https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2019974/Admiral-Eric-T-Olson-says-wants-women-SEALs-unit-killed-Osama-Bin-Laden.html

G.I. Jane? Top special forces commander wants women in SEALs unit that killed Bin Laden

Women could join the elite U.S. unit that took out Osama Bin Laden.

The top commander of U.S. special forces Admiral Eric T. Olson said he would like to see female Navy SEALs in combat roles.

He said female SEALs could aid overseas efforts by securing unique access with local women in societies where the U.S. military is operating.

'I don't think the idea is to select G.I. Jane and put her through SEAL training,' Admiral Olson told ABC News.

'But there are a number of things that a man and a woman can do together that two guys can't.'

Admiral Olson was referring to the 1997 film G.I. Jane, where Demi Moore becomes a Navy SEAL despite everyone else expecting her to fail.

He said he is interested to see what female SEALs are ‘made of’ and seeing them have the ‘courage and intellectual agility’ to perform well.

Women currently serve with U.S. special forces as information and civil affairs specialists, reported ABC.

But there are no female SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers or Marine special operators thanks to a combat exclusion policy from 1994.

This prevents women from being assigned to ground combat units.

Last March the Military Leadership Diversity Commission suggested the end of this policy.

However ‘cultural support teams’ were created to be attached to SEAL and Green Beret teams last year and are already in action.

Admiral Olson told ABC that 56 women graduated from this school last week and will all be in Afghanistan by the end of next month.

‘We don't have nearly enough and we're too late bringing them into what it is we have them doing,’ he told ABC.

A team of U.S. Navy SEALs killed former Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May.

Admiral Olson said up to 4,000 missions of a similar nature were conducted last year alone.

He made an audience laugh at the 2011 Aspen Security Forum by comparing his job to that of Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai.

‘There's a lot of warlord management,’ he told ABC. ‘It's a paella and at the end of the day it tastes good, but it's tough to put together sometimes.’