Top Pentagon leaders back 'don't ask, don't tell repeal

WASHINGTON — The nation's top two defense officials called Tuesday for an end to the 16-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" policy, a major step toward allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the U.S. military for the first time.

"No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that 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," Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said it was his personal belief that "allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do."

Mullen is the first sitting Joint Chiefs chairman to support a repeal of the policy, and the forceful expression of his views seemed to catch not only gay-rights leaders but Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is the committee's chairman, by surprise.

Levin, a longtime proponent of ending the law, told Mullen his testimony was "eloquent."

In 1993, Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs, opposed allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly but supported "don't ask, don't tell" as the compromise was passed by Congress.

Under the policy, officers aren't supposed to inquire about sexual orientation or seek to know it, while service members are to keep quiet about it.

The rule also requires officers to act if they learn a subordinate is gay.

Roughly 13,000 service members have left because of the rule, reaching an annual peak of 1,273 in 2001.

The number has fallen as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars increased demand for troops. Last year, 428 gay men and women left the military, according to Defense Department statistics.

In contrast to Mullen, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was more cautious in his testimony, even as he acknowledged the question was not whether the law would be repealed but how the Pentagon might best prepare for the change.

Gates made clear he was acting at the behest of President Obama, who reaffirmed he opposed the existing law in his State of the Union address last week.

"We have received our orders from the commander in chief, and we are moving out accordingly," Gates told the committee. "However, we can also take this process only so far, as the ultimate decision rests with you, the Congress."

Any policy change would not come soon, Gates and Mullen made clear. Both men said there would be a Pentagon review, taking up to a year, to study how to implement a change.

Repeal is far from assured, judging from the reaction from some Republicans on the panel, notably Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who said he was "deeply disappointed" in Gates.

McCain said Gates' testimony was "clearly biased" because of the not-if-but-when comments. While the law was not perfect, McCain said, repeal was too much to ask of a military stressed by two wars.

"You don't have to be straight to shoot straight," Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said after McCain spoke, quoting Republican Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Arizona conservative who famously reversed his opposition to gays in the military in the 1990s.

Gay-rights leaders also quickly noted comments McCain made in 2006 on MSNBC's "Hardball" about his willingness to change the policy if top Pentagon leaders called for repeal.

"The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it," McCain said then.

Brooke Buchanan, a spokeswoman for McCain, said the senator believed Mullen was speaking personally, not for the Joint Chiefs, and that McCain would listen to military leaders as a whole after a Pentagon review.

In the interim, Gates said the military was moving toward enforcing existing policy "in a fairer manner" — a reference to the possibility it no longer would take action to discharge service members whose sexual orientation is revealed by third parties or jilted partners, one of the law's most onerous aspects. Gates wants a Pentagon recommendation within 45 days.

Levin said he might introduce an amendment to this year's defense-authorization bill calling for a moratorium on discharges under existing law.

Gates said the review would examine changes that might have to be made on benefits, housing, fraternization and misconduct and would study the potential effect on unit cohesion, recruiting and retention.

Gates also said he would ask the RAND Corp. to update a 1993 study on the effects of allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly. That study concluded gay service members could serve openly if the policy received strong support from the military's senior leaders.

Information provided by McClatchy Newspapers is included in this report.