During today’s hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the army announced its opposition to instituting a moratorium on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell discharges, but some lawmakers suggested that they may still press ahead with the policy.

Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) asked Army chief of staff Gen. George Casey and Secretary of the Army John McHugh to obtain an official legal assessment “as to whether there are complications for a moratorium” and Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) pressed the military to find ways to prevent additional discharges and protect soldiers who have not been officially discharged:

UDALL: So it seems that the eventuality of the repeal isn’t in question and so in that spirit, this Senator thinks we ought to put a moratorium in place during this implementation period…Who’s going to be the last gay service member to be discharged under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? That would be a tragedy in my mind because they are clearly patriots. They clearly want to serve their country.

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Earlier this month, Udall suggested that Congress should move concurrently on repeal while the Pentagon conducts its study. “[We should write into the repealing legislation] the period of time you suggest you need [to review the policy]…while legislating that at the end of that time we would have finality. In other words, a complete end to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’” Udall proposed at an earlier hearing.

The Army rebuffed Congressional efforts to impose a moratorium on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell discharges today, telling the Senate Armed Services Committee that it would oppose oppose the freeze while the Pentagon reviewed the DADT policy.

Asked about the moratorium by Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) during today’s appropriations hearing, Army chief of staff Gen. George Casey argued that a moratorium could complicate the Pentagon’s study:

I would recommend against it, it would complicate the whole process … implementing while we were studying it…This process is going to be difficult enough, anything that complicates it more I would be opposed to.

John M. McHugh, secretary of the Army, agreed. “Any number of current cases would be greatly complicated.” McHugh said his preference would be not to institute a moratorium, but promised to respect and adhere to a moratorium if it were to pass Congress.

Earlier this month, Levin said that he would support imposing a moratorium and Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA), the chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Military Personnel, predicted that Congress had enough votes to pass a limited moratorium on third-party discharges.

Congress could certainly pass a moratorium over the Army’s objections, but the best way for Congress to counteract the military’s feet-dragging is to include repeal language in the Defense Authorization bill. The President could also declare a “stop-loss” (the policy could not be enforced because nobody can leave the military) or institute a high threshold for enforcing the policy.