Analysts say draft might be needed

WASHINGTON -- If American forces aren't pulling out of Iraq in a year, a draft will be needed to meet manpower requirements, military analysts warned yesterday.

With recruitment lagging and no end in sight for U.S. forces in Iraq, the "breaking point" for the nation's all-volunteer military will be mid-2006, agreed Lawrence Korb, a draft opponent and assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration, and Phillip Carter, a conscription advocate and former Army captain.

The U.S. military cannot deploy and sustain enough troops to succeed in countries such as Iraq while still deterring threats elsewhere, Carter said at a symposium where he debated Korb on the draft.

Korb is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information. Carter is an attorney who writes on military affairs for Slate.com and other media. They debated at a symposium on the draft yesterday.

While conceding that the Army, Marines, National Guard and Army Reserve -- the branches serving most in Iraq -- face recruitment difficulties, military officials have denied any plans to revive the draft, which was replaced by an all-volunteer force in 1973.

"The 'D-word' is the farthest thing from my thoughts," Army Secretary Francis Harvey said at a Pentagon news briefing last week. He said the all-volunteer force has proven its value and applauded the performance of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"When you get over there, there's no difference between the active, the Reserves and the National Guard. The quality is high across the board. ... It's seamless," he said.

During his re-election campaign, President Bush declared flatly that he would not reinstate the draft. And there is little support for conscription on Capitol Hill.

However, the analysts said that the all-volunteer army is on the verge of "breaking" under current circumstances.

The National Guard and Reserves historically depend on men and women leaving active duty to fill their ranks, Carter pointed out. But they're not going to join if it means they will be sent right back to Iraq in an activated unit, he said.

Military men, women and machines are all suffering from repeated deployments.

"What keeps me awake at night is what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007," Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 16.

Korb, assistant secretary of defense for manpower from 1981 through 1985, said the current rotation is unfair to the "patriotic" men and women who volunteered for military service and are stuck on a cycle in and out of Iraq."

"Since only a tiny segment of the populace is sacrificing, there is no political pressure to change the system," he said.

"If you had a draft right now, I think you'd be out of Iraq."

The American society "hasn't gotten the message that we're at war," agreed Carter.

"Those at peril are completely divorced from those in power," said Mark Shields, a syndicated columnist and TV commentator who moderated the symposium. "It's 'Patriotism Lite' -- you put a sticker on your SUV."

"America has a choice," Carter wrote in the March issue of Washington Monthly. "It can be the world's superpower or it can maintain the current all-voluntary military.

"But it probably can't do both."