The top US defence leaders were summoned to the White House today to talk about the military's sexual assault crisis as the Pentagon's top general said women in uniform were losing confidence the problem will be solved.
President Barack Obama planned to meet today afternoon with Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, top-ranking officers and civilian leaders of all the service branches to discuss the issue, an administration official said today. The official was not authorised to discuss the meeting publicly because it had not been announced and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Allegations of sexual assault in the military have triggered outrage from local commanders to Congress and the White House. Yet there seem to be few clear solutions beyond improved training and possible adjustments in how the military prosecutes such crimes. Changing the culture of a male-dominated, change-resistant military that for years has tolerated sexism and sexist behaviour is proving to be a challenging task.
"We're losing the confidence of the women who serve that we can solve this problem," the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, said yesterday.
"That's a crisis," Dempsey said in remarks during a flight from Europe to Washington that were reported by the Pentagon's internal news service. He suggested that a deepening of the sexual assault problem may be linked to the strains of war.
The Pentagon scheduled a briefing for journalists today with Hagel and Dempsey.
As new sexual assault allegations emerged this week involving an Army soldier who was assigned to prevent such crimes the second military member facing similar accusations the Pentagon said Hagel is working on a written directive to spell out steps aimed at resolving the escalating problem.
But President Barack Obama, fuming at a news conference last week, warned that he wanted swift and sure action, not "just more speeches or awareness programs or training." Sexual offenders need to be "prosecuted, stripped of their position, court-martialed, fired, dishonourably discharged. Period," he said.
