By Brody Levesque | ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA -- In a meeting with foreign wire service reporters yesterday, departing U. S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates stated that that his successor, current Central Intelligence director Leon Panetta, who is replacing Gates, will execute the final certification process that the U. S. military establishment is ready to repeal its ban on openly serving Gay and Lesbians in the military.
The Defence Secretary also told the journalists that he felt confident he would be able to sign the certification before retiring, but he said that he "will not certify" the repeal as planned.
"What I have done is earlier this week met with the service chiefs and the service secretaries and we began what I would call the pre-certification phase of this," Gates told them.
According to Gates, the next step in the repeal process will task the joint service chiefs to confer with senior officers for their input on whether the five military branches are ready for repeal.
CIA Director Panetta, who is due to take over the Pentagon in August, will likely certify the bill with the President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, in early August.
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