Pentagon to Announce Changes in DADT Enforcement Policy

Defense secretary Robert Gates will offer "a way ahead" later this week regarding changes in the enforcement of "don't ask, don't tell," a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

Gates, who testified in February before Congress alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen in support of a repeal of the 16-year-old policy, will "address the changes [to] the department's policy to provide a more humane enforcement and application of the law," Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

Last month Gates tasked Pentagon legal counsel to investigate strategies for softening DADT enforcement.

Morrell did not specify what day Gates would make an announcement any changes to enforcement.

The announcement comes just days after Lt. Dan Choi, whose discharge from the military under DADT is currently pending, handcuffed himself to the White House gates on Thursday in protest with fellow soldier and Army infantryman James Pietrangelo. Both were arrested and have been charged with failure to obey a lawful order.

During a congressional hearing earlier that day, retired general John Sheehan, the former Supreme Allied Commander for NATO, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he believed the 1995 Srbrenica massacre resulted in part from the Dutch military's policy of allowing gays to serve openly.