Outside the Beltway

Enforcing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Cost Pentagon $193 Million Over Five Years

Doug Mataconis · Friday, January 21, 2011 · 1 comment

According to a new GAO study:

Enforcing the Pentagon’s “homosexual conduct policy” cost the government $193 million between 2004 and 2009, a new study from the Government Accountability Office finds. During that period, the Department of Defense spent $185 million finding and training replacements for the 3,664 service members who had been “separated” from the troops over their sexuality, and an additional $7.7 million removing them from duty. Politico adds that “1,442 of those discharged held critical jobs such as linguists and intelligence officers.” On average, it cost $52,800 to remove a single service member.

Once can assume that enforcement costs were at least that much between the time DADT was implemented in 1993 and 2004, although costs were likely reduced somewhat due to the fact that we had fewer overseas military commitments.