Military Draft Back on US Agenda

Military draft back on US agenda
By Maxim Kniazkov in Washington
June 13, 2005
From: Agence France-Presse

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THE United States would "have to face" a painful dilemma on restoring the military draft as rising casualties saw the number of volunteers dry up, a senator warned today.
Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the prediction after new data released by the Pentagon showed the US Army failing to meet its recruitment targets for four straight months.

"We´re going to have to face that question," he said on NBC´s Meet the Press TV show when asked if it was realistic to expect restoration of the draft.

"The truth of the matter is, it is going to become a subject, if, in fact, there´s a 40 per cent shortfall in recruitment. It´s just a reality," he said.

The comment came after the Department of Defence announced the army had missed its recruiting goal for May by 1661 recruits, or 25 per cent. Similar losses have been reported by army officials every month since February.

Experts said even that figure was misleading because the army has quietly lowered its May recruitment target from 8050 to 6700 people.

Since October, the shortfall in recruits has been put at more than 8000 people, which amounts to the loss of about a modern brigade.

The army, navy and marine corps reserves also fell short of their monthly goals by 18 per cent, six per cent and 12 per cent respectively, according to the latest figures.

Recruitment at the Army National Guard was down 29 per cent, while the Air National Guard fell short 22 per cent.

The United States abandoned the military draft in 1973, following mass protests during the Vietnam War, and switched to an all-volunteer force.

Mandatory registration for the draft was suspended in 1975, but resumed in 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. About 13.5 million men are now registered with the US Government as potential draftees.

During the 2004 election campaign, Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry repeatedly accused President George W. Bush of planning to re-instate "a back-door draft", charges the president vehemently denied.

But while admitting that restoring the draft would be politically "very difficult," Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said something would have to be done because the situation with recruitment was not likely to improve.

"If you think you have trouble getting recruits today, you´re going to have far more trouble six months from now," he predicted on CBS´s Face the Nation.

"It is not going to get better. That´s going to get worse."

Republican Representative Curt Weldon called the recruitment shortfalls "troublesome" and "unacceptable".

But he urged the military "to find ways to fix the current system" and to attract more recruits with the help of new incentives.

Nearly 1900 US troops have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since the beginning of the war on terror in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.




Poll: USA is losing patience on Iraq
By Susan Page, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Nearly six in 10 Americans say the United States should withdraw some or all of its troops from Iraq, a new Gallup Poll finds, the most downbeat view of the war since it began in 2003.
Bush says progress has been made in fighting the insurgency, but a timetable for reducing the deployment of nearly 140,000 U.S. troops has yet to be made.
By Jim MacMillan, AP

Patience for the war has dropped sharply as optimism about the Iraqi elections in January has ebbed and violence against U.S. troops hasn´t abated. For the first time, a majority would be "upset" if President Bush sent more troops. A new low, 36%, say troop levels should be maintained or increased.

The souring of public opinion presents challenges for the president, who has vowed to stay the course until democracy is established and Iraqi forces can ensure security. He hasn´t suggested sending more U.S. troops.

"We have reached a tipping point," says Ronald Spector, a military historian at George Washington University. "Even some of those who thought it was a great idea to get rid of Saddam (Hussein) are saying, ´I want our troops home.´ "

The pattern of public opinion on Iraq — strong support for the first two years that then erodes — is reminiscent of the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, he says.

White House spokesman David Almacy, asked about the poll, said it was "vital" for U.S. peace and security that "we complete the mission by training Iraqis to provide for their own security, and then our troops can return home with the honor they have earned."

Bush´s approval-disapproval rating was 47%-49%, a tick worse than it was two weeks earlier but in the same range it has been for a year.

The poll is consistent with other recent surveys that show growing concern about the war. In an ABC News-Washington Post poll last week, two-thirds said the U.S. military was bogged down in Iraq, and nearly three-quarters called the casualty level unacceptable.

Bush says progress has been made in fighting the insurgency and training Iraqi forces, but the administration hasn´t set a timetable for the withdrawal of nearly 140,000 U.S. troops. The Defense Department said Friday that 1,293 Americans have been killed in hostile action.

In the Gallup Poll, 56% say the Iraq war wasn´t "worth it," essentially matching the high-water mark of 57% a month ago.

• Of those who say the war wasn´t worth it, the top reasons cited are fraudulent claims and no weapons of mass destruction found; the number of people killed and wounded; and the belief that Iraq posed no threat to the United States.

• Of the 42% who say the war was worth it, the top reasons cited are the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the need to stop terrorism and a desire to end the oppression of the Iraqi people.

Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said on NBC´s Meet the Press on Sunday that an "incredible gap between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric back here" is costing Bush support on the war.

On ABC´s This Week, Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., an ardent supporter of the invasion, called on Bush for a timetable for withdrawing troops. "I feel that we have done about as much as we can do," he said.





Military action won´t end insurgency, growing number of U.S. officers believe

By Tom Lasseter, Knight Ridder Newspapers Sun Jun 12, 4:52 PM ET

BAGHDAD,
Iraq - A growing number of senior American military officers in Iraq have concluded that there is no long-term military solution to an insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis and more than 1,300 U.S. troops during the past two years.
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Instead, officers say, the only way to end the guerilla war is through Iraqi politics - an arena that so far has been crippled by divisions between Shiite Muslims, whose coalition dominated the January elections, and Sunni Muslims, who are a minority in Iraq but form the base of support for the insurgency.

