Controversy Renews Over Draft
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29-Whether you call it whistle-blowing, dirty politics or just plain spam- the widely circulated e-mail describing President Bush’s plan to reinstate a military draft has once again stirred public angst, even in the face of repeated denials by administration officials.
The e-mail, which first surfaced sometime around June, points to pending legislation that “will time the program’s initiation so the draft can begin at early as Spring 2005 – just after the 2004 presidential election.” The email concludes, “The administration is quietly trying to get these bills passed now, while the public’s attention is on the elections.”
Critics have argued that the e-mail is a misdirected attempt to batter the Republican administration before the November election, noting that both of the proposed bills mentioned are sponsored by Democrats. Both Republicans and Democrats also have said that there is little likelihood of any sort of action on the legislation as the proposals have sat in committee for more than a year.
The Universal National Service Act of 2003, introduced by retiring Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., reads, “It is the obligation of every citizen of the United States, and every other person residing in the United States, who is between the ages of 18 and 26 to perform a period of national service.” There were no co-sponsors for this legislation, and it has been in the Committee on Armed Services with no legislative action since it was first introduced in January 2003.
The twin version introduced by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., received 14 cosponsors but also has been dormant, sitting in the Subcommittee of Total Force in the Committee on Armed Services since February 2003.
According to Jocelyn Hudson, staff assistant for Sen. Hollings, it is likely the Senate version of the legislation will die once Sen. Hollings leaves this year. “It is not going anywhere,” Hudson said. “Not a chance.”
Emile Milne, spokesman for Rep. Rangel, said the same of the House version when commenting for the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. “Rangel hasn’t pushed the issue,” he said.
A military draft has not been in place since the Vietnam War ended in 1973. Since then, the military has been operating fully on recruitment and re-enlistments rather than conscription.
The Selective Service System is an independent agency that oversees this process, and also hires and trains volunteers to serve on local draft boards. While all men are required to register for possible military service upon turning 18, the Selective Service System notes that “even though he is registered, a man will not automatically be inducted into the military.” According to the Selective Service, as of September 2003, 93 percent of men 18 to 25 had registered, making approximately 13.5 million individuals draft-eligible.
The e-mail argues that $28 million that has been added to the 2004 Selective Service System budget to prepare for a military draft, and states that the Pentagon has “quietly begun a public campaign to fill all 10,350 draft board positions and 11,070 appeals board slots nationwide.”
However, according to the 2004 White House budget, the Selective Service System appropriations have remained flat, at $26 million as was the case in previous years.
Pat Schuback, spokesman for the Selective Service System, also answered the charge regarding draft board positions in an interview with the Associated Press in November 2003, when the recruitment move first garnered attention.
According to Schuback, a routine hiring notice posted on www.defendamerica.mil, a Pentagon Web site about the war on terror, led to a flurry of inquiries and rumors of a coming draft. Reading, “Serve Your Community and the Nation – Become a Selective Service System Local Board Member,” it called for volunteers to fill board positions which would oversee applications for deferments, postponements and exemptions from military service, in the case of a draft.
But, Schuback explained, the system of recruiting draft board members had already been in place for many years, since the system was reinstituted in 1979. And because a draft board term runs 20 years, many positions had just recently been vacated by those who had signed up for the program at its inception.
Attention wrought by the hire notice, and the proliferation of rumors since, has led the Selective Service System to post a response on its website.
“Notwithstanding recent stories in the news media and on the Internet, Selective Service is not getting ready to conduct a draft for the U.S. Armed Forces — either with a special skills or regular draft,” the posting reads. “Rather, the Agency remains prepared to manage a draft if and when the President and the Congress so direct. This responsibility has been ongoing since 1980 and is nothing new.”
Despite all of these considerations, critics of President Bush have continued to fuel the speculation.
“The Pentagon is quietly recruiting new members to fill local draft boards, as the machinery for drafting a new generation of young Americans is being quietly put into place,” independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader said in an April press release.
Others have argued that regardless of intentions, a military draft will be all but inevitable if the administration continues on the path it has taken in Iraq.
“A key issue for young Americans and their families to consider as they prepare to cast their votes in the upcoming presidential election is the real likelihood of a military draft being reinstated if George W. Bush is re-elected,” former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who challenged Sen. John Kerry for the Democratic presidential nomination, wrote on the Democracy for America website.
Claiming the Armed Forces are being drastically understaffed and the National Guard stretched thin, Gov. Dean wrote, “President Bush will be forced to decide whether we can continue the current course in Iraq, which will clearly require the reinstatement of the draft.”
These allegations also have floated around the campaign trail, with John Kerry making references to a draft possibility, and his running mate John Edwards saying in West Virginia last week, “There will be no draft when John Kerry is president.”
To counter, last week Vice President Dick Cheney assured voters in Oregon that he didn’t foresee a return to the draft, short of a national crisis occurring on the scale of World War II. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in an address to the Heritage Foundation on May 17 said, “I can’t imagine our country going back to a draft. We don’t need it.”
Keith Olson, a professor of history at the University of Maryland, said that despite the back and forth between politicians and the like, the truth of the matter will not be resolved anytime soon.
“I really think it is a marginal issue. There’s no possibility of anything happening before the November election,” he said. “But after the election, if we continue with what we have started, the Pentagon is going to have problems getting enough troops. Inevitably, we’ll have to have a draft if we keep on the road we’re on, and the structure is enough in place that it won’t be very hard to do so.”
