Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand berated the Army’s likely next chief of staff at his confirmation hearing today, holding an about-to-be-released Pentagon report showing a sharp rise in sexual assault in the military.
The New York Democrat dressed down Gen. James McConville, whose wife and children attended his confirmation hearing. The report found that the rate of sexual assault increased the most for female troops between the ages of 17 to 24.
“I find this to be your responsibility, general. Will you take this as seriously as you would if it was your daughter in that 17-to-24-year-olds service member list? Will you take this as seriously as if it was her?” Gillibrand asked McConville. “Yes, senator,” he replied.
The 2018 Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military found a 44% increase in the number of active-duty female service members reporting sexual assault in the last two years, from 4.3% in 2016 to 6.2% in 2018. Men reported sexual assault at the rate of 0.7% compared with 0.6% in 2016.
Waving charts from the report, Gillibrand castigated McConville, the Army’s vice chief, for the lack of progress.
“You’re going in the wrong direction,” the senator told the general. “This is something that you must take responsibility for because it’s an issue of climate of the Department of Defense.”
Gillibrand cited the report’s finding that 24% of women and 6% of men say they’ve experienced an unhealthy climate.
“Climate is your responsibility as the commander. You set the tone,” she said, her voice rising in anger. “I am tired of excuses. I am tired of statements from commanders that say ‘zero tolerance.’ I am tired of the statement I get over and over from the chain of command. ‘We got this, ma’am, we got this.’ You don’t have it, you’re failing us.”
The Marine Corps is the service with the highest rate of sexual assault of women, 10.7%, followed by the Navy at 7.5%, the Army at 5.8%, and the Air Force at 4.3%.
The report found sexual assault most prevalent in the enlisted ranks from E-3 to E-5, with alleged perpetrators often of the same rank, or slightly higher, as their victims.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said he was issuing a number of directives in response to the report, including a request to change military law to make sexual harassment a stand-alone crime.
“To put it bluntly, we are not performing to the standards and expectations we have for ourselves or for each other. This is unacceptable,” Shanahan wrote in a memo issued to the Pentagon, the services, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
Saying his “resolve to eliminate these crimes is stronger than ever,” Shanahan stated he will implement the recommendations of the Sexual Assault Accountability and Investigation Task Force, including creating a special program aimed at catching serial offenders and more carefully vetting the character of new recruits to ensure their values are compatible with the military’s.
The recommendations stop short of removing the responsibility for handling sexual assault cases from commanders and giving it to trained military prosecutors, something advocated by Gillibrand, a longtime crusader against sexual assault in the military.
But the Pentagon says military leaders, especially junior officers and junior enlisted leaders, will be getting training on how to prevent and respond to sexual assault and sexual harassment.
