should not be
opened to a woman, representatives of that branch will have to ask the defense
secretary for an exception.
“To implement these initiatives
successfully and without sacrificing our war-fighting capability or the trust
of the American people, we will need time to get it right,” General Dempsey
wrote.
It will be carried out during what the
administration describes as the end of the American combat role in Afghanistan,
the nation’s longest war.
A copy of General Dempsey’s letter was
provided by a Pentagon official under the condition of anonymity.
The letter noted that this action was meant
to ensure that women as well as men “are given the opportunity to succeed.”
It was unclear why the Joint Chiefs acted
now after examining the issue for years, although in recent months there has
been building pressure from high-profile lawsuits.
In November 2012 the American Civil
Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit challenging the ban on behalf of four
service women and the Service Women’s Action Network, a group that works for
equality in the military. The A.C.L.U. said that one of the plaintiffs, Maj.
Mary Jennings Hegar, an Air National Guard helicopter pilot, was shot down,
returned fire and was wounded while on the ground in Afghanistan, but could not
seek combat leadership positions because the Defense Department did not
officially acknowledge her experience as combat.
In the military, serving in combat
positions like the infantry remains crucial to career advancement. Women have
long said that by not recognizing their real service, the military has unfairly
held them back.
The A.C.L.U. embraced Mr. Panetta’s
decision with cautious optimism. Ariela Migdal, an attorney with the A.C.L.U.'s
Women’s Rights Project, said in a statement that the organization was
“thrilled” by the decision, but added that she hoped it would be implemented
“fairly and quickly.”
By law Mr. Panetta is able to lift the ban
as a regulatory decision, although he must give Congress a 30-day notice of his
intent. Congress does not need to approve the decision before it goes into
effect. If Congress disagrees with the action, members would have to pass new
legislation prohibiting the change, which appeared highly unlikely.
Although in the past some Republican
members of the House have balked at allowing women in combat, on Wednesday
there appeared to be bipartisan endorsement for the decision, which was first
reported by The Associated Press and CNN in midafternoon.
“It reflects the reality of 21st century
military operations,” Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of
the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement.
SenatorPatty Murray, Democrat of Washington
and the chairwoman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, called it a
“historic step for recognizing the role women have, and will continue to play,
in the defense of our nation.”
Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire
Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement
that she was pleased by the decision and said that it “reflects the increasing
role that female service members play in securing our country.”
Representative Loretta Sanchez, the
California Democrat who has long pressed to have women’s role in combat
recognized, said that she was pleased that Mr. Panetta was removing what she
called “the archaic combat exclusion policy.”
SenatorKirsten E. Gillibrand, a New York
Democrat who has pushed for lifting the ban, called it “a proud day for our
country” and an important step in recognizing “the brave women who are already
fighting and dying.”
But the leadership of a conservative
Christian group, the Family Research Council, immediately weighed in with its
opposition, sending out a statement from Jerry Boykin, a retired three-star
general with a long career in Special Operations Forces.
General Boykin said that “the people making
this decision are doing so as part of another social experiment.” He especially
criticized the concept of placing women into Special Forces units where “living
conditions are primal in many situations with no privacy for personal hygiene
or normal functions.” It remains unclear if women will be permitted to fight in
Special Forces and other commando units.
Public opinion polls show that Americans
generally agree with lifting the ban. A nationwide Quinnipiac University poll
conducted a year ago found that three-quarters of voters surveyed favored
allowing military women to serve in units that engaged in close combat, if the
women wanted to.
Policy experts who have pushed the military
to lift the ban said that it was striking that much of the impetus appeared to
come from Joint Chiefs, indicating that the top military leadership saw that
the time had come to open up to women.
“It’s significant that the change came from
the uniformed side, rather than being forced on the uniformed side by the
civilian leadership,” said Greg Jacob, the policy director of the Service
Women’s Action Network.
Under current rules, a number of military
positions are closed to women — and to open them, the services have to change
the rules.
Under Mr. Panetta’s new initiative, the
situation is the opposite: Those combat positions would be open to women, and
they could only be closed through specific action.
Capt. Emily Naslund, a Marine officer who
saw ground combat in Afghanistan in 2010, said Wednesday that she embraced the
decision. “This is awesome,” she said.