A bipartisan group of former defense secretaries — including two who served in Donald Trump’s administration — say that military readiness and U.S. national security are being harmed by one senator’s delay of the quick approval of nearly 200 military promotions because of his objection to the department’s abortion policy.
That delay, which Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) began in March, “risks turning military officers into political pawns, holding them responsible for a policy decision made by their civilian leader,” the former defense secretaries wrote in a letter to Senate leaders Thursday.
The letter to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) follows concerns raised by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who urged the Senate in March to move ahead with the promotions. Austin told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that the blockade on military promotions caused a “ripple effect in the force that makes us far less ready than we need to be.”
“The current hold that has been in place now for several weeks is preventing key leaders from assuming important, senior command and staff positions around the world,” the letter reads. “Some are unable to take important command positions, such as leading the 5th Fleet in Bahrain and the 7th Fleet in the Pacific, which are critical to checking Iranian and Chinese aggression, respectively. Others include the next military representative to NATO, a post essential to coordinating allied efforts in support of Ukraine, as well as the future Director of Intelligence at U.S. Cyber Command.”
“Leaving these and many other senior positions in doubt at a time of enormous geopolitical uncertainty sends the wrong message to our adversaries and could weaken our deterrence,” the former secretaries added.
In response to the letter, Schumer said in a statement, “I hope Senate Republicans read the letter and tell Sen. Tuberville to drop these reckless holds.” Schumer went on to say that despite the strong opinions legislators have on various issues, “that cannot justify putting our national preparedness at risk.”
It was a sentiment echoed by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
“The longer this partisan stranglehold on military promotions wears on, the more harm it does,” Reed said in a statement Thursday. “This blockade is a profound attack on the professionalism of our military. It needs to end.”
Tuberville has promised that he would require these promotions to be approved one-by-one, rather than in batches — what Congress calls unanimous consent. The nominations can still move ahead, but would require time-consuming steps by Schumer, who said in March that Tuberville’s gambit was tantamount to “hostage taking.”
A spokesman for McConnell did not respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Tuberville said he is taking this step because of a policy approved by Austin that grants up to three weeks of paid time off and travel reimbursement for service members and dependents if they travel out of state to receive an abortion. The move followed last year’s Supreme Court’s ruling that ended the constitutional protections for abortion access granted 50 years before in Roe v. Wade.
The freshman senator said the Defense Department policy permits the use of taxpayer dollars to terminate pregnancies despite a congressional block on such spending via a decades-old law known as the Hyde Amendment. Tuberville previously said that if the Pentagon wants to spend money on such initiatives, it should be included in the department’s annual defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act.
Austin, for his part, said the policy is necessary because women compose nearly 20 percent of the military and they do not get to choose where they are stationed.
The stalled promotions are also impacting the families of those affected service members, the secretaries wrote.
“Most cannot move and resettle their families,” the letter states. “Their children cannot enroll at their next schools on time; and spouses cannot start new jobs at the next duty station. We can think of few things as irresponsible and uncaring as harming the families of those who serve our nation in uniform.”
The letter was signed by seven former defense secretaries — William J. Perry, William S. Cohen, Robert M. Gates, Leon E. Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Jim Mattis and Mark T. Esper — who, collectively, served in each administration from President Bill Clinton to Trump.