Democratic US Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs after the army Black Hawk attack helicopter she was piloting was shot down during the US war in Iraq, on Sunday ramped up criticism of Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary who argues women shouldn’t be on the front line.
Pete Hegseth is the former Fox News host and soldier tapped by the president-elect to lead the Pentagon and oversee the largest military force in the world, but he is steeped in controversy.
Hegseth vociferously opposes the recent hard-won right of US women to be officially allowed into combat. And he is tangled in past allegations of sexual misconduct – while the Pentagon has been struggling for years with how to prevent, deal with and punish sexual assault and harassment in the armed forces.
Duckworth called Hegseth “flat-out wrong” on women in combat roles when she appeared on the CBS show Face the Nation on Sunday, and called him “inordinately unqualified” for the job of defense secretary.
“Frankly, America’s daughters are just as capable of defending liberty and freedom as her sons,” she said.
Hegseth made remarks in a podcast earlier this month arguing for turning back time on equality in the military, saying: “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated.”
The final barriers to women in combat were removed in 2015 when the military was ordered to open all jobs to anyone who met standards.
But in reality, women had been in combat in substantial numbers, fighting on the front line, winning medals and losing their lives throughout the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Duckworth was shot down with a rocket-propelled grenade over Iraq in 2004. She was elected to the Senate to represent Illinois in 2016.
She told CBS: “Women in our military does make us more effective, does make us more lethal. He’s been out there saying women are not as strong [but] the ones who are in those roles have met the same standards as the men and have passed the very rigorous testing. So he’s just flat out wrong.”
Duckworth is a member of the senate armed services committee. She noted that these days women serve in the infantry and special forces, such as the Navy Seals.
She also appeared in the CNN studio earlier on Sunday, using her wheelchair, and said: “Our military could not go to war without its 223,000 women who serve in uniform.”
She said that Hegseth served at a low level in the military and did not command any group larger than a platoon.
“Mr Hegseth is not qualified for the position because he doesn’t understand, apparently even after having served, that women are actually vitally important to an effective military.”
Hegseth, among the most controversial of Trump’s already contentious cabinet choices was the subject of a sexual assault investigation in 2017 and he reportedly made a payment to a woman at the heart of the case in exchange for her signing a non-disclosure agreement. Hegseth has denied all the allegations and said the encounter in question was consensual.
Duckworth said that she hoped the Senate committee would speak to the woman during the confirmation process next year, although she suspected it would “roll over for Mr Trump” and not do that once it has a Republican chair when the GOP assumes the senate majority.
“Remember we have just fought over a decade of fights and overhauled the military in its treatment of sexual trauma, it’s frankly an insult and really troubling that Mr Trump would nominate someone who has admitted he paid off a victim who has claimed rape allegations against him. This is not someone who you want to lead the department of defense,” she said.
