Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Markup of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014

Hearing

Senator BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to join in thanking you for the very serious and hard work that you and others have done crafting this proposal, which I think is an effort to strike a balance. And we all recognize the competing interests at play here. And as Senator Kaine has just said very powerfully, we share this interest. We share the condemnation of this scourge, as the Secretary of Defense himself has called it, as every one of our service chiefs condemned it when they came before us.

And I just want to say that I think the military deserves some credit here. I think that attitudes are changing. The very powerful testimony that we heard on our committee from those service chiefs goes beyond just the rhetoric and the words. They are taking action. And just to give you one example, one of them informed me this morning that he is convening a group of his senior company commanders, colonels and lieutenant colonels, for a very extended session, which will include showing them the testimony and questions and statements during our hearing.

In that connection, I want to say thank you to Senator Gillibrand for her leadership, because I think her proposal has helped to move this debate. It has moved the line of consensus in favor of a more independent review with the knowledge that trust and credibility are everything here.

And I have some reservations about your proposal, Mr. Chairman, that will lead me to continue to support the Gillibrand proposal.

First of all, I think that we have to look at this problem from the standpoint not just of the commanding authority, but from the standpoint of the victim, how the system looks to him or her. And my fear is that it will look to the victim as though we are simply
tinkering with the process. The system will remain for the victim essentially a black box. There will be little or no opportunity to participate, and virtually no information during this supposed system of review. And the review itself, in almost every case, will go to the senior commanding authority, and never reach anybody in civilian authority. That just is the fact of the way the system will work because if the commander decides not to charge and the JAG supports not charging, then it goes to the senior commanding authority.

So I will continue to support the proposal to make a more demonstrative change in the current system. And I join in the view that the military leadership of this country will not be let off the hook, but they do not expect to be let off the hook. They will hold themselves accountable. And I look forward to their knowing that we will revisit this issue. In fact, I think that we are, in many respects, deferring to another day a real solution to this problem that will provide for trained and experienced prosecutors to be making these decisions.

And I would just finish on that point. As Senator McCaskill has said so eloquently, there is a real need to know how to do these cases because they are a very demanding and difficult, and, in some ways, unique kind of prosecution that the training and experience not only to make decisions, but review decisions, really requires. And I hope that we can continue to work to make the system worthy of the greatest military in the history of the world that is changing because we have a new generation entering, and because we are promoting more women, which I think may be the two decisive factors in changing the culture.

Thank you.

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