The Senate Armed Services Committee has advanced a measure that rejects independent oversight of sexual assault in the armed forces. The panel’s personnel subcommittee had approved Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s proposal to remove the handling of sexual assault cases from the military’s chain of command and instead place it in the hands of military prosecutors. But Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, the Armed Services Committee chair, replaced that measure with one preserving military leaders’ final say. The issue has erupted following a recent report showing 26,000 sex crimes within military ranks last year, and the arrests of several Army officials involved in policing sexual harassment within the ranks.