US committee bans women from direct ground combat

A US House committee has voted to prohibit women in the military from serving in direct ground combat roles as part of a bill setting Defence Department policy and spending plans for the coming budget year.

By voice vote, an amendment was approved that would put into law a Pentagon policy from 1994 that prohibits female troops in all four services from serving in units below brigade level whose primary mission is direct ground combat.

“Many Americans feel that women in combat or combat support positions is not a bridge we want to cross at this point,” said John McHugh, who sponsored the amendment.

It also allows the Pentagon to further exclude women from units in other instances, while requiring defence officials to notify Congress when opening up positions to women.

The amendment replaced narrower language in the bill that applied only to the Army and banned women from some combat support positions.

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps currently operate under a 10-year-old policy barring women from “direct combat on the ground” but allowing the services discretion to open some jobs to women.

“We’re not taking away a single prerogative that the services now have,” McHugh said.

The committee approved the measure as part of a bill that sets Pentagon policy and spending plans – but provides no money - for the budget year beginning on October 1.

The panel approved the overall bill on a 61-1 vote early today. President Bush requested €348.4bn for defence for the 2006 fiscal year, excluding money to pay for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Senate is working on its own version of the legislation.

Democrats opposed the women-in-combat amendment, saying it would tie the hands of commanders who need flexibility during wartime. They accused Republicans of rushing through legislation without knowing the consequences or getting input from the military.

“We are changing the dynamic of what has been the policy of this country for the last 10 years,” said Vic Snyder, an Arkansas Democrat.

Ike Skelton of Missouri, the committee’s leading Democrat Representative: “There seems to be a solution in search of a problem.”

The issue arose last week, when Republicans, at the behest of Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter added to the overall bill a provision that would have banned women from being assigned to “forward support companies”.

Those units provide infantry, armour and artillery units with equipment, ammunition, maintenance and other supplies in combat zones. The Army started allowing women to staff such support posts last year and says it is complying with the 1994 policy.

Some Republicans aren’t so sure. “The Army is confused. They’re all over the place on this one,” Hunter said.

Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld said yesterday the Army is working with Congress and battlefield commanders “to find an appropriate way that’s consistent with our country’s view on that subject”.

He said the Army’s attempt to reorganise and an asymmetrical front line on the battlefield muddies the issue.

The House bill, like a similar measure passed by the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, envisions creating a €39.2bn fund for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan next year.

It also calls for increasing the size of the military by 10,000 Army soldiers and 1,000 Marines and boosting pay grades for uniformed personnel by 3.1%.