Rumsfeld - No need to reintroduce military draft

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration sees no need to reinstate the military draft, but it is pushing for improved Pentagon management of the 1.4 million-strong force in order to meet wartime needs, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday. "I don't know anyone in the executive branch of the government who believes it would be appropriate or necessary to reinstitute the draft," Rumsfeld told the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention. The system of military conscription was abandoned in 1973.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., on Wednesday raised the possibility that compulsory military service might be necessary. The nation is engaged "in a generational war here against terrorism," Hagel said. "It's going to require resources."

"Should we continue to burden the middle class who represents most all of our soldiers, and the lower-middle class?" Hagel said. "Should we burden them with the fighting and the dying if in fact this is a generational -- probably 25-year -- war?"

Rumsfeld did not address the issue of burden-sharing, except to say the old system of conscription had "a lot of difficulties," including loopholes that permitted many to avoid being drafted.

He said the military simply does not need to abandon its all-volunteer approach.

"We have a relatively small military. We have been very successful in recruiting and retaining the people we need," he said. Although the military is strained by its commitments in Iraq and elsewhere, it is working on ways to get more combat power out of the existing force, he said.

The Army, for example, is reorganizing to increase the number of combat brigades from 33 to as many as 48 over the next several years. And the Pentagon is finding ways to pull troops out of jobs that could be done by civilian Defense Department workers or government contractors, thus freeing more troops for combat-related duties.