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Dem lawmakers split on military
draft
By Mary Lynn F. Jones
29 July 04
Democratic lawmakers were divided
yesterday over whether the United States should reinstate the draft even as an
adviser to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) suggested increasing active-duty troops by
40,000.
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former presidential hopeful who has now endorsed
Kerry, warned that the volunteer-force concept is at “grave risk” and that
the draft should be the last resort.
He said, “We better be thinking about the draft or have it as a fallback.
We’ve got to be honest with the commitment that we’re faced with. We’ve
got about two years to fix these [shortage] problems before the bill comes
due.”
Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), ranking member of the Appropriations Defense
Subcommittee, on a panel discussion at Suffolk University, added: “The only
way to increase the size of the armed services fairly is with a draft.”
But Rep. Jim Turner (D-Texas), ranking member of the Homeland Security
Committee, said the draft is not yet necessary. Turner, also a member of the
Armed Services Committee, added, “We need to be prepared to have one,”
especially if there is another major conflict in the world.
House Armed Services Committee ranking member Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) also suggested
increasing the number of active-duty troops by 40,000. Susan Rice, an adviser to
Kerry on national-security issues, cited the same number at a press conference
yesterday.
The possibility of reinstating the draft gained attention when Rep. Charles
Rangel (D-N.Y.) proposed the Universal National Service Act in January 2003. The
bill has 14 co-sponsors but has not passed out of the Armed Services Committee.
Rangel has said that minorities make up a disproportionately large number of
troops.
Skelton pointed to other disparities in the military, such as that a higher
percentage of troops who have died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan hail from
rural areas than from cities.
“It’s the working-class people who are fighting this war,” added Murtha,
who said he visits troops each week at Walter Reed Army Hospital and Bethesda
Naval Hospital.
Reinstating the draft would raise societal issues such as whether women should
be required to join the military, said Gen. Claudia Kennedy, the highest-ranking
woman to serve in the military. Women have grown from 1 percent to 16 percent of
troops in the past 35 years, she said. Rangel’s bill would include women in
the draft.
But lawmakers also said the Bush administration — or a Kerry administration
next year — should focus on diplomacy.
“They can’t do what they’re doing depending on a volunteer force,” said
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Armed Services Tactical Air
and Land Forces Subcommittee and a co-sponsor of Rangel’s bill. “But it’s
secondary to the fundamental question of, Why are you having to talk about it in
the first place?”
Clark called the administration’s strategy in the war on terror “totally
misguided.”
“It’s an upside-down, backward strategy,” he said. “We need to approach
terrorism with allies on an international basis starting with a legal definition
of what terrorism is.” The last resort, he added, should be to use the armed
forces.
“We don’t have anything between diplomacy and the military,” Clark said.
“The military has become a go-to agency.”
The problem of funding the war in Iraq and other military operations was also
raised. The Iraq war will cost $200 billion this year, Murtha said.
Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.), who serves on the Armed Services Committee and
moderated the panel, said the United States is funding about 90 percent of the
war effort. He said Kerry would work to improve relations with other countries
and get them involved.
“We have to restore credibility with the international community,” Murtha
said.
The panel came on the same day that 12 retired generals endorsed Kerry for
president, citing Bush’s mismanagement of the war in Iraq as the reason.
Clark, who was at the press conference with Rice, said there that “every
decision he makes will be informed by his own experience. … He heard the
bullets, and he saw the faces.”
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