Rollback of covid vaccine mandate met with frustration at Pentagon.
The Biden administration fumed Wednesday at the near-certainty that Congress will strip away the Defense Department's requirement that all military personnel be vaccinated against the coronavirus, upending a politically divisive policy that has led to the dismissal of nearly 8,500 service members and numerous lawsuits disputing its fairness.
John Kirby, a White House spokesman, would not say whether Biden would entertain vetoing the bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, if as expected the legislation passes both chambers of Congress with the repeal intact. But Kirby emphasized that the administration believes scrubbing the vaccine mandate is a "mistake" and castigated those in the GOP who pushed to end it.
"I look like a clown now," the officer said, intimating that, by reversing the mandate, lawmakers had weakened the military's ability to enforce and maintain good order and discipline. "What happens when the next [unpopular directive] comes along, whether for vaccines or something else? I've lost my credibility to say 'Do this' when they know they can probably wait me out.
Katherine L. Kuzminski, a military policy expert at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, said disciplinary problems can arise when rank-and-file troops see the erosion of rules set clearly and forcefully by senior leaders. More than 8,400 active-duty service members have been separated over vaccine refusal, according to the most recent service data. The Air Force, which has processed 834 active-duty airmen for separation, paused dismissals in July after a court injunction, said Ann Stefanek, a spokesperson. A group of airmen sued the Air Force alleging religious-exemption requests were mishandled, and a federal appeals court in Ohio upheld the injunction last month.
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