Mattis Pick Could See Senate Clash on Women in Combat, PTSD

Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, a front-runner for defense secretary in a Trump administration, could face stormy Senate confirmation hearings over his views on women in combat, post-traumatic stress, Iran, and other issues.

Mattis also would bring with him a bottom-up leadership style honed in command positions from the rifle platoon level to U.S. Central Command that seemingly would be at odds with President-elect Donald Trump's top-down management philosophy and the by-the-book bureaucracy of the Pentagon.

In his writings, speeches and think-tank comments since retiring in 2013 as a revered figure in the Marine Corps, Mattis has been characteristically blunt on a range of issues from the role of women in the military and post-traumatic stress to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran.

Mattis also has praised the Mideast diplomacy efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry, who was often mocked by Trump during the campaign, but Trump has kept Mattis at the top of his short list for the Pentagon post.

The general has apparently cleared his calendar in anticipation of a Trump decision.

Mattis canceled a Dec. 14 speaking engagement at a Jamestown Foundation conference on terrorism, according to The Hill newspaper's Kristina Wong. He has discussed the possibility of his selection as defense secretary with the leadership of the Center for a New American Security, where he is a board member, the Hill said.

Others believed to be under consideration for the defense post are Sen. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican and former Army captain; Stephen Hadley, the National Security Adviser in the administration of President George W. Bush; and former Sen. Jim Talent, a Missouri Republican.

Trump met with Mattis before Thanksgiving and later called him the "real deal" and a "generals' general" who rated ample consideration for the defense nomination. Trump also said he was "surprised" when Mattis told him he could get more out of a terrorism suspect's interrogation with a few beers and a pack of cigarettes than he could with waterboarding and torture.

Trump later spoke at length with The New York Times about the potential choice of Mattis and other matters, but did not touch on the roles of women in the military or Defense Secretary Ashton Carter's historic decision last March to open up all military occupational specialties to women who qualify.

Women in Combat

Mattis, now a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution in California, has questioned whether women are suited for what he called the "intimate killing" of close combat, and whether male commanders would balk at sending women into such situations.

Mattis also said he was concerned about "Eros" in the trenches when young men and women live in close quarters in the "atavistic" atmosphere of combat. "I don't care if you go anywhere in history where you would find that this has worked," he said of putting "healthy young men and women together and we expect them to act like little saints."

In periodic speeches to the Marines' Memorial Club in San Francisco, Mattis said that the U.S. military is a "national treasure," and it is inevitable that women would want to serve in every MOS.

"The problem is that in the atavistic primate world" of close-quarters combat, "the idea of putting women in there is not setting them up for success," Mattis said. He stressed that he was not talking about whether women could perform the required amounts of pushups, pullups and other physical requirements -- "that's not the point."

Commanders must consider "what makes us most combat effective when you jump into that room and you're doing what we call intimate killing," he said. "It would only be someone who never crossed the line of departure into close encounters fighting that would ever even promote such an idea" as putting women into close combat.

If nominated, Mattis would almost certainly be challenged on women in combat in confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee, which has six women on the panel.

One of them is Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who retired as a lieutenant colonel after 23 years in the Army Reserves and Iowa National Guard. Ernst, who served a deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom and is the first female veteran in the Senate, has applauded the opportunity for women who meet the standards to serve in the combat arms.

Opponents of women in combat have said that the next defense secretary could easily reverse the current rules opening up all billets to women.

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, told Military Times, "Those policies have to be rolled back. Right now, the policy is that women can and will be assigned to ground combat units. That pronouncement can indeed be changed by a future secretary of defense."

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield," said the argument is misguided since women have already proven their worth in combat.

The rules could be changed by the next administration, but "the record of service speaks for itself," Lemmon said. Even when regulations banned women from combat, "They were there. They were there because special ops needed them there," she said.

"I have never thought this was about political correctness or a feminist agenda," Lemmon said of the issue of women in combat, "but rather about military readiness and having the right people in the right jobs. In some ways, it is remarkable to me that we have Americans who want to say that even if you meet the standard, you cannot be there."

Post-Traumatic Stress

Mattis has also differed with current thinking on post-traumatic stress and its treatment in the military and in the Department of Veterans Affairs, where the leadership has labored to remove the "stigma" against seeking help.

"We have such a fixation on disease and disorder that troops coming home have to be told, actually have to be told, 'You don't have to be messed up,' " Mattis said. "What's the message we're sending them?"

"My concern is we've got so many people who think they're messed up now, or think they should be, that the ones who really need help are being submerged in the broader population and so the ones who need the help the most aren't getting the attention they need to be getting," he said.

"There's no room for woe-is-me, for self-pity, or for cynicism" in the military, Mattis said. "Further, there is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role. In the military, we make choices. We're not victims."

The misperception about war and its aftermath is that "somehow we're damaged by this. I'm on record that it didn't traumatize me to do away with some people slapping women around," Mattis said, but there was a growing acceptance that "we're all post-traumatic stressed out" and that veterans were "somehow damaged goods. I don't buy it."

Iran Deal

Mattis stepped down as commander of U.S. Central Command in 2013, reportedly after clashing with the White House on Iran. Now, his views on the threat posed by Iran appear to line up with those of Trump.

"Among the many challenges the Mideast faces, I think Iran is foremost," Mattis said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies last April.

"The Iranian regime, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to peace and stability in the Mideast," and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action worked out by Secretary Kerry and others to rein in Iran's nuclear programs has not altered the threat, he said.

During the campaign, Trump called the Iran pact a "terrible deal" and suggested he would renegotiate it or possibly scrap it, but Mattis is against that course of action.

"It was not a mistake to engage on the nuclear issue" with Iran, he said, adding that the deal "was not without some merit" and "there's no going back, absent a clear violation" of the agreement.

Kerry has been pilloried by Trump on his overall performance as secretary of state, but Mattis lauded his efforts in the Mideast, particularly on his thus-far fruitless attempts to bring about a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians. However, the two sides must want peace "as bad as the secretary of state. I admire and salute Secretary Kerry's efforts," he said.

Leadership Style

Should Mattis get the nomination, he would take to the Pentagon a unique leadership style that relies on feedback from the ranks. "Generals get a lot of credit but very little of it is earned by their own blood, sweat and tears," he has said, adding that the credit should go to the front-line troops.

"There are two kinds of generals -- one gets briefed, the other briefs his staff," and Mattis made clear that he was the second type of general. "I found it faster if I would go out and spend most of my time with the lead elements" in an effort "to get a sense if the lads thought we were winning. We didn't use command and control, we used command and feedback."

"Wandering around like that really unleashed a lot of combat power," said Mattis, whose nickname was "Mad Dog" and who had the radio call sign "Chaos."

When asked about the most important trait for a leader, he said, "It comes down to building trust."

Leaders must be able to make those in their command "feel your passion for excellence. If they believe you care about them, you can speak to them bluntly and they're ready to go back into the brawl," he said.

If he were to be confirmed by the Senate, Mattis would be the first recently retired general to hold the defense secretary's post since Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff during World War II. Marshall was named secretary of defense by President Harry Truman in 1950.

The choice of Mattis would for the first time put two Marines in the top uniformed and civilian posts at the Pentagon. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford served under Mattis as a colonel in command of the 5th Marine Regiment during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Senate confirmation would be the second hurdle for Mattis. He first would need a waiver from Congress to get around the rule barring military officers from accepting posts requiring Senate confirmation for seven years after retirement. Mattis left the military in 2013.

-- Richard Sisk can be reached at Richard.Sisk@Military.com.