Military Service Chiefs: Keep DADT
The Hill reports:
The top officers of the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force said Friday that Congress should not scrap the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the near-term, claiming it would add more stress to troops during a time of war.
Arguing before a Senate panel that implementing repeal in the short-term would be “risky,” Gen. Norton Schwartz, the chief of staff of the Air Force, recommended that it should not happen until 2012, at the earliest.
Gen. James Amos, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, pleaded against repeal implementation as the Marines fighting in Afghanistan “are singularly focused on combat” in a “deadly environment.”
Doing so “has strong potential for disruption at the small unit level, will no doubt divert leadership attention away from almost singular focus of preparing units for combat,” Amos said in his opening statements to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Amos’s Army counterpart, Gen. George Casey, who led forces during the Iraq war, said Friday the law that prohibits gays from serving openly should be repealed “eventually,” but stressed that he would not recommend “going forward at this time” given all the missions the Army “has on its plate.”
Casey said that swift implementation of repeal will “add another level of stress to an already stretched force.”
The officers’ testimony likely will fuel the arguments of critics who oppose repeal of the Clinton-era law.
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