As the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel questioned the three witnesses responsible for conducting a yearlong review on repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” one thing became clear: The Pentagon favors completing the review before Congress acts legislatively.

“I would think that members of Congress would like to be informed by our work,” said Gen. Carter Ham, cochair of the three-member working group appointed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to study implementation. “I think it’s very important that we understand the impacts of repeal before it occurs.”

Ham appeared alongside Jeh Johnson, Department of Defense general counsel and fellow cochair, and Clifford Stanley, a retired Army general and Defense undersecretary for personnel and readiness. Democratic members, who outnumber Republicans on the subcommittee nine to six, consistently tried to establish the parameters for the working group, how it would conduct the research, and to what end its study would come.

Rep. Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania, chief sponsor of the House’s repeal bill, sought to clarify the goal of the working group.

“It's not to discuss if we’re going to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ — the discussion today is how the services will implement repeal to ensure there’s no disruption of our forces,” Murphy said.

But DOD attorney Johnson toed a line similar to Ham’s.

“I would think that our review might inform what this Congress might want to do,” Johnson responded.

Several members of the subcommittee endorsed the idea of putting a moratorium on discharges while the study is under way, including Chairwoman Susan Davis of California and Rep. Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts.