*Is the draft coming back?*

[iyah360]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1077906,00.html

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.

Some 60,000 of the 130,000 US soldiers in Iraq are members of the National Guard or the reserves. An opinion poll last month in the Pentagon-funded Stars and Stripes newspaper, showed 49% threatening not to re-enlist.

The families of reservists have become increasingly vocal in their complaints after the Pentagon's decision to extend duty tours to up to 15 months.

[iyah360]

"Carpenter said if the personnel strains continue or worsen, the Pentagon may feel compelled to return to a military draft.

He suggested a scenario in which the military units that actually wage war would remain "all-volunteer" but a force of American peacekeeping troops would be created through military conscription."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/05/army.delay.reut/index.html


Army to delay soldiers' exits
Monday, January 5, 2004 Posted: 10:50 PM EST (0350 GMT)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The Army will prohibit troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan from retiring or leaving the service for other reasons for up to 90 days after arriving at their home bases, military officials said Monday.

The American military is suffering stress from global deployments of tens of thousands of troops in the wake of the 2001 attacks on America.

An Army official said the latest temporary "stop loss" order was to preserve cohesion in units as they reconstitute after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon is preparing to begin replacing the roughly 123,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq and 11,000 in Afghanistan -- most of them soldiers -- with fresh troops.

Among the first units rotating home beginning this month will be the 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

The Army planned to announce the move Monday, according to the defense officials who asked not to be identified.

There are 1.4 million active-duty troops in the American military, including 480,000 Army soldiers.

Some senior Army officers have privately called for increases in the number of troops in that service because they have borne the brunt of the deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he remains "absolutely open-minded" about a possible increase in the number of soldiers in the Army if internal Pentagon analyses show such a need exists.

But he has said he has seen no evidence of that need, and argued that "the addition of Army end-strength is not a near-term solution to the current stress on the force."

Some lawmakers of both parties in Congress also have argued that the Army is too small to perform its duties in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea and elsewhere, and needs thousands of more soldiers.

The military has issued numerous temporary "stop loss" orders in the past two years to keep troops from leaving at critical times and to make sure that services such as the Air Force retain personnel in key areas.

"This is only temporary to preserve unit stability," said one Pentagon official Monday.

"You don't want to have gaps in small units with soldiers leaving by twos and threes when their enlistment or contract is up immediately on returning to base."

"If we find that particular units are in good shape, then soldiers in those units could be allowed to leave [the service] in less time -- within 30 or 60 days," said another official.

Ted Carpenter, a defense analyst with the Cato Institute think tank, said the "stop loss" decision undercuts the concept of an all-volunteer military, which America has maintained for three decades.

"Clearly, if large numbers of personnel have their terms extended against their will, that violates the principle of volunteerism," Carpenter said.

"It also suggests just how strained the military is in trying to provide for the Iraqi occupation plus all the other U.S. obligations around the world."

Carpenter said if the personnel strains continue or worsen, the Pentagon may feel compelled to return to a military draft.

He suggested a scenario in which the military units that actually wage war would remain "all-volunteer" but a force of American peacekeeping troops would be created through military conscription.