CNBC Capital Report - Transcript

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SHOW: Capital Report (7:00 PM ET) - CNBC

HEADLINE: Senator Susan Collins of Maine discusses whether the Pentagon is doing enough to prevent sexual assualt among soldiers serving in the Middle East

ANCHORS: ALAN MURRAY

BODY:
ALAN MURRAY, co-host:

Welcome back to CAPITAL REPORT.

A Senate subcommittee is looking into charges that there were a disturbing number of rapes of American military women serving in the Middle East. Is the Pentagon doing enough to ensure the safety of female members of the service? Well, joining us now from Capitol Hill is Senator Susan Collins, Republican from Maine.

Senator, good to have you with us.

Senator SUSAN COLLINS (Republican, Maine): Good afternoon.

MURRAY: Let me ask you, this is a problem that keeps recurring: Aberdeen, Tailhook, the Air Force Academy. Now we find out more than 100 cases of sexual assault in the last 18 months in Iraq, at a base in Texas. Why does this keep coming up over and over again?

Sen. COLLINS: I think one of the problems is that the Pentagon does not keep a sustained focus on preventing sexual assaults. We seem to go through these cycles of scandal during which there's a brief period of trying to solve the problem and establish an environment in which sexual assaults are not tolerated, and then attention to the problem seems to flag.

MURRAY: Yeah. Let me just play something that David Chu, who is the undersecretary of Defense, said at the hearing today.

Mr. DAVID CHU (Undersecretary of Defense): (From February 25) You have a tension between protecting the victim and ensuring that she-it's usually a woman-is comfortable and feels safe, with the rights of the accused.

MURRAY: Is that-that was actually yesterday. But is that the issue here, worrying about the rights of the accused?

Sen. COLLINS: I don't think that's the issue at all. We have heard report after report from women coming back from Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait that they didn't receive prompt medical attention, much less counseling; that the investigators were slow to respond to their concerns. And that just compounds the injuries suffered by these women.

MURRAY: Yeah. You know, let me get back to this issue that this is something that keeps coming up again and again. My wife was the executive director of the Kassebaum-Baker Commission, which you remember. One of the things that that commission recommended was you gotta get men and women out of the same tents, out of the same dormitories, that in an effort to equalize men and women in the military, we've had too much contact between men and women. That was rejected by you and others at the time.

Sen. COLLINS: It was, and I still reject that argument.

MURRAY: Really?

Sen. COLLINS: I don't think the problem is having men and women who are professionals working together at all.

MURRAY: It's not just working together; they live together.

Sen. COLLINS: Well, we're in a new environment where women are playing increasing roles in these battles. When I was in Iraq I met women who were flying helicopters, who were acting as medics, who were doing a lot of roles that traditionally have been done by men. And I don't think the answer to the problem of sexual assaults is to say to those women that they can't be playing those roles, that they can't be out there on the front lines.

MURRAY: Well...

Sen. COLLINS: I think the answer is to establish a strict policy of treating these allegations seriously and punishing the perpetrators.

MURRAY: And so you don't think the Pentagon has been treating the allegations seriously?

Sen. COLLINS: I think there's been a problem with it, based on a pattern. I'm not saying that always happens; it's obviously just a small minority of cases. But from the reports we've had from these women, they did have a difficult time getting the allegations taken seriously, particularly in the midst of a war zone.

MURRAY: Yeah. You said a woman in Iraq may have more to fear from her fellow soldiers than from the enemy. Do you really believe that?

Sen. COLLINS: From some of her fellow soldiers. I think the vast majority of our troops are absolutely terrific. But there's a small minority that are violent, that will engage in sexual assaults, and they need to be prosecuted. This is a serious problem, and it deserves serious sustained attention.

MURRAY: All right. Senator Susan Collins of Maine, it's always great to have you on CAPITAL REPORT. Thanks very much.

Sen. COLLINS: Thank you, Alan.