By Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) – No one talks tougher
against prostitution than the U.S. military.
Even in countries where prostitution is legal, military
personnel violating a seven-year-old Department of Defense
policy against paying for sex face up to a year in jail and
dishonorable discharge if caught.
Officers and troops are taught about the links between human
trafficking and prostitution. They also face country-specific
instructions at bases like the U.S. installation in South Korea,
where the policy describes prostitution as “cruel and
demeaning.”
But the involvement of U.S. military personnel and Secret
Service agents in a raucous April outing with prostitutes in
Cartagena, Colombia, has underscored the gaps between the
written policies and real-life experiences at military
assignments around the world.
While the Secret Service has acted promptly and openly, even
announcing Friday new ethics training and policies for traveling
agents, the military has stayed mostly mum about how it is
addressing possible violations of its prostitution rules.
After the Colombia scandal broke, initial attention focused
on the dozen agents from the Secret Service, a civilian agency,
for fear safety of the president or other officials might have
been compromised. Eight agents have since left the service, one
had his security clearance revoked and three were cleared.
‘INCOMPATIBLE’ WITH MILITARY VALUES
Last week, Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the
Senate Armed Services committee, criticized the Pentagon for
offering too little information about the errant behavior of
personnel who were helping prepare for a Cartagena summit visit
by President Barack Obama.
Unlike the Secret Service agents, who were ordered to return
home and were swiftly disciplined, the military personnel were
initially confined to quarters in Colombia for what the Pentagon
called “curfew violations.” The Pentagon says those involved
have had their security clearances suspended while an
investigation proceeds.
Defense officials have said that moving the military
personnel from Colombia before the summit there was ended would
have been disruptive to their mission. The military service
members had been sent to Cartagena as part of advance
preparations for a summit that was attended by President Barack
Obama.
Defense officials have also said they cannot speculate
publicly about what disciplinary actions may be taken or discuss
details of the allegations, saying this could jeopardize the
integrity of the investigation.
But last week a Pentagon spokesman pledged to keep McCain
and other lawmakers as informed as possible as the investigation
proceeds.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the armed services
committee, said he doubts that the military is enforcing its
strict prostitution rules.
“The honest truth is probably no,” said Graham, a former Air
Force lawyer.
McCain said that while the Senate committee examined issues
of sexual assault after the 1991 Tailhook scandal involving
allegations of sexual abuse by Navy and Marine pilots, the panel
has not been called upon to investigate the use of prostitutes.
He rejected the notion that patronizing prostitutes is a fact of
military life.
“I certainly did not believe that. Ever,” he said. “And I
spent 26 years in the military.”
The military toughened its prostitution rules in 2005 after
President George W. Bush signed an executive order adding
patronizing prostitutes to the Manual for Courts-Martial.
The order spelled out offenses and penalties and gave the
military a tough enforcement tool – if it chose to use it – for
behavior that, as Graham said, had “been around military bases
as long as there has been a military.”
Lawrence Korb, a former defense official, said that while he
has heard stories of wayward military personnel since his time
in Vietnam, “we’ve never heard anything about the Secret Service
before.”
Korb, now a senior fellow at the Center for American
Progress, said it is unclear how often the military services
impose the harsh written policies for personnel using
prostitutes.
“I’ve never seen anybody go to jail,” he said.
Nevertheless, training continues. Both the Pentagon and the
State Department, which also has tough internal policies on
prostitution, teach personnel that prostitution is often a form
of human trafficking, with strong ties to underworld crime.
The military’s general awareness and law enforcement
training can be found on its website at http://ctip.defense.gov/
Country-specific training also stresses criminal links.
A U.S. Forces Korea policy states: “Prostitution and human
trafficking shall not be facilitated in any way.” It further
says that hiring prostitutes is “incompatible with our military
core values.”
Graham said one reason for the effort is that military
personnel assigned to other countries must adapt to local
customs and morals. “If there was an effort to visit prostitutes
in Afghanistan, we would come down hard. Simply because it’s a
cultural no-no in Afghanistan, it would bring wrath upon us,” he
said.
Graham said the Senate Armed Services Committee should look
into the issue further.
“The commonality seems to be when the Secret Service and the
military get together, in kind of exotic locations, things are
going bad,” Graham said. “So the military and Secret Service
need to address: what is it about these trips?”
(Additional reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Marilyn W.
Thompson and Jackie Frank)
