Is there a simple way to disable and enable pam on a system

We are having an issue with an application that manages our user id/passwds. Because pam gives a bunch af text like this:

You can now choose the new password.

A valid password should be a mix of upper and lower case letters,
digits, and other characters.  You can use an 8 character long
password with characters from all of these classes.  An upper
case letter that begins the password and a digit that ends it do
not count towards the number of character classes used.

Alternatively, if noone else can see your terminal now, you can
pick this as your password: "crowd;beam!Amazon".

Enter new password:
 

The program is fialing to change the passwords.

Is there an easy way to stop this?

Can I turn of PAM short term to test to verify this is actualy causing the problem?

What files are controling this behavior?

Thanx