Military to lift bar on women in combat jobs

Joint Chiefs advised rule; will phase it in, Panetta says

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, shown speaking Saturday in London, envisions a January 2016 date for the armed services to allow combat roles for women, defense officials said Wednesday.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, shown speaking Saturday in London, envisions a January 2016 date for the armed services to allow combat roles for women, defense officials said Wednesday.

— Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is lifting the military’s 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 found themselves in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than 20,000 have served. As of last year, more than 800women had been wounded in the two wars, and more than 130 had died.

Defense officials offered few details about Panetta’s decision but described it as the beginning of a process to allow the branches of the military to put it into effect. Defense officials said Panetta had made the decision on the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The lifting of the ban will open as many as 200,000 positions to women by January 2016, the date set for final implementation, according to a defense official who asked not to be identified. The military services have been directed to have plans completed by May 15, the official said.

Pentagon officials said Wednesday that Panetta gave the armed services until 2016 to ask for special waivers if they believe any positions should remain closed to women.

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 Panetta is about to step down from his post after only 18 months in the job.

Panetta’s decision came after he received a Jan. 9 letter from Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who stated in strong terms that the armed services 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.”

But there was a note of caution. “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,” Dempsey wrote.

A copy of 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.”

As recently as two months ago, four women in the military filed a federal lawsuit against the Pentagon challenging its combat restriction, saying they had all served in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan but had not been officially recognized for it. One of the women, 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 said she 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 such as the infantry remains crucial to career advancement, and women have long said that by not recognizing their real service the military has unfairly held them back.

It is unclear to what degree Congress will review the decision, although in the past some Republican members of the House have balked at allowing women in combat. In recent years they have asked the Pentagon sometimes sharp questions when it became clear from news reports that women were in fact serving in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But as of Wednesday afternoon, there appeared to be bipartisan support for the decision on Capitol Hill.

“I support it,” Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement. “It reflects the reality of 21stcentury military operations.”

Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who lost both legs while serving in the Illinois Army National Guard in Iraq, applauded the Pentagon’s decision.

“The decision to allow women to serve in combat will allow the best man or woman on the front line to keep America safe,” Duckworth said. “As a combat veteran, I know the inclusion of women in combat roles will make America safer and provide inspiration to women throughout our country.”

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that she was pleased by the decision and that it “reflects the increasing role that female service members play in securing our country.”

Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Armed Services panel, said he didn’t believe Panetta’s action would lead to a “broad opening of combat roles for women” because “there are practical barriers which must be resolved so that the department can maximize the safety and privacy of all military members while maintaining military readiness.”

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a nonprofit group that studies military personnel policies and opposes women in combat, said the change was “irresponsible.”

“For the same reason you don’t see women in the NFL, you shouldn’t see women in combat units,” she said. “Women are not the equal of men.”

In his letter, Dempsey said that work remained to set the proper performance standards,both physical and mental, for the new military roles now opening to women. He also set a number of “goals and milestones,” with quarterly progress updates required from the services.

In particular, the Navy will continue to assign more women to warships as privacy and berthing changes are completed.

Information for this article was contributed by Tony Capaccio, David Lerman and Gopal Ratnam of Bloomberg News; by Shashank Bengali of the Tribune Washington Bureau; by Ellen Jean Hirst of the Chicago Tribune; by Matthew Schofield of McClatchy Newspapers; and by Donald Bradley of The Kansas City Star.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/24/2013

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