[Shadow_Group] Fw: Female soldiers eyed for combat

[shadowgroup-l at lists.resist.ca]

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com<http://www.washingtontimes.com/>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------

Female soldiers eyed for combat
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published October 22, 2004

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------
The Army is negotiating with civilian leaders about eliminating a
women-in-combat ban so it can place mixed-sex support companies within
warfighting units, starting with a division going to Iraq in January. 
    Despite the legal prohibition, Army plans already have included such
collocation of women-men units in blueprints for a lighter force of 10
active divisions, according to Defense Department sources. 
    An Army spokesman yesterday, in response to questions from The
Washington Times, said the Army is now in discussions with Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's staff to see whether the 10-year-old ban
in this one area should be lifted. The ban prohibits the Army from
putting women in units that "collocate" with ground combatants. 
    "When that policy was made up, there was a different threat," said
Lt. Col. Chris Rodney, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. "We imagined a
more linear combat environment. Now, with the nature of asymmetrical
threats, we have to relook at that policy." 
    Col. Rodney cited the fighting in Iraq as typifying the new threat
whereby all soldiers, support or combat, face attack by rockets, mortars,
roadside bombs and ambushes. 
    "Everybody faces a similar threat," he said. "There is no front-line
threat right now." 
    Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Army has suffered 793
combat deaths, including 24 female soldiers. 
    The Army is not seeking to lift the ban on women in direct combat
units, such as infantry or armor. 
    What is being examined is the part of the exclusion rule that says
mixed-sex support companies may not be positioned with ground combat
teams. 
    In the disputed instance, the transformation plan of Gen. Peter
Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, calls for creating Forward Support
Companies, which are made up of men and women. These companies would
collocate with reconnaissance squadrons, which are combat units and are
part of larger brigade "units of action." 
    The problem is a 1994 ban signed by then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin
that excludes women from land combat units. Mr. Aspin added an additional
restriction. Women could not serve "where units and positions are
doctrinally required to physically collocate and remain with direct
ground combat units that are closed to women." 
    Some Pentagon officials, who asked not to be named, said the proposed
Forward Support Companies are at the least "skirting" the existing ban if
not violating it. They suspect the new units are a way to inch women
closer to land combat despite Congress' prohibition against it. 
    Elaine Donnelly, who leads the pro-military Center for Military
Readiness, says Congress needs to be informed of the Army's plans. 
    "There is a law requiring notice to Congress that has not happened,
and there are regulations that forbid the Army from taking infantry units
and collocating gender-integrated units with them," said Mrs. Donnelly,
who opposes women in combat. "If they are doing this, putting women in
land combat units would be a violation of law and policy." 
    The Pentagon long has banned women from combat roles. In the early
1990s, the new Clinton administration changed the rules by allowing women
for the first time to serve on combat ships and pilot combat aircraft,
such as jet fighters and helicopters. 
    But the Pentagon retained the ban on women participating in direct
combat and issued the new Aspin rules. 
    Mr. Aspin said in a January 1994 memo to the services that "women
should be excluded from assignment to units below the brigade level whose
primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground." The policy
then defined direct combat as "engaging an enemy on the ground with
individual or crew-served weapons, while being exposed to hostile fire
and to a high probability of direct physical contact with the hostile
force's personnel. Direct combat takes place well forward on the
battlefield while locating and closing with the enemy to defeat them by
fire, maneuver, or shock effect." 
    Mr. Aspin then went further in denying collocation of mixed-sex and
combat units. The Army accepted the limitation, documents show. 
    The 3rd Infantry Division, which played a major role in the fall of
Baghdad in April 2003, is scheduled to return to Iraq early next year. It
would be the first division to be reconfigured into "units of action"
that would contain the new mixed-sex Forward Support Companies. 
    In all, Gen. Schoomaker is increasing the number of combat brigades
from 33 to 48, and naming them "units of action." The brigades are being
married up permanently with support units so they can move out more
quickly to war zones, instead of waiting for the additional personnel to
arrive. 
    Early in the Bush administration, Mrs. Donnelly successfully
persuaded the Pentagon to restrict female soldiers from certain
reconnaissance units after Army planners had penciled them into those new
units.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.resist.ca/pipermail/shadowgroup-l/attachments/20041105/41b9a64c/attachment.html>