Assault response official arrested
Army officials said Thursday that the manager of the sexual assault response program at Fort Campbell had been arrested in a domestic dispute and relieved of his post. Police said Lt. Col. Darin Haas turned himself in late Wednesday on charges of violating an order of protection and stalking after his wife reported he had violated a protective order she had against him. A spokesman for the post on the Tennessee-Kentucky line said Haas was immediately removed as manager of a program meant to prevent sexual harassment and assault and encourage equal opportunity.
Associated Press
President Barack Obama said Thursday the nation’s military leaders told him they are “ashamed” of their failure to end sexual abuse in the armed services. Obama pledged to “leave no stone unturned” in the effort to halt the abuse, which he said undermines the trust the military needs to be effective.
Obama also said he has asked Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey to lead a process to root out the problem.
“They care about this and they are angry about it,” Obama said at the White House, after he summoned Hagel, Dempsey and other top defense leaders to discuss a problem thrust to the fore by recent misconduct cases and a Pentagon report showing that up to 26,000 military members may have been sexually assaulted last year.
“I heard directly from all of them that they are ashamed by some of what’s happened,” Obama said.
Earlier Thursday, the Army’s top officer acknowledged that his service is failing in its effort to stop sexual assaults. Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, issued a public message to all soldiers in which he said the “bedrock of trust” between soldiers and their leaders has been violated by a recent string of misconduct cases.
He said the Army demonstrated competence and courage through nearly 12 years of war. “Today, however, the Army is failing in its efforts to combat sexual assault and sexual harassment,” he wrote.
“It is time we take on the fight against sexual assault and sexual harassment as our primary mission,” Odierno said.
In remarks to reporters after the meeting, Obama also spoke about how sexual assault undermines the trust that men and women in uniform need to work as a team.
He said he wants the military and others to explore every good idea to fix the problem, adding that Hagel would consult with Congress as well as other militaries around the world.
Allegations of sexual assault in the military have triggered outrage from local commanders to Capitol Hill and the Oval Office. 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 military that for years has tolerated sexism and sexist behavior is proving to be a challenging task.
“We’re losing the confidence of the women who serve that we can solve this problem,” Dempsey said Wednesday in remarks during a flight from Europe to Washington that were reported by the American Forces Press Service, the Pentagon’s internal news agency. “That’s a crisis.”
Dempsey suggested that a deepening of the sexual assault problem may be linked to the strains of war.
“I tasked those around me to help me understand what a decade-plus of conflict may have done to the force,” he said. “Instinctively, I knew it had to have some effect.”
Dempsey added: “This is not to make excuses. We should be better than this. In fact, we have to be better than this.”
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 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, dishonorably discharged. Period,” he said.
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