Pentagon Pondering Whether To Reinstate Draft

Post-9/11 Era Forum

Appeal for draft board volunteers revives memories of Vietnam era

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Wednesday November 5, 2003
The Guardian

The Pentagon has begun recruiting for local draft boards, dredging up painful memories of Vietnam era conscription at a time of deepening misgiving about America's occupation of Iraq.

In a notice posted on the defence department's Defend America website, Americans over the age of 18 and with no criminal record are invited to "serve your community and the nation" by volunteering for the boards, which decide which recruits should be sent to war.

Thirty years have passed since the draft boards last exerted their hold on America, deciding which soldiers would be sent to Vietnam. After Congress ended the draft in 1973, they have become largely dormant.

However, recruitment for the boards suggests that in some parts of the Pentagon all options are being explored in response to concerns that the US military has been stretched too thin in its occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Although Pentagon officials denied any move to reinstitute the draft, the defence department website does not shirk at outlining the potential duties for a new crop of volunteers to the draft boards.

"If a military draft becomes necessary, approximately 2,000 local and appeal boards throughout America would decide which young men who submit a claim receive deferments, postponements or exemptions from military service, based on federal guidelines," it said.

Pentagon officials were adamant that there were no plans to bring back the draft.

"That would require action from Congress and the president and they are not likely to do that unless there was something of the magnitude of the second world war that required it," said Dan Amon, a spokesman for the selective service department.

Bringing back conscription would be catastrophic for George Bush in an election year, and at a time when parallels are increasingly being drawn between Iraq and Vietnam.

However, officials were not immediately able to explain how the advertisement appeared on the site. Mr Amon said the notices were a response to the natural attrition in the ranks of the draft board, where some 80% of 11,000 places are now vacant. "It is the routine cycle of things," he said.

But it was unclear why the Pentagon decided at this time it was necessary to fill staff bodies which had played no function since the early 1980s.

The idea of a draft has never entirely disappeared, and is contemplated by Democrats and some military experts.

In the run-up to the war, the New York congressman Charles Rangel argued for a draft on the grounds that the US military was disproportionately made up of poor and black soldiers, and that it was unfair for America's underclass to go off and die in wars.

In recent weeks, there has been growing concern within the defence department about relying too heavily on members of the National Guard and army reservists.

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I really hope the draft goes through. So all the Bush supporters can reap exactly what they asked for

No to worry, they will never need re-instate the draft.
The volunteers are standing in line to join at record levels.

Get serious, Search4 "Truth"!

No the draft is around the corner ...wake up ! THE WORLD POLICE FORCE IS GETTING TO THIN ...

want to help out in Iraq join the police force for a whole 60 k a year... what a joke ...60 k to go live in that rat hole.
Yes I have been there done that!

Ask any service person how those third world idiots treat outside workers... There is still slave trading going on today.

I have a final solution to the mess...

Ready yourself... place 1000 megaton devices all over the country with remote sat links ....when they get out of controll
set one off... They like to bomb things, ... this will make them feel right at home !

deeprecon1,
THERE WILL BE NO DRAFT.

There will not be a DRAFT—don't be DAFT!

I would be the 2nd to go -- if the draft were re-instated. (I read the new rules a year ago).

Anyway, we had 250,000 troops armed and ready to go into Iraq. (not including the ones training). How many have died? 400? So that means, in one year, our number of troops has dropped from 250,000 to 249,600.

At this rate, this war could last 250 years before we'd even need to dip into our volenteers.

sayzak21

I don't think you should risk your life so Bushes Oil Buddies can get richer
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As the climate is changing, a hint of a draft

11/07/03
David Sarasohn


Blowing in from Baghdad, a draft stirs the air.

In the last few weeks, according to a story by Dave Lindorff in Salon.com, the administration has launched a low-profile recruiting effort to fill vacancies in local draft boards. Board members, wrote Lindorff, "report that at training sessions last summer, they were unexpectedly asked to fill some of the estimated 16 percent of board seats that are vacant nationwide."

At least for men of a certain age, it brings back the turning of the draft lottery wheel.

Nobody in the administration or the Pentagon has called for the return of the draft, and any effort in the next year could be politically suicidal. But adding up the military's manpower commitments, resources seem to be falling a bit short -- and unlike the budget deficit, you can't just make this up by borrowing.

Wednesday, Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin told the House Armed Services Committee, "The CBO's analysis indicates that the active Army would be unable to sustain an occupation force of the present size beyond about March 2004 if it chose not to keep individual units detailed to Iraq for longer than one year without relief (an assumption consistent with DoD's current planning)."

After that, the number of troops available would decline steadily, reaching about half the current total the winter after this one. More international troops could fill the slots, but it seems they're not coming.

There are alternatives involving Marines and more National Guard combat troops, and the administration is invoking them all. Thursday, the Pentagon announced that it would be sending more Marines next year, and alerted another 43,000 National Guard and Reserve troops that they might be sent to Iraq as well. Reservists, said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, would be called up for as long as 18 months, with a year in Iraq.

Troops in units designated for Iraq could not leave the military for 90 days before and after service there.

The calculations still assume a considerable reduction in U.S. troops in Iraq by spring -- while critics such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., insist that for success, the number of Americans there needs to increase. In a situation where the regular forces are overextended and the reserve forces are depleted, options dwindle.

"My best judgment is that neither Secretary Rumsfeld nor the professional military is particularly keen on recreating a draft," says Charles Pena, director of defense policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute.

"From that perspective, it's curious that we're seeing the DoD plea to restore draft boards."

Which, it seems, we are.

As the Selective Service System's Web site points out, "If a draft were held today, it would be dramatically different from the one held during the Vietnam War. . . If a draft were held today, there would be fewer reasons to excuse a man from service."

The Selective Service law to be administered by the newly recruited draft board members has closed previous exemptions, including those that sheltered a considerable number of the officials driving the current war. The wider burden is the reason several congressmen support a restored draft, but the idea isn't popular there, either, any more than bolstering the burden on the reserves.

"We must significantly increase the active duty end strength of the military," says Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., an Armed Services Committee member, "and reduce the reliance on the Guard and Reserve for those functions that will be needed for the war on terrorism."

The CBO estimates another two Army divisions might cover it -- which also raises the question of whether the Army could raise two more divisions of volunteers.

"No," estimates Pena. "Not unless we were willing to substantially increase pay to compensate them for going to the garden spot of downtown Baghdad. I don't think we could do that in the next few months."

Practically speaking, the government couldn't bring back the draft in the next few months, either.

But the first step would be to restore the draft boards.

And that part seems to be happening.

There are now more Iraqi military personel than American personel in Iraq. They will soon be in a position to defend their own country against insergents. As the defense grows, less Americans will be sent. This is what Iraq needs and we will comply.
Military bases WW are being downsized every day and more smaller special forces are be put in their place.
Our troops are the best trained and equiped. One American soldier is equivilant to 5 enemy soldiers.
There is no need for the draft at all.