PENTAGON LEADERS DISCUSS AFGHAN WAR AND WOMEN IN THE MILITARY

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Panetta, Dempsey Speak on War, Women in Combat
By Terri Moon Cronk
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3, 2013 - Three-quarters of the Afghan population is under the security responsibility of its country's own forces because of the progress those forces, the U.S. military and its coalition partners have achieved in the war there, the nation's defense chief said today.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey spoke during interviews on CNN's "State of the Nation" and on NBC's "Meet the Press" about the war's drawdown, the U.S. military's responsibility in Afghanistan after its combat mission ends in late 2014, and the recent decision to lift the combat exclusion for servicewomen.

"We've made good progress in the war," Panetta said. "We've been able to diminish the Taliban's capabilities. Violence has gone down. We're also developing an Afghan army that's increased its operations skills to provide security. We're on the right path to give [Afghanistan] the opportunity to govern itself."

With significant gains in building their army's numbers and skills, he said, "[The Afghans] have developed their ability to provide security."

The secretary added, "We couldn't make a transition in the areas that need transition ... if there weren't an Afghan army that was becoming much more capable of doing their jobs."

Panetta said the rate at which Afghan forces gain competency will, in part, determine "the level of enduring presence that we will have once we reach the end of 2014."

He reiterated that the core U.S. and coalition mission in Afghanistan is to make sure al-Qaida never again establishes a safe haven there.

Dempsey said the military will live up to its commitments to maintain a long-term partnership and relationship with the Afghan government.

The U.S. military's top-ranking officer also said that post-war U.S. and NATO missions with the Afghan government will "largely relate to the counter-terror mission, continuing to keep pressure on transnational global terrorism, [and] the continued development of the Afghan security forces. My instinct ... [is] that our numbers after 2014 can be modest."

About 68,000 U.S. troops continue to serve in Afghanistan, Dempsey noted. And while the number of U.S. troops that will maintain a presence there beyond 2014 hassn't yet been determined, he added, that decision will be based on several factors.

"The ultimate number will be based on the mission and how deeply we want to be involved with their continued development, and what they want ... literally, what the sovereign nation of Afghanistan wants," he said.

"You can also count on us to match the mission to the number of troops and to keep three things in equilibrium as we get there," Dempsey said. "... The mission, retrograding equipment and people out, and the protection of the force."

"Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd told Dempsey that as women begin to fill combat roles following the end to the ban against their serving on front lines, there is a movement on Capitol Hill to pass a law to make sure standards aren't lowered for them.

Dempsey said there's no need for such legislation.

"We are going to make sure that we have the right standards for the right jobs that maintain the readiness of the force," he said.

"My primary responsibility is the readiness of the force, and I would do nothing to allow that to be undermined," the chairman said, adding that a requirement exists for Congress to review the department's actions in opening occupational specialties to women.

At that point, he noted, Congress will "have the opportunity to ask us what we've done to standards."

Lifting the ban, Dempsey said, "really is about changing the paradigm from one of exclusiveness to inclusiveness; to do the best job to make the best force for Joint Force 2020. We've got to ... make sure we've got the right talent force, and this is part of that."

ARMY GEN. CONE SAYS FAIR STANDARDS WILL BE APPLIED TO COMBAT JOB SELECTIONS

FROM: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Army Training Commander Promises Fair Standards for Combat Jobs

By David Vergun
Army News Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2013 - Fairness will be important as officials develop their plan for opening more direct-combat jobs to women, the commander of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command said here yesterday.

Gen. Robert W. Cone spoke with reporters after Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced the Defense Department has rescinded an exclusion dating to 1994 that barred women from being assigned to combat positions below brigade level.

"Soldiers -- both men and women -- want fair and meaningful standards" to be developed for accepting women into previously restricted specialties, Cone said. "I think that fairness is very important in a values-based organization like our Army."

The memo Panetta and Dempsey signed rescinding the policy does not spell out which military occupational specialties will be open to women. Rather, it directs the services to provide their implementation strategies to the Defense Department by May. Implementation will begin this year and be completed by the beginning of 2016, Panetta said at a news conference yesterday.

"This year we will begin to assign women to previously closed occupations using clear standards of performance in all occupational specialties," Dempsey said at the news conference.

"The burden of proof used to be, 'Why should a woman serve in a particular specialty?'" the chairman added. "Now, it's, 'Why shouldn't a woman serve in a particular specialty?'"

