|
 Gillibrand's solution for a problem the military calls an epidemic
appears to have stalled in the face of united opposition from the
Pentagon's top echelon and its allies in Congress, including two
female senators who are former prosecutors.
Opponents of the proposal by Gillibrand, D-N.Y., insist that
commanders, not an outside military lawyer, must be accountable for
meting out justice.
Even so, major changes are coming for a decades-old military system
just a few months after several high-profile cases infuriated
Republicans and Democrats in a rapid chain of events by Washington
standards.
"Sexual assault in the military is not new, but it has been allowed
to fester," Gillibrand said in a recent Senate speech.
The Senate this week is set to consider an annual defense policy
bill that would strip commanders of their ability to overturn jury
convictions, require dishonorable discharge or dismissal for any
individual convicted of sexual assault and establish a civilian
review when a decision is made not to prosecute a case.
The bill would provide a special counsel for victims and eliminate
the statute of limitations.
Those changes in military law are backed by members of the Senate
Armed Services Committee. But overshadowing the revisions is the
testy, intense fight over Gillibrand's proposal to strip commanders
of their authority to prosecute cases of sexual assault. She wants
to hand responsibility to seasoned military lawyers outside the
chain of command.
Her solution has divided the Senate, splitting Republicans and
Democrats, men and women, even former attorneys general, into
unusual coalitions. The lobbying has been fierce, with dueling data,
testimonials and news conferences with victims. Opponents invited
Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Loretta Reynolds to the closed-door
Republican caucus last week.
Among Gillibrand's 47 announced supporters are conservative Sens.
Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., along with 16 of the
Senate's 20 women.
Standing against the plan is the chairman of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.; the panel's military
veterans John McCain, R-Ariz., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., and three of
the committee's women — Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Kelly
Ayotte, R-N.H., both former prosecutors, and Sen. Deb Fischer,
R-Neb.
Gillibrand says she privately has received backing from more than 50
senators, but support remains short of the filibuster-proof 60 votes
that likely will be needed for her amendment to the defense bill. To
secure more votes, she said last week she was considering scaling
back her plan to focus solely on sexual assault and rape instead of
all serious crimes. That prompted complaints from her original
backers that it would create "pink courts," and Gillibrand said on
ABC's "This Week" Sunday she was reverting to her initial bill.
Either way, it hasn't diminished the opposition.
"There (are) now enough members of the Senate that begin to grasp
that letting commanders walk away from this is a big mistake;
holding their feet to the fire is what we need to be doing," said
McCaskill. She said in an interview that, unlike Gillibrand, she
wasn't changing "the policy to get votes."
[to top of second column] |
McCaskill said the Pentagon already has moved unilaterally,
reflected in the recent word from the Defense Department that
reports of sexual assaults in the military increased by an
unprecedented 46 percent during the last budget year. There were
3,553 sexual assault complaints from October 2012 through June,
compared with 2,434 reports during the same period the previous
year.
Defense Department officials cast the sharp increase as a sign that
people are more confident about coming forward now that improvements
are being made in handling assaults.
Gillibrand offers a different figure — 26,000.
That was the Pentagon's estimate of the number of military members
who may have been sexually assaulted last year, based on an
anonymous survey of military personnel. Thousands of victims were
unwilling to come forward despite new oversight and assistance
programs aimed at curbing the crimes, according to the Pentagon
report earlier this year.
"They didn't trust the chain of command. They didn't think anything
would be done in their cases," Gillibrand said in an interview. "The
second reason they didn't report was because they feared or had
witnessed retaliation. ... The command climate failed those
victims."
Pushing back against Gillibrand's proposal, Gen. Ray Odierno, chief
of staff of the Army, said last week that adopting her plan would be
a "big mistake" and that it would cost an estimated $113 million a
year, including salaries for about 600 attorneys and support staff.
That financial assessment doesn't take into account the expense of
training members of the military, medical and mental health benefits
for victims, loss of productivity and possible separation from
service for a Pentagon with a fiscal year budget of more than $500
billion.
"It would seem absurd for the military to say we can't possibly
prevent sexual assault, rape, because we don't have lawyers to try
the cases," Gillibrand said.
Bolstering their case, McCaskill, Ayotte and Fisher compiled
additional changes that the Senate is expected to approve. They
include barring defendants from using the good military character
defense, allowing sexual assault victims to challenge a discharge or
separation from the service, and extending the new protections to
the military service academies.
"The reason this issue is so hard is because on one side is a very
simple narrative, this is victim versus commanders and you should be
for the victims," McCaskill said.
"On the other side, it's much more complex, and I'm guided by
practical experience handling these cases and a pretty intimate
knowledge of the Uniform Code of Military Justice and how it
actually works ... and making sure we have a system that's
constitutional, that works and that holds commanders accountable."
[Associated
Press; DONNA CASSATA]
Copyright 2013 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
