UCLA hosts panel to discuss likelihood of draft

Student and citizen concern over the threat of a military draft
prompted a panel discussion Saturday morning at the James West
Alumni Center.

Orange County Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez, a ranking member of
both the House Armed Services Committee and the House Homeland
Security Committee, presented the first address on the subject.

“Whether a draft will occur really depends on how long
we’re going to be in Iraq, and the troop level needed
there,” Sanchez said. She continued to explain that at
current rotation rates, approximately 50 percent of the troops in
Iraq will consist of reserve forces and armed guards by the end of
2005.

“We have half a million troops spread out in about 120
countries around the world. The Iraq theater has over 150,000
troops; however, we haven’t been able to stabilize the
situation in Iraq and we cannot leave Iraq until we do,”
Sanchez said.

Joseph Maizlish, mediation coordinator and UCLA alumnus,
stressed that the reason the United States needs a high amount of
troops around the world is to support its high consumption of world
resources.

“Really, the answer to the question of “˜Will there
be a draft?’ is it depends. It depends on what kind of role
the U.S. is going to have in the world and the public attitudes
about this question,” Maizlish said.

Philip Carter, a lawyer and defense analyst who served on active
duty and has written about the possibility of a draft for several
publications, gave the last address on the subject, emphasizing the
necessity and importance of a draft for the United States.

“The U.S. is at a crossroads right now ““ it can
either be a superpower or it can be an all-volunteer army. At this
point, it can’t be both,” he said.

“We have reached a point where we have a broken force and
there’s no way to fix it short of a draft. … It is really
the only option that has the capabilities of raising the forces we
need, and while it has a lot of problems, it also has a lot of
promise. If we do this properly, America will never be caught
unprepared again.”

The panel, presented by the non-profit organization Rock the
Vote and UCLA Government and Community Relations, was organized by
Michael Swords, the UCLA government assistant director of federal
relations. He thought of the idea after encountering concern from
students about the possibility of a draft.

“I had received a few e-mail inquiries from students about
the question of a draft, so I thought, “˜Why don’t we
have a forum about the topic?’ There seems to be an air of
inevitability about this draft, but our aim was to have an
ideologically diverse response, with a divergence of
opinion,” Swords said.

Although organizers attempted to advertise the panel discussion
by sending out over 20,000 invitations, attendance at the panel was
less than expected, with about 25 people in the audience.

“We tried to publicize it as much as possible, but we were
competing with too many other events going on at the same
time,” Swords said.

Despite the low turnout, the audience was engaged and involved
in the discussion over the draft, and expressed concern over the
form the draft would take if instated.

While most panelists seemed to agree a draft is ultimately
inevitable, they also said a future draft would not be the same as
drafts the United States has seen in the past.

“A draft today would be different than it was before.
There would be no full student deferments ““ most students
would be allowed to finish the semester. Local boards would
represent their community, which would mean there would be no elite
making the decisions, and there would be a lottery system. A new
draft would even have provisions for sex changes,” explained
coordinator Bill Parent, associate dean of the UCLA School of
Public Affairs.

Sanchez expanded on Parent’s explanation, saying,
“No one will be exempt. The people who get to go are the ones
with the special skills that we need, and if a draft is what
Congress needs to do, then that’s what we will do.”