President Obama says in an interview with The Advocate that his “strong sense” is that implementation of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal will be “a matter of months…absolutely not years—and that we will get this done in a timely fashion, and the chiefs are confident that it will get done in a timely fashion. They understand this is not something that they’re going to be slow-walking.”
By law, the president, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and secretary of defense all must certify that the armed forces are ready for repeal before implementation may begin. While Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said it could be years until he’d be ready to sign off on implementation, he’s also said he’ll be gone sometime in 2011, so it seems likely that implementation will begin sometime in the next 12 months.
