Report leans toward women in combat

Internal Army documents advocate changing Pentagon rules on mixed-sex units in a way that critics say will risk placing female soldiers in ground-combat situations.

The Nov. 29 briefing to senior Army officers at the Pentagon, presented as part of the service’s sweeping transformation of its 10 war-fighting divisions, advocates scrapping the military’s ban on collocation — the deployment of mixed-sex noncombat units alongside all-male combat brigades.

The briefing contained the phrase: “The way ahead: rewrite/eliminate the Army collocation policy.”

To some in the Army, the confidential briefing proves that the service is moving toward a decision to put women within direct combat units, despite statements denying such plans, including a Nov. 3 Capitol Hill briefing for senior congressional staff members by Army and Pentagon officials.

According to one aide, the Nov. 3 briefers assured the staff members that the Army was complying with the collocation rule and did not want it changed.

“We are not collocating,” a senior congressional aide quoted the presenters as saying.

But the Army’s Nov. 29 paper suggests otherwise, and critics of the plan, both inside and outside the Army, argue that it is part of an overall plan to override a 1994 policy prohibiting women from serving in direct land combat.

The Pentagon has said it maintains the ban because upper-body strength is needed for land combat and because polls show most female soldiers do not want the policy changed.

Elaine Donnelly, who heads the independent Center for Military Readiness, has sent a letter to Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and House Armed Services Committee chairman, accusing the Army of violating Pentagon rules.

“Female soldiers, including young mothers, should not have to pay the price for Pentagon bureaucratic blunders and gender-based recruiting quotas that have caused apparent shortages in male soldiers for the new land-combat brigades,” Mrs. Donnelly said.

“It does not make sense to sacrifice the advantage of modular organizations, just to make ideological points about gender equality. Land combat is not fair or equal, nor is it even civilized,” she said.

An Army spokeswoman at the Pentagon said, “It is my understanding that the Nov. 29 briefing was predecisional. There are a number of Army policies under review.”

The debate’s roots go back to 1994. Impressed with the performance of military women in Operation Desert Storm, the Clinton administration lifted long-standing bans on women in combat aircraft and ships.

But the new policy clearly stated that a prohibition would continue for ground units that participate in direct combat. The 1994 policy also said women would not serve “where units and positions are doctrinally required to physically collocate and remain with direct ground combat units that are closed to women.”

Now, the Army’s transformation plans include proposals for much tighter mingling of combat and noncombat units.

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