Read President Obama’s Remarks on Reform in Military Justice

Hear Obama’s remarks at 26:00-29:10 or read them below:

“Well let’s start with the principal that sexual assault is an outrage. It is a crime. That’s true for society at large, and if it’s happening inside our military, then whoever carries it out is betraying the uniform that they are wearing. They may consider themselves patriots, but when you engage in this type of behavior, that’s not patriotic, it’s a crime. And we have to do everything we can to root this out.

Now, this is not a new phenomenon. One of the things we’ve been trying to do is create a structure in which we’re starting to get accurate reporting, and up and down the chain, we are seeing a process, a system of accountability and transparency, so we can root this out completely. And this is a discussion I had with Secretary Panetta and he had begun the process of moving this forward, but I have directly spoke to Secretary Hagel already today, and indicating to him that we’re going to have to, you know, not just step up our game, we have to exponentially step up our game to go at this thing hard. 

And for those who are in uniform, who have experienced sexual assault, I want them to hear directly from their Commander in Chief, that I’ve got their backs. I will support them, and we’re not going to tolerate this stuff, and there will be accountability. The people who engage in this behavior, they should be prosecuted. And anybody in the military who has knowledge of this stuff should understand this is not who we are, this is not what the US military is about, and it dishonors the vast majority of men and women in uniform who carry out their responsibilities and obligations with honor and dignity and incredible courage every single day.

So, bottom line is, I have no tolerance for this. I have communicated this to the Secretary of Defense. We’re going to communicate this again to folks up and down the chain in areas of authority and I expect consequences. So I don’t want just more speeches or awareness programs or training, but ultimately folks look the other way. We find out someone is engaging is this kind of stuff they got to be held accountable. Prosecuted, stripped of their positions, court martialed, fired, dishonorably discharged, period. It’s not acceptable.