Haynes Nomination Opposed by the Center for Military Readiness
Human Events Elaine Donnelly, President of the CMR, has an article at Human Events, opposing the nomination of Jim Haynes, currently the General Counsel for the Department of Defense. He’s up for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The 4th can be a stepping stone for the Supreme Court.
In William Haynes Needs to Explain Why Pentagon Put Women in Land Combat, Donnelly says:
. . .we wish we could join conservative friends in supporting the nomination of William J. Haynes II…
We cannot do so at this time, however, for the same reasons that we questioned the nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
…The Army is ordering women into certain units that are required to be all male.
Why did Mr. Haynes allow this to happen?
The President has said, “No women in [land] combat.”
The Congress has said, “…the intent of the Congress, which was no [land] combat for women.”
The Army has said no women, “…in battalion size or smaller units which are assigned a primary mission to engage in direct ground combat or which collocate routinely with units assigned a direct ground combat mission.”
The Army is currently operating outside Presidential order, law and (even worse!) outside Army Regulation.
To break a reg, and a big one at that, lotsa of lawyers have to shuffle lotsa paper. The Pentagon’s top legal counsel is Haynes. His job is to provide oversight, guidance, and direction regarding legal advice on all matters arising with in the DoD, including the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Mr. Haynes has avoided answering questions that could clear this up and remove any doubt about his fitness to serve. But Haynes hasn’t answered.
I don’t need to know how Haynes would rule in the future — I’m only interested in how he advised and counseled on DoD regulations promulgated on 13 Jan 1994.
He should not be confirmed, unless Haynes answers questions about Women in Combat.
Read questions for Haynes at the jump.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Jaime Jaenke, courtesy Waterloo Courier
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Thank you (foot)notes:
Full Disclosure: I am honored to serve as Vice President for the Center for Military Readiness.
QUESTIONS FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE AND THE ARMY
Re: Women In or Near Land Combat – April 2006
1. Current DoD regulations regarding female soldiers were promulgated on Jan. 13, 1994.
Q 1.1 Have there been any documents produced by the DoD or Army that change the list of military occupational specialties or career designators that are open and closed to women, as approved by Secretary Perry on July 28, 1994 and implemented on October 1, 1994?
Q 1.2 If there are such documents, were they approved by the current or former Secretaries of Defense, and reported to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees?
2. Under current DoD regulations, support units that collocate with DGC units below the brigade level are required to be all male under the collocation rule.
Q 2.1 Do Army officials now consider all land combat-collocated positions in forward support companies (FSCs), or similar support units embedded with direct ground combat (DGC) troops below the brigade level, to be open to female soldiers?
Q 2.2 If only some of these positions are considered open, which ones are they? (A “Women in the Army Point Paper,” produced by the Office of the Secretary of the Army on January 24, 2005, indicated that 24 of 225 positions in a typical forward support company would be opened to women.)
Q 2.3 If Army officials maintain that women are now eligible for the combat-collocated FSCs, what has changed in the offensive missions of direct ground combat forces to justify that conclusion?
Q 2.4 How many female soldiers are currently serving?whether “assigned,” “attached” or “opconned”?in support units that collocate with land combat maneuver battalions in Army brigade combat teams (BCTs) in the 3rd, 4th, and 10th Mountain Divisions, the 101st Airborne, the 1st Cavalry, and other units that deliberately engage the enemy in direct ground combat? (Figures requested for FY 2002 through FY 2006 in the regular Army, National Guard and Reserve components)
Q. 2.5 How many female soldiers are being trained to serve?whether “assigned,” “attached” or “opconned”?in support units that collocate with land combat maneuver battalions in Army brigade combat teams (BCTs) in any Army or Marine units that deliberately engage the enemy in direct ground combat? (Figures requested for FY 2007 through FY 2010 in the regular Army, National Guard and Reserve components)
3. Army officials claim that the assignments in question can be justified if the women are not present when the battalion they are collocated with is “conducting” land combat.
Q 3.1 Have provisions been made for extra transportation vehicles to accomplish evacuations of women assigned to combat-collocated FSCs just prior to battle?
Q 3.2 What (if anything) is being done to inform female soldiers that the collocation rule is no longer operative, meaning that they will be trained to serve in units embedded with direct ground combat troops 100% of the time?
Q 3.3 Have surveys determined the effect of requiring female soldiers to serve in or near land combat on parents and others who influence potential recruits?
