‘Don’t Ask’ Costs More Than Expected

Military’s Gay Ban Seen in Budget Terms
By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer

The financial costs to the U.S. military for discharging and replacing gay
service members under the nation’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy are
nearly twice what the government estimated last year, with taxpayers
covering at least $364 million in associated funds over the policy’s first
decade, according to a University of California report scheduled for
release today.

Cross posted @ My Left Wing,refinish69

Members of a UC-Santa Barbara group examining the cost of the policy found
that a Government Accountability Office study last year underestimated the
costs of firing approximately 9,500 service members between 1994 and 2003
for homosexuality. The GAO, which acknowledged difficulties in coming up
with its number, estimated a cost of at least $190.5 million for the same
time period. The new estimate is 91 percent higher.

Although it did not take a stance on the effectiveness of the policy, the
California “blue ribbon commission” — which included former defense
secretary William J. Perry and 11 professors and defense experts — found
that the military has put millions of dollars into recruiting and training
new soldiers and officers to replace those who were removed from their
jobs in the services because they were openly gay. The report also cites
the costs of losing service members to premature discharge, because of the
loss of training “investment.”

“The real issue here is that you have a policy that is costing us money,
hurting readiness and is really not fulfilling any national security
objective,” said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American
Progress, a liberal think tank, and a member of the commission. “It just
doesn’t make sense now, particularly when you’re having such a hard time
getting people to join the military and retaining them in the right
skills.”

The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was included in the 1994 Defense
Authorization Act, part of President Bill Clinton’s efforts to take a step
toward lifting the ban on gay people in the military. The law essentially
allowed gay men and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they did
not expose their sexual preference or exhibit homosexual behavior.

Those who do, however, are swiftly discharged.

“The policy is more expensive than we thought it was, in many ways,” said
retired Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, a former Navy judge advocate general who
was on the panel. “The real cost is the cost in human dignity, in
self-respect, and in the image of the military held by the American
public, the world community and itself. . . . The dignity of the armed
forces is at stake.”

Defense Department policies comply with the statute, according to a
Pentagon spokeswoman, and have resulted in individual discharges from
service. But defense officials also noted that those service members
discharged for homosexuality represent just 0.3 percent of all discharges.

According to Pentagon figures provided to the GAO last year, there were
9,501 people separated from the military for homosexuality from 1994 to
2003, compared with 26,446 separated for pregnancy, and 36,513 separated
for failing to meet weight standards.

Charles Moskos, a sociology professor at Northwestern University and an
architect of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” said in an interview yesterday that
he believes allowing openly gay people into the military — especially
combat arms positions — could cause the services to lose many more
recruits who would be uncomfortable living in close quarters with them. He
said the loss in financial costs does not outweigh the costs of forcing
people to live in intimate circumstances with openly gay people. He also
said he believes many of the discharges are the result of people claiming
to be gay to get an honorable discharge from service early.

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This policy that President Clinton thought was a starting point to getting gays accepted in the military ahs turned out to be a witch hunt worse than the old policy.  It was wrong then and is still wrong.

The additional cost in harrasement and loss of qualified military personal are beyond belief.