US Military Chaplain Program
Actions:
• On June 4, 2008, Rep. Myrick sent a letter to Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates inquiring if the Department of Defense has reexamined its chaplain approval process for the military since the arrest and conviction of Abdurahman Alamoudi.
• On June 25, 2008, the Department of Defense (DoD) replied to Rep. Myrick with a letter and packet containing the DoD Inspector General’s (IG) evaluation report on the DoD Chaplain Program, which was finished in November of 2004. The packet also included the DoD guidelines for the appointment of chaplains for the military service.
The DoD IG report had five observations and suggestions to strengthen the DoD Chaplain Program. However, the concern is that Observation 3 was not adopted:
Observation 3 suggested DoD establish nonreligious criteria that would allow DoD to withdraw or remove a religious organization or its agent from participating in the DoD chaplain program. Such examples of non-religious criteria suggested were advocating the violent overthrow of the US Government, listed on a watch list of terrorist organizations, or conviction of a religious organization or its principal leaders in connection with terrorism. Observation 3 also included suggestions to use the FBI or other agencies to help screen religious organizations and their agents. The DoD rejected this observation because they said that it was “legally problematic” and the DoD was focused on individual merit of the prospective Chaplin, while the IRS “should remain the focal point for institutional merit” (IRC- 501 (c) (3) criteria). NOTE: DoD has adopted part of this observation, which includes: removal and rejection of chaplains and religious organizations that are under indictment or have been convicted of a terrorist related offense, or if the religious organization appears on the State Department list of Foreign Terror Organizations. Read more ...
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