McCain blasts military study on ‘don’t ask’ policy

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

A doubting John McCain led Republican opposition Thursday to letting gays serve openly in the military, sternly clashing with the Pentagon’s top leaders and warning that soldiers would quit in droves if Congress repealed the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law.

In tense exchanges with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, McCain and other Republicans dismissed a Pentagon study on gays as biased and said objections by combat troops were being ignored.

Gates and Mullen defended the study, but McCain blamed politics for pushing the matter forward during wartime. He predicted Marines, in particular, would abandon their service if they had to serve along with gays open about their sexual orientation.

“We send these young people into combat,” said McCain. “We think they’re mature enough to fight and die. I think they’re mature enough to make a judgment on who they want to serve with and the impact on their battle effectiveness.”

Gates shot back that asking troops if they want to serve alongside gays would amount to issuing a referendum on a policy decision that should be made by Congress or the courts. The goal of the study, he said, was to find out if it could be done without hurting the military’s ability to fight.

“Are you going to ask them if they want 15-month tours? You going to ask them if they want to be part of the surge in Iraq? That’s not the way our civilian-led military has ever worked in our entire history,” Gates said.

McCain’s opposition foreshadows this month’s Senate debate on a bill to overturn the 1993 “don’t ask, don’t tell” law banning gays from serving openly in the armed forces.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promised a Senate vote. But Republicans have blocked previous attempts on procedural grounds. There also is an agreement among the Senate GOP not to vote on any bill this month before addressing tax cuts and government spending.