4. Under terms of the Goldwater/Nichols Act, the organizational Army is responsible for provide an “inventory” of soldiers to meet the needs of combat commanders.
Q 4.1 Are there figures demonstrating an inadequate inventory of male soldiers for assignment in or collocated with direct ground combat units?
Q 4.2 If there are shortages of male soldiers for the combat arms, what is the Army doing to increase the numbers of male recruits to fill this need?
5. A May 17, 2005, letter from Army Staff Director Lt. Gen. James L. Campbell claimed that if legislation co-sponsored by HASC Chairman Duncan Hunter and Subcommittee Chairman John McHugh passed, “a total of 21,925 spaces in Army Brigade and Stryker Combat Teams currently open for assignment to female Soldiers would be closed.”
Q 5.1 What data regarding the placement of female soldiers in forward support companies (FSCs), present or future, supported this claim? (Figures requested for each unit.)
Q 5.2 If the Army has opened or will open 21,925 previously closed positions, which would have been closed if the May 18 Hunter/McHugh legislation had become law, when was this decision made and why was formal notice not given to Congress, as required by law?
6. The collocation rule assures that maneuver battalion soldiers will be accompanied by men who have the physical ability to provide immediate support in offensive combat operations, including single-man evacuations of wounded soldiers under fire.
Q 6.1 Have the offensive missions or physical requirements of infantry, armor, or Special Operations Forces been officially changed?
Q 6.2 Are there plans to limit assignment to land combat-collocated support units only to soldiers who can individually perform tasks common in those embedded units, including the ability to perform single-person evacuations of wounded soldiers under fire?
Q 6.3 Do Army officials have plans to replace female soldiers who will be non-deployable or evacuated from their units due to physical injuries and other medical issues (including pregnancy), which are known to occur at far higher rates among women?
Q 6.4 If women are placed in combat-collocated FSCs to perform searches of female civilians, will extra personnel be added to compensate for their displacement of men in the FSCs?
7. DGC units do not experience the full range of social complications known to occur in gender integrated units; i.e., higher non-deployability and evacuation rates, sexual misconduct incidents and allegations, the extra need to protect females from capture, etc.
Q 7.1 Extrapolating from rates of non-deployability and evacuations due to physical injuries, pregnancy, or accusations of sexual misconduct in gender-integrated units, what plans have been made to make up for similar personnel losses in DGC or combat-collocated units?
Q 7.2 How many female Iraqi soldiers are being or trained to perform female civilian searches?
8. The physical and disciplinary requirements of infantry and other direct ground combat units exist in collocated support units as well.
Q 8.1 If women are now considered eligible for combat-collocated units, what rationale is there for not assigning them to the infantry/armor, Marine, and Special Operations Forces units with which their gender-mixed units are collocating?
Q 8.2 How will the training accommodations and social complications associated with gender integration improve the strength, readiness, discipline, and effectiveness of direct ground combat units or support troops that collocate with them?
9. Policy changes being implemented by the Army, without formal DoD approval and advance notice to Congress as required by law, will have serious legal consequences for both male and female soldiers, and even women in the civilian world.
Q 9.1 If or when women are assigned to land combat and/or collocated support troops, on what basis would women’s exemption from Selective Service registration be retained and defended when challenged in federal court?
Q 9.2 If the Army is allowed to unilaterally repeal the collocation rule by redefining and circumventing it, how will congressional oversight be protected if the Army decides to assign female soldiers to infantry, armor, and other DGC units?
Q 9.3 If the Army is allowed to unilaterally repeal the collocation rule by redefining and circumventing it, how will congressional oversight be protected if the Navy decides to assign women to Marine infantry units and Navy submarines?
Q 9.4 If the changes being implemented by the Army are such a good idea, why have Army officials not secured approval from Secretary Rumsfeld, and formally reported them in advance to Congress, as required by law?
Note: Legislation in the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act mandated that a comprehensive report on all of the subjects mentioned above be provided no later than March 31, 2006. Answers are needed in order to provide congressional oversight on a timely basis.
I remember in Primary Leadership Development Course, back in 1985 there was a hour spent where the instructors had a discussion about how we needed women in combat. At that time I said I supported the Army policy as it was written and implied that is what should be taught. They were taken back and sort of did this song and dance about we had come so far with regard to equal opportunity and we need to keep progressing. In other words, they knew the current policy and were going to chip away at it, and imply that the morally right thing to do was work against it. This was done on the bases of assumption with no reference to logic nor empirical evidence as to what was best for the fighting force, best for men in combat and best for women in combat.