HOW HE SES IT Neither Bush nor Kerry will be able to avoid the draft issue

By PAUL RIECKHOFF
KNIGHT RIDDER/TRIBUNE
This summer, the Army's Deputy Chief of Staff, Gen. Richard Cody, testified before the House Armed Services Committee: "Are we stretched thin with our active and reserve component forces right now? Absolutely."
This kind of message is what we in the Army call "sending up a flare." The senior brass is trying to tell the American public what soldiers on the ground already know -- we need help. Yet, both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry continue to be disingenuous about how they will ensure that America's military stays strong and fully staffed. Both candidates refuse to talk about the possibility of a draft. But neither, if elected, will be able to avoid the issue for long.
Members of the Bush administration, including Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell, continue to maintain that retention and recruitment levels will sustain the military's needs and that there is no foreseeable need to institute a draft. The numbers tell a different story.
Roughly 40 percent of the current U.S. forces in Iraq are National Guardsmen and reservists. Fifty-five percent of the men and women there are doing a second tour. A constant rotation of these troops is beginning to take its toll, and the National Guard is short of new enlistees.
Recruiting goal unmet
Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, recently said that the National Guard will miss its 2004 recruiting goal by about 5,000 people -- the first time in 10 years that it has failed to reach its expected recruiting levels. And the Army isn't doing much better. Last month, it reported that about 30 percent of the 3,664 Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) soldiers, who have been called out of civilian life and on to active duty, failed to report for mobilization.
Additionally, the blueprint for democratization of the Middle East laid out by Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle does not just focus on Iraq. It also calls for regime change in Iran and Syria. If we follow through on this plan, we will surely need to fight more battles, and that will require more troops. Military restructuring proposed by the administration may provide an additional 70,000 troops available to go to the region, but that is not nearly enough to maintain Iraq, let alone fight new wars. Meanwhile, who will be left to fight if North Korea decides to use its new-found nuclear capabilities?
Kerry argues that his foreign policy plan will avoid conflict whenever possible, increase the size of the active duty military, and require less military commitment than the president's plan. The Democratic nominee claims he would be able to supplement our international efforts with foreign troops. But, like the current commander in chief and his administration, Kerry is also not facing the reality of the situation.
Right now, sizable regions of Iraq are controlled by insurgents -- despite the fact that the United States has roughly 150,000 troops on the ground. While a smarter policy of addressing the root causes of the resistance might dampen the insurgency, ultimately Iraq will not become stable enough for the U.S. military to leave unless we put more troops on the ground there.
Coalition of unwilling
Additionally, although we long for the possibility of foreign troops relieving U.S. forces in Iraq, that is unlikely to occur. We cannot even keep the "coalition of the willing" troops that are there now. Nicaragua, Spain, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, the Philippines, Thailand and New Zealand have all pulled out their troops from Iraq. Poland has announced that it would begin a complete pullout -- and last month, the United States' strongest ally, Great Britain, announced that it would be decreasing troop levels in Iraq by about one-third by the end of October.
Whoever wins this election will only have two choices if he is serious about effectively keeping our military strong: Pull back on the war on terror or increase personnel levels in the Armed Forces. If our next president chooses the latter, he will be forced to determine how to supply military planners with the troops needed to effectively conduct war in the Middle East -- and at the same time guard against new dangers around the world and at home. To stay the course, as Gen. Anthony Zinni said, would be to take us off Niagara Falls.
Any candidate who says he can guarantee there will be no draft after the 2004 elections is lying. It's as simple as that. Reinstating the draft might not be a sure bet, but it is a very real possibility, and refusing to acknowledge that possibility does not serve the voters well -- especially those of draft age.
The military has sent up its flare, and now the next commander in chief must respond. Both Bush and Kerry must level with the American people about the possibility of a draft, and then move the debate to how one can be instituted fairly and how best to take care of our new troops as they go into battle.
X Paul Rieckhoff is the executive director and founder of Operation Truth (www.optruth.org), and a veteran of the war in Iraq, where he served as an infantry platoon leader with the 3rd Infantry and First Armored Divisions. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.