McCain Accuses Gates Of Disrespecting Law; Usurping Congress’ Authority

John McCain: Robert Gates Disrespecting Law On "Don't Ask"


Two top Pentagon officials told Congress on Tuesday that they are moving ahead with plans to dismantle the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against homosexuals serving openly in the armed forces — drawing a sharp rebuke from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who accused Defense Secretary Robert Gates of trying to usurp Congress’s authority over the military.

“The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it,” Gates said in his opening statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee session. “We’ve received our orders from the commander in chief and are moving out accordingly.”

But McCain said Gates was disrespecting the statute Congress passed in 1993 setting the gays-in-the-military policy into law.

“I’m deeply disappointed with your statement, Secretary Gates,” McCain said. He charged Gates with treating repeal of the law as a fait accompli. “Your statement obviously is one that is clearly biased without the view of Congress being taken into consideration. … I’m happy to say that we still have a Congress of the United States to repeal 'don’t ask don’t tell,' despite your efforts to repeal it in many respects by fiat.”

Gates said he recently ordered a 45-day review on measures the military might take prior to repeal of the law to modify some of the policy’s impact. He said one possibility is increasing the amount of evidence needed to discharge a gay service member from the force. The secretary also said he was considering ending discharges based on third-party complaints, rather than on claims that a service member publicly disclosed his or her sexual orientation.

However, Gates said only a change in the law would permit a moratorium on all discharges based on sexual orientation. “The advice that I have been given is that the current law would not permit that,” the secretary said.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “It is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do.” In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama used the same language in calling for a repeal of the ban, saying: "It’s the right thing to do."



“We have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals, and ours as institutions,” Mullen said.

Gates said he was asking two top officials, Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson and Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, to oversee a yearlong review of how a repeal of the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' policy would be implemented in areas such as housing, fraternization rules, unit cohesion and recognition of same-sex relationships.

Views on the policy broke largely along party lines, with Republicans saying it should be kept in place or expressing concerns about repeal and Democrats urging the Pentagon to press forward. Maine Sen. Susan Collins was the only Republican who expressed willingness to consider repeal.

Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) asked Gates and Mullen to respond to a legislative proposal that would repeal the policy at the end of the Pentagon’s study. “Language like this would make me much more comfortable, since I want a clear path to repeal,” Udall said.

Gates said while it’s critical that Congress settles the matter, the Pentagon would still need at least another year to implement the change. “We would feel that it would be very important that we be given some period of time for that implementation.”

“As urgently as some would like this to happen, it's just going to take some time,” Mullen added.

Gates and Mullen said that while advocates on both sides of the debate have claimed to know the general views of rank-and-file military personnel on the issue, there have been no reliable surveys indicating what soldiers or their families actually think.

However, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) said gathering that kind of information from gays currently in the service who have not made their sexual orientation public will be very problematic.

“You have a real challenge in getting some of the most important input you may need,” she said.


Sources: Politico