Defense Department expands roles for women

WASHINGTON — Women will soon be allowed to serve in about 13,000 Army positions that were previously closed to them, and Army officials said Thursday they are open to more combat-oriented roles for women in the years ahead.

Thursday’s announcement accompanied a 21-page report to Congress on the service of women in the military.

Officials said the positions, which include intelligence officers and other specialties, have been closed to women at the battalion level but open at the larger brigade level — a policy meant to keep women out of smaller units whose main mission was to engage in direct combat.

But the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have showed that the modern battlefield lacks the boundaries that used to define Army units’ roles, the Defense Department said in the report.

“We recognize the expanded role of women in the military,” said Maj. Gen. Gary Patton, principal director for military personnel policy, at a Pentagon briefing. He said the change is “the beginning, not the end” of a widening set of assignments for women.

Departmentwide, about 14,000 positions will become available. But some 238,000 positions remain closed to women. In the Army, 31 percent of positions will remain off limits, including special forces, tank crewmen and artillery operators, officials said.

The new policy does not undo the prohibition on women serving in direct combat, but Gen. Patton did not rule out further expansion, depending on how the planned changes unfold.

The change could take effect later in the spring; officials said it would be implemented as soon as a required 30-day review period in Congress is complete. Congress has to be in session continuously for that period, they said.

The deputy defense undersecretary for military personnel policy, Vee Penrod, cast the announcement as a big change and recalled her own military career, in which she was among the first women allowed to serve at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota in 1971. Previously, the climate was considered too cold for women, she said.

On the other hand, women have served in combat-related roles in Iraq and Afghanistan by being assigned to units that ended up in combat zones — a way the Army worked around the prohibition.

The issue has a familiar ring for Army Secretary John M. McHugh, who made a splash as a House Armed Services subcommittee chairman in 2005 by introducing a measure to keep women out of smaller units whose primary mission is direct ground combat.

His proposal raised a fuss among Democrats who charged that he was undermining women’s role in the military and was opposed by the Defense Department. Mr. McHugh’s provision, introduced at the request of the Republican committee chairman at the time, eventually was watered down to simply require the Defense Department to notify Congress ahead of any proposed change in the role of women, and he blamed the controversy on poor communication.

Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote with other lawmakers to the Defense Department last June, requesting more information on what they considered inconsistent policy on the roles of women in the military.