"I think the more accurate way to approach this right now is to concede that ... this insurgency is not going to be settled, the terrorists and the terrorism in Iraq is not going to be settled, through military options or military operations," Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said last week, in a comment that echoes what other senior officers say. "It´s going to be settled in the political process."

Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, expressed similar sentiments, calling the military´s efforts "the Pillsbury Doughboy idea" - pressing the insurgency in one area only causes it to rise elsewhere.

"Like in Baghdad," Casey said during an interview with two newspaper reporters, including one from Knight Ridder, last week. "We push in Baghdad - they´re down to about less than a car bomb a day in Baghdad over the last week - but in north-center (Iraq) ... they´ve gone up," he said. "The political process will be the decisive element."

The recognition that a military solution is not in the offing has led U.S. and Iraqi officials to signal they are willing to negotiate with insurgent groups, or their intermediaries.

"It has evolved in the course of normal business," said a senior U.S. diplomatic official in Baghdad, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of U.S. policy to defer to the Iraqi government on Iraqi political matters. "We have now encountered people who at least claim to have some form of a relationship with the insurgency."

The message is markedly different from previous statements by U.S. officials who spoke of quashing the insurgency by rounding up or killing "dead enders" loyal to former dictator
Saddam Hussein. As recently as two weeks ago, in a Memorial Day interview on CNN´s "Larry King Live," Vice President
Dick Cheney said he believed the insurgency was in its "last throes."

But the violence has continued unabated, even though 44 of the 55 Iraqis portrayed in the military´s famous "deck of cards" have been killed or captured, including Saddam.

Lt. Col. Frederick P. Wellman, who works with the task force overseeing the training of Iraqi security troops, said the insurgency doesn´t seem to be running out of new recruits, a dynamic fueled by tribal members seeking revenge for relatives killed in fighting.

"We can´t kill them all," Wellman said. "When I kill one I create three."

Last month was one of the deadliest since
President Bush declared the end of major combat operations in May 2003, a month that saw six American troops killed by hostile fire. In May 2005, 67 U.S. soldiers and Marines were killed by hostile fire, the fourth-highest tally since the war began, according to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, an Internet site that uses official casualty reports to organize deaths by a variety of criteria.

At least 26 troops have been killed by insurgents so far in June, bringing to 1,311 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile action. Another 391 service members have died as a result of accidents or illness.

The Iraqi interior minister said last week that the insurgency has killed 12,000 Iraqis during the past two years. He did not say how he arrived at the figure.

American officials had hoped that January´s national elections would blunt the insurgency by giving the population hope for their political future. But so far, the political process has not in any meaningful way included Iraq´s Sunni Muslim population.

Most of Iraq´s Sunnis Muslims, motivated either by fear or boycott, did not vote, and they hold a scant 17 seats in the 275-member parliament.

There was a post-election lull in bloodshed, a period that saw daily attack figures dip into the 30s. But with the seating of the interim government on April 28, attacks spiked back to 70 a day. More than 700 Iraqis have been killed since then.

The former Iraqi minister of electricity, Ayham al-Samarie, has said he´s consulted with U.S. diplomatic officials about his negotiations with two major insurgent groups to form a political front of sorts. There has been similar talk in the past - notably by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi´s administration, which spoke of inclusion through amnesty - but nothing has come of it.

At the heart of the problem is the continued failure of U.S. and Iraqi officials to bring the nation´s Sunni minority, with more than five million people, to the political table. Sunnis now find themselves in a country ruled by the Shiite and Kurdish political parties once brutally oppressed by Saddam, a Sunni.

With Shiites and Kurds stocking the nation´s security forces with members of their militias, Sunnis have been marginalized and, according to some analysts in Iraq, have become more willing to join armed groups.

Since September of last year, some 85 percent of the violence in Iraq has taken place in just four of Iraq´s 18 provinces: the Sunni heartland of al Anbar, Baghdad, Ninevah and Salah al Din.

U.S. officials prefer not to talk about the situation along religious lines, but they acknowledge that one of the key obstacles to resolving Iraq´s problems is the difference between Sunni and Shiite religious institutions.

Shiites are organized around their marja´iya, a council of clerics - led in Iraq by Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani - that issues religious edicts that Shiite faithful follow as law. Sunnis, on the other hand, have no such unifying structure.

The difference was made clear in January when one list formed under the guidance of Sistani was the choice of almost all Shiites voting. Those Sunnis who did go to the polls split their votes among a myriad of organizations including those backed by a presumptive monarch, a group of communists and a religious group that may or may not have been boycotting the election.

Sunni Muslims near downtown Baghdad have only to drive down the street to see how precarious their position in Iraqi politics and society is these days. On roads near the party headquarters for the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is in large part shaping the policy of the nation, Kurdish militia members patrol the streets.

The troops are ostensibly part of the nation´s army, but they still wear militia uniforms and, as is the case with some in Kurdistan, many either can´t or won´t speak Arabic. One of the roads they patrol has been named Badr Street, for the armed wing of the Supreme Council. There is a large billboard with the looming face of Abdul Aziz al Hakim, the Supreme Council´s leader.

Unless Sunnis develop confidence that the government will represent them, few here see the insurgency fading.

Asked about the success in suppressing the insurgency in Baghdad recently - the result of a series of large-scale raids that in targeted primarily Sunni neighborhoods - Brig. Gen. Alston said that he expects the violence to return.

"We have taken down factories, major cells, we have made good progress in (stopping) the production of (car bombs) in Baghdad," Alston said. "Now, do I think that there will be more (bombs) in Baghdad? Yes, I do."