"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Cost U.S. Millions And Is A National Security Threat

A government report due out Friday shows "don't ask, don't tell," the military's ban on lesbian, gay and bisexual personnel, has cost the Pentagon hundreds of millions of dollars to implement, prompting members of Congress to announce new plans to repeal the measure.

"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was adopted by Congress in 1993 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Under the law, lesbian, gay and bisexual military personnel cannot reveal their sexual orientations without risking expulsion from the armed forces.

Approximately 10,000 service members have been discharged under the policy, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non-partisan congressional accounting agency.

Analysis by the GAO found the Pentagon has spent nearly $200 million to recruit and train replacements of enlisted personnel discharged under the policy.

The cost is likely much higher because the Defense Department does not track specific costs of investigating or discharging gay service members or for handling legal challenges and reviews of dismissals, according to the GAO report.

"DADT is both a waste of human and material resources which any nation can ill afford during a time of war," said Ken Sholes, vice president of American Veterans for Equal Rights.

The report also did not include costs associated with discharging officers or trained specialists. Among the nearly 800 specialists with critical skills who were discharged, 322 were linguists, including 54 who specialized in Arabic.

Sholes told the PlanetOut Network that training a linguist can take up to a year or more.

Rep. Marty Meehan, D- Mass, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Terrorism, Conventional Threats and Capabilities, has drafted the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, a proposal that would end the ban on gay and lesbian military personnel.

Meehan plans to introduce the measure next week, with support from a coalition of congressional representatives, including Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich. and Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.

Meehan called DADT "counterproductive." "Now we have the numbers to prove that the policy itself is undermining our military readiness," he told the Boston Globe.

Many U.S. allies have abandoned policies that discriminate against gays in the military, including Britain, which is now actively courting gays as recruits for the Royal Navy