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May 11, 2005 House panel votes to ban women from some combat support jobs By Rick Maze Times staff writer A House subcommittee voted Wednesday to keep women out of combat support jobs that could lead to direct-combat involvement, which is banned, but there is a sharp division about the ramifications of the vote. The amendment — to be attached to the 2006 defense authorization bill — was adopted by the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee by a 9-7, party-line vote Republicans who supported the amendment said they were just providing guidance for assigning women as the Army restructures units. Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., the personnel subcommittee chairman, said the provision is aimed at new combat support companies within the modular force structure. He offered it, he said, on behalf of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the House Armed Services Committee chairman In Iraq today, women assigned to combat support companies in the 3rd Infantry Division are not allowed to accompany their units when they deploy to the front lines — the Army’s way of adhering to the ban on women in direct combat roles. The amendment doesn’t close any military occupational specialty to women that isn’t already closed, McHugh said, and it doesn’t change any Army directive or policy. Of the 17,000 military women serving in Iraq today, just 31 are in assignments that would be prohibited if the proposal became law, he said. As written, the prohibition would apply only to assignments made after the provision were enacted, which is unlikely before late summer. Committee aides working for McHugh and Hunter said affected women could be in the maintenance, supply or food service specialties who are assigned to combat support companies. But Democrats who opposed the amendment said they aren’t certain it is as narrow as McHugh claims. Rep. Vic Snyder of Arkansas, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, said he believes the medical, combat engineer and military police fields also could fit the description, potentially affecting thousands of women in combat support and combat service support units. Hunter, the committee chairman and chief sponsor, said in a brief interview that he doesn’t think the amendment is controversial; he is just trying to maintain the status quo, keeping women out of direct combat as the Army becomes a modular force. “This isn’t a big deal and it isn’t a major change,” he said. Army officials asked Hunter and McHugh to drop the idea, with no success. In identical but separate letters, Army Secretary Francis Harvey and Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard A. Cody said the amendment would “cause confusion in the ranks” at a particularly bad time, the middle of a war. They conceded, however, that, in the midst of force structure changes, the Army is trying to determine how to comply with the ban on direct ground combat roles for women. Hunter seized on that part of the letters as evidence he really isn’t doing anything the Army opposes. Democrats vowed to try to kill or change the Hunter-McHugh provision when the full Armed Services Committee debates the bill next week. “We have had no hearings on this issue,” Snyder said. “No reports have been brought to our attention citing evidence that having women in these roles is currently causing a problem for our military. “If the chairman has different information that this committee has not had the opportunity to review, he is urged to share it. Otherwise, there seems to be very little evidence to suggest we move so suddenly on such a contentious provision.” Rep.
Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said lawmakers also should keep in mind that
debate about the bill is affecting troops in combat. “It is sending a
bad message to women in Iraq and to the men who serve with them,” she
said.
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