Who Is Running The Show On Repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?

2/26/10-by Paula Brooks

“Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.”

~ General George S. Patton, Jr.

Earlier this month, while speaking before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, announced their support of the Commander in Chief, President Obama, call to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the U.S. Military policy that prevent gay and lesbian troops from serving openly.

In that same hearing, Gates announced he’d appointed a “high-level working group” that would study the issue, including asking the troops how they feel about repealing the policy, and report back by the end of the year out how best to change the law.

Yesterday Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told members of the Senate Armed Service Committee, he believes gays and lesbians should be permitted to serve openly in the military, even as Marine Corps Commandant General James Conway repeated yet again that he believes “don’t ask, don’t tell” should stay in place.

However, while saying he thought open service was the right course for the military to take, Mabus also told senators that his view on open service was his personal opinion, and cautioned that if the Defense Department investigation finds that allowing open service would hurt the readiness of the Navy Department, he would oppose it.

Earlier this week, Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, told the House Armed Services Committee that now “is not the time to perturb the force,” a force he described as “stretched by demands in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, also testified that he had “serious concerns” about the impact of repealing Don’t Ask. Don’t Tell. Like Schwartz, Casey expressed trepidation over changing the policy while troops are already strained from the two wars. Casey said he was worried this could poorly effect “readiness and military effectiveness.”

During a briefing at the Pentagon yesterday, Department of Defense press secretary Geoff Morrell was asked by a reporter if Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chairman of the JCS Mike Mullen and the service branch chiefs on the same page when it comes to “don’t ask, don’t tell.

Morrell answered, “Are they not? They’ve all now testified ad nauseam on this, so they’re the ones who are best to speak to their — to their positions on this. What I saw was fundamental agreement that the process laid out by Secretary Gates and Chairman Mullen is the right course; that before we do anything, before Congress takes any action on this, we need the rest of this year, or thereabouts, to review the potential impact on a change in this law on the force.”

Said a top ranking Pentagon source speaking yesterday with LGR. “I agree with the Chief’s that we should study how to smartly implement the CINC’s directives to change this policy and that we should have a plan to present to the congress detailing just how we plan to execute those changes, however, I am not in fundamental agreement with most of the Chiefs view on this policy change beyond that, and everyone has a differing opinion.”

“But since we can not even get consensus among our top civilian leaders and military commanders on this issue,” our source went on, “I have to question the wisdom polling the troops. Since when has it been our policy to ask our troops about policy formulation, and isn’t that our jobs as military leaders to make those decisions? Will we next consult them on operational decisions and start asking them how they feel about being deployed and to which wars we will be allowed deploy them to? As military leaders our duty is not to debate with our troops, the merits of the Commander in Chief’s intentions, it is provide him with the best and most workable means to make those intentions work. ”

Speaking with Nathaniel Frank of the Palm Center after testifying yesterday, the chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Gary Roughead indeed confirmed the DoD plan to poll its personnel about “don’t ask, don’t tell” is unprecedented. “We’ve never done this. We’ve never assessed the force because it’s not our practice to go within our military and poll our force to determine if they like the laws of the land or not. I mean that gets you into a very difficult regime,” said Roughhead.

During his briefing Morrell also confirmed that the Pentagon is in new territory when it comes to asking its troops how they feel about a policy change, “This would mark a dramatic change in, obviously, how we do business, and it would — it would come at a time when we are, obviously, under extraordinary stress,” said Morrell, “And so I think everybody involved believes that we need the time that it will require to conduct a review of this matter, from soup to nuts, to make sure we understand all the potential implications of changing the law.”

While recent polls have found the vast majority of Americans favor the idea of allowing gays to serve, a recent Military Times poll of the troops found while fifty-seven percent of the respondents said they believe a member of their unit is gay, about 51 percent said they oppose repeal of the policy. Anyone who is serving or has served would probably not be surprised by these results. Speaking on the condition of anonymity last month, a senior commander who has served in Iraq said, “Due to the nature of what soldiers do, we discriminate against the too young, the too old, the infirm, the overweight, the physically unfit, and women.’’

The armed forces also initially resisted President Harry Truman’s 1948 order to end discrimination in the services and integrate black troops into the ranks. The then Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, General Omar Bradley, balked and warned, that it was not the business of the armed services to conduct “social experiments.” But Truman was a leader, who brokered no bullshit from his subordinates. As an Army captain in World War One, Truman, during a sudden attack by the Germans on his positions, saw his troops begin to run away. Truman ordered them back into position using profanities and in the end did not lose a single man for the duration of the war. Later as President of the United States, when General Bradley balked at his order to integrate the forces, Truman told Bradley he could mail his resignation to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Paraphrasing General George S. Patton, our source also said, “A piece of spaghetti or a military unit can only be led from the front end, the military is a dictatorship, not a republic and so it needs to be. It is built to fight our wars, to do that, we have to lead our men and women from General to Privates to do things they would rather not do. ”