Last week, Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell held a last-minute press conference to rebut criticism of the DADT survey. Kerry Eleveld, who participated in and recorded Morrell’s presser, posted the transcript here.
Clearly, the Pentagon is on edge about this survey. It’s gotten nothing but criticism since it was announced. Servicemembers United has led the critique. And, today, SU provided an in-depth respond to Morrell. I posted the full response on Scribd.com and its embedded below. Let’s just say, SU eviscerates Morrell’s attempt to justify the survey.
From SU’s press release:
Servicemembers United, the nation’s largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans, today released a detailed response memo to rebut the numerous false and misleading claims made by Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell about Servicemembers United’s criticism of the biased DADT survey released last week. The survey, which was created and administered by the research firm Westat in conjunction with the Comprehensive Review Working Group, was sent out to 400,000 non-deployed active duty and reserve component troops at a cost to taxpayers of .4 million.
“Unfortunately, the Pentagon’s responses to Servicemembers United’s criticism of the DADT survey mirror the survey itself – flawed,” said Alexander Nicholson, Executive Director of Servicemembers United and a former U.S. Army interrogator who was discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” “We continue to maintain that the Defense Department just shot itself in the foot by releasing such a flawed survey to 400,000 servicemembers, and it did so at an outrageous cost to taxpayers.”
Here’s the full response. Worth a read. SU totally dismantles Morrell’s key arguments:
Servicemembers United response to Pentagon spokesperson
