Increased granting of 'moral waivers' dangerously lowers standards for military recruits.

Source: Houston Chronicle
Date: February 19, 2007

As casualties rise and the Bush administration moves to place more American soldiers in harm's way in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the overextended military is lowering its standards to recruit more service members from the dwindling pool of volunteers. Since the beginning of the Iraq war, the military has offered larger cash bonuses at enlistment, loosened age and weight restrictions and allowed more low-testing applicants and high-school dropouts to enlist.

But a new study, using data obtained from the Pentagon through Freedom of Information requests, reveals that the military is now granting waivers that allow more recruits with criminal records, including felony convictions, to join the services, particularly the Army and Marine Corps. The military routinely grants waivers to recruits with medical problems, criminal records or low aptitude scores that once would have disqualified them. Many of these are "moral waivers" that are granted to admit recruits with a criminal past. In the past three years the number of convicted felons who enlisted in the U.S. military almost doubled, rising from 824 in 2004 to 1,605 in 2006.

The savage conflict in Iraq has placed enormous stress on even the most level-headed, scrupulous of soldiers. Abu Ghraib and other moral lapses should be incentive enough to redouble efforts to enlist the best and the brightest. Instead, it seems that the lowering of standards will have the opposite effect.

The study indicates that from 2003 through 2006, the military allowed 4,230 convicted felons to enlist under the "moral waivers" program. In the sharpest increase, 43,977 individuals convicted of serious misdemeanors were permitted to enlist. This category makes up the bulk of all the Army's moral waivers and includes aggravated assault, burglary and vehicular homicide.

During the past three years, more than 125,000 people with criminal histories have joined the military. While many of these crimes were minor transgressions, many others were serious. What is even more troubling, recruits who are granted moral waivers might not be tracked once in the military. Private Steven D. Green, charged with four other soldiers in the March 2006 murders of an Iraqi family of four, including the rape of a 14-year-old daughter, had a troubled history and several misdemeanor convictions when he was granted a moral waiver to enlist. A month after the murders, the 20-year-old Green was discharged on psychiatric grounds.

In 1993, when then-president Bill Clinton tried to compel the Pentagon to allow gay soldiers to serve openly, the brass argued that doing so would undermine military effectiveness, leading to the problematic "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Polls show that four out of five soldiers feel comfortable interacting with gay comrades, and many retired admirals and generals have called for a repeal of the ban.

It would be refreshing to see the Pentagon address that issue rather than risking lives — and potentially alienating high-caliber recruits — by granting waivers to felons and other unsuitable candidates. It's not the best or the brightest way to run the military.