Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand blasted President Barack Obama and Pentagon brass on Thursday for failing to show leadership in the fight against military sex crimes, saying there’s been a “100 percent failure” in protecting victims from retaliation after they’ve reported an assault.

In a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO, the New York Democrat said the president has been missing in action on the sexual assault issue, and hasn’t lived up to his promise from December 2013 to force an overhaul of the Defense Department’s judicial system if it didn't make progress within a year.

"He’s not providing leadership that he said he would," Gillibrand said. "He said, and so did [Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman] Gen. [Martin] Dempsey, that they’re on the clock, they had a year to solve this problem, to fix this problem, to take responsibility for this problem, and they haven’t.”

White House officials say they have been reviewing for months the Pentagon’s progress in implementing dozens of new sexual assault reforms. Impatient with the wait, Gillibrand next week is planning to force a Senate floor vote on her own controversial amendment to remove sexual assault prosecutions from the military’s chain of command. Instead of letting senior officers supervise cases within their own ranks, she wants to set up an independent military prosecution system to make those tough calls.

Gillibrand fell five votes short of winning on the same issue the last time she forced a vote in March 2014, despite having support of then-Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican presidential hopefuls Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. This time around, facing continued opposition from the Pentagon and a bipartisan collection of senators, Gillibrand is again expected to lose.

The Pentagon's allies argue that Gillibrand's efforts are premature, and the military deserves space to institute the recent reforms to its World War II-era system. These include making retaliation against victims a crime, setting up service-wide victim assistance programs and eliminating commanders' power to overturn jury verdicts. ​​​​​​​​​“I think that really at this point we made very sweeping significant reforms and we should give time to implement those reforms,” Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) said Thursday not long after Gillibrand previewed the debate with her own floor speech. “I still firmly believe we should hold commanders more accountable, not less accountable, for ensuring that victims are treated properly and also that within their units, they do everything they can to prevent and end sexual assault."

Facing an uphill climb, Gillibrand is hoping Obama's support could soften the military’s opposition to her amendment,​ and also free up lawmakers historically loyal to the Defense Department to switch their vote. Gillibrand also challenged one of her opponents' chief arguments by citing a recent Pentagon-sponsored survey that shows 62 percent of women service members continue to face social or professional pressure after they’ve reported an assault. That data, she said, undermines one of her critics' main talking points in favor of keeping sex assault prosecutions inside the current military justice system.

“To have that retaliation rate be at 62 percent, where they said, ‘This is why commanders need to be in charge, we're going to make sure there’s not retaliation.’ Well, if that was your measurable it’s a 100 percent failure," she said.

“I wish the president would show more leadership,” Gillibrand added. “I wish he would understand how this is actually negatively affecting good order and discipline. It’s affecting our ability to have our best and brightest serving.”

White House spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine said Thursday in an email the Obama administration "continues to work" with Defense Secretary Ash Carter as the Pentagon "takes additional steps to prevent instances of sexual assault in the military." She didn't address Gillibrand's specific call for Obama to demand a change in the chain of command structure for sex assault cases.

A senior Pentagon official declined comment when asked about Gillibrand's remarks but noted that "this problem is never going to be fixed” to the point there are ever zero sex crimes in the military.

“We’ve shown improvements,” the official said. “There’s been discernible progress. Is it there yet? No.”

Jeremy Herb contributed to this report.

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