Anti-War Lawmaker Presses Again For Military Draft

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 Anti-War Lawmaker Presses Again For Military Draft

Associated Press | May 28 2005

Comment: Can the naysayers still insist that this is just partisan jockeying? Rangel directly states that he's introduced this again due to falling recruitment numbers and a lack of troops, over and above any misguided effort to take the burden away from minorities and the poor.

WASHINGTON (AP) Rep. Charles Rangel is once again pushing a bill to re-instate the military draft, a year after the effort caused a flurry of campaign-season conflict over the war in Iraq.

Rangel, an anti-war Democrat from Harlem, offered the same measure last year, only to vote against it when Republicans brought the bill to the House.

At the time, GOP leaders were upset over a growing buzz on the Internet that the Bush administration might begin drafting American citizens if Bush won re-election. They blamed Democrats for fueling the speculation in a cynical attempt to win voters to their candidate, John Kerry.

Rangel said he is again calling for a draft because military recruitment is falling short.

``Everyone knows that we went into this war with an insufficient number of troops, but the problem now is filling the ranks of those units that are already on the ground,'' said Rangel.

The veteran lawmaker has railed against the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war, called for the removal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and argued that the burdens of the war disproportionately have fallen on the poor and minorities.