[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 127 (Friday, October 8, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1844]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 UNIVERSAL NATIONAL SERVICE ACT OF 2003

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                       HON. JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 5, 2004

  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose H.R. 163, a bill 
to reinstate the draft. Rumors of a military draft have been flying 
around the Internet and the possibility has been discussed at millions 
of lunch and dinner tables all over the country. Constituents, 
especially those with kids and grand-kids, have called me to ask, ``Is 
this true?'' The answer is no. We will defeat this bill today. But that 
doesn't mean that American families don't have to worry about a draft--
a backdoor draft.
  In the Army alone, over 20,000 soldiers have had their tours of duty 
extended. Seven thousand active duty soldiers and 3,000 National 
Guardsmen and Reservists will be forced into extended deployments by 
President Bush's ``stop loss'' orders that prevent them from leaving 
the service after their contract expires. Those orders hurt our brave 
men and women and they hurt their families. Extended deployments over-
seas have been correlated to increased rates of alcoholism, domestic 
violence and divorce. The biggest tragedy of the current situation in 
Iraq is that the lives of brave military men and women are being 
disrupted--and in some cases changed forever--because of wrong foreign 
policies.
  More appropriate foreign policies that do not call on our troops to 
attack foreign countries on a unilateral preemptive basis would allow 
us to meet our defense and national security needs with a volunteer 
force. Our young men and women have seen the impact of our current 
policy in Iraq. They have seen over 1,000 lose their lives in a war of 
choice, and, even worse, they have seen our troops sent into battle 
without modern protective equipment. As a result, military men and 
women are not re-enlisting. For the first time since 1994, the Army 
National Guard came up short on its recruiting goals. The Army has 
nearly tripled its previous top enlistment bonus to certain recruits, 
lowered its standards for new recruits and added hundreds of new 
recruiters in what looks to be a long-shot effort to meet next year's 
goal. The way to fill our security needs is not to reinstate a draft. 
The answer is to change our policies and to make sure that we are 
taking care of the troops we have.
  Our troops are stretched thin and getting thinner. We are losing what 
little support from the international community we had in Iraq. Poland, 
our third largest ally in Iraq just announced they will soon fix a date 
for the withdrawal of its 2,500 troops. We launched a unilateral, 
preemptive war against a country that did not have weapons of mass 
destruction or a link to al Qaeda. We now know that not only did Iraq 
not have nuclear weapons, but that virtually every U.S. expert--and 
international expert--questioned the claim before we went to war, but 
those views were kept secret.
  Either President Bush knew that his own experts disagreed and refused 
to acknowledge the fact, or he went to war without knowing that his 
justification for war was being challenged within his own 
Administration. In either case, it is tragic that it is the military 
men and women and their families who are now paying the price and 
facing the backdoor draft. They deserve much better.

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