First Lady Favors Women in Combat

Barbara Bush said today she thinks women should be allowed to serve in combat if they are physically strong enough because “certainly emotionally and mentally they are more than able to compete with a man.”

Mrs. Bush answered with a “qualified yes” when asked in an interview with wire service reporters in the White House living quarters whether women should serve in combat.

“If I thought a woman physically could pick up someone who was wounded and carry them to safety, if I thought they could throw a hand grenade as far as a man, then I would say fine. Because I think certainly emotionally and mentally they are more than able to compete with a man.”

“They can shoot as well. They can fly as well. The only problem I would have is if it risks somebody else’s life because they couldn’t throw a hand grenade as far or carry (someone), that would be the only thing.”

President Bush has said that he would be willing to listen to recommendations from the Pentagon about the possibility of women serving in combat, but that the women who served in Panama were not in combat roles.

In the U.S. Panama invasion, women were not assigned to combat units, but some found themselves under fire in performing support duties.

The First Lady also said she helped Bush keep the invasion of Panama secret. She said she was told about it the day of the invasion, before it happened, but “I knew something was going on” a few days ahead because of all the presidential advisers who were coming and going from the White House.

When deposed strongman Manuel A. Noriega finally surrendered to U.S. forces, after several tense days in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City, Mrs. Bush said the President “came racing through and said, ‘We got him.’ ”

“I’d say he was pleased, pleased that it was over without more bloodshed,” she said.

She said she has been “a little testy” about all the letters she gets from people who don’t think it’s safe for the President to attend the upcoming drug summit in violence-torn Colombia.

She said she would prefer that the summit be elsewhere--”I wish it would be right here”--but “I can’t change his mind or make his decisions .”