DADT Review First Repeal Later

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.

Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia called for immediate passage of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act. "Let's move ahead with House Resolution 1283 now," he said, "and then during the transition period we can look into all the complicated issues you all need to look into."

The working group is tasked with submitting its findings by December 1. Jeh Johnson is also responsible for delivering a 45-day review of how the policy can be applied more narrowly, and he said he expected to meet his deadline of March 19.

Following the briefing, Murphy said he believed the panel was in line with conducting the review simultaneous to any action Congress might take.

"I think it's pretty clear today, based on their testimony, that they have endorsed a dual track by the Congress of the United States -- it needs to do its job to repeal a law that it put into place almost 17 years ago," he said. "And as we do our job, they'll concurrently do their job to study how we're going to implement this."

Murphy stressed that his bill now has 189 cosponsors and two dozen verbal commitments, putting repeal within striking distance in the House.

"We have the votes in the House," he said, adding, "we are going to get this thing done this year -- I don't care if it's a stand-alone bill, attached to the National Defense Authorization Act or any other piece of legislation. But this will be changed this year."

But Davis had a different take on the testimony, saying she believed the witnesses were pushing for completing their task before Congress acts.

"But I do think they also said that this isn't about whether but how, so I think that's their focus," she said. "And as they're moving along, it's not their job to tell Congress what to do."