As of September, 418 of the Army's 438 MOSs were open to women of all ranks, according to an Oct. 31 Army report titled: "Women in the Army."

TRADOC already has been studying armies in other countries, such as Canada and Israel, where women successfully have been integrated into combat specialties. Army officials will consider knowledge, skills and attributes of soldiers and get the best match in specialties now restricted, Cone said, such as infantry, armor, field artillery and engineers.

Physical requirements will be one of the important attributes, he added.

"Soldiers don't want to see [that] degraded," the general said.

Objective assessments and validation studies, many of which already are complete, will look at each requirement by specialty, Cone told reporters. Tasks include such things as how much infantry soldiers must be able to lift, how much they have to carry, and for what distance, Cone said. Once the validations are done, scientists will then develop specialty-specific physical fitness tests that will, in turn, be validated with field studies, he explained.

Besides physical ability, Cone said, Army officials will look at "traditional impediments" -- the attitudes regarding the acceptance of women into previously male-only jobs.

"A lot of this is about leadership and the organizational climate," he added.

The Army will take "proactive measures to mitigate resistance to women going into these specialties," the general said.

"We want the right environment for women," he said.

ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF GEN. ODIERNO ADDRESSES EXPANDING COMBAT ROLE FOR WOMEN

FROM:  AMERICAN FORCES PRESS SERVICE
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno addresses the press about future changes in the Army's structure and size, including the expansion of women's roles in combat forces, at the Pentagon, May 16, 2012. DOD photo by Glenn Fawcett  

Odierno: Army 'Moving Toward' Opening Combat Arms to Women
By Karen Parrish
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2012 - Army leaders are asking whether -- and how -- to open infantry and armor ranks to women, the service's senior soldier said today.
Officers in charge of training and force development are now gathering data to help answer those questions, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno told reporters during a Pentagon briefing.

In line with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta's policy, the service has already opened 13,000 previously all-male positions to female soldiers, the general noted.
"Earlier this week more than 200 women began reporting to the maneuver battalions in nine of our brigade combat teams, selected to participate in the exception to the direct ground combat assignment rule," he said. "Additionally, co-location [with combat units] as an assignment restriction is rescinded."

A Defense Department report to Congress in February outlining the assignment policy changes included a vision statement that said the department "is committed to removing all barriers that would prevent service members from rising to the highest level of responsibility that their talents and capabilities warrant."

Odierno noted the changes open new opportunities to women, who comprise 16 percent of the Army's ranks. "This revision ... allows us to leverage the tremendous talent resident in our ranks," he added.

Women will likely filter in to the new positions for "several months," the Army chief said. Two categories of assignments are now open to women: jobs such as tank mechanic and field artillery radar operator that are necessarily performed close to combat units, and a limited "exception to policy" opening select positions at the battalion level in jobs women already occupy.

"My guess is, based on my experience in Iraq and what I've seen in Afghanistan, we'll then move forward with a more permanent solution [involving those two assignment categories] inside of the Army probably sometime this fall," he said.
Odierno said the next step is "to look at, do we open up infantry and armor [military occupational specialties] to females?"

He emphasized no decisions have yet been made on the question, but noted the answer will have implications for all-male Army formations, including the Rangers.
Army Rangers are rapidly deployable, light infantry troops trained to engage conventional and special operations targets. While there are only three Ranger battalions, with a special troops battalion and a separate Ranger training brigade, Odierno pointed out the "Ranger tab" denoting completion of Ranger training is a key to advancement among infantry officers.

Ranger school consists of three phases -- mountain, desert and swamp – over 61 days, and combines rigorous infantry training with famously sparse amounts of food and sleep.
While Odierno cautioned, "I don't want to get ahead of myself," he noted that some 90 percent of Army senior infantry officers -- all male -- are Ranger-qualified.
"So, if we determine that we're going to allow women to go into infantry, to be successful they are probably, at some time, going to have to go through Ranger school," he said. "We have not made that decision, but it's a factor that I've asked them to take a look at."
If combat arms jobs open to female soldiers, "We want the women to be successful," the general said.

The Army, like DOD, is committed to providing maximum opportunity for its members, Odierno said.

"We're going to move toward it," he said. "It's how we do that, what we have to do, [that we're assessing] as we move forward."