MIGHTY LIKE A DRAFT

Fifty-six hundred former soldiers, including 58 Mainers, this week will start getting orders for involuntary mobilization and likely assignment to Iraq or Afghanistan. The Army ordered the sudden and unexpected call-up as its latest move to expand its stretched-out forces to meet demands of the Iraq war and other commitments. Earlier measures have included extending tours of duty and calling back units that were already on their way home.

The former soldiers are part of a pool of more than 111,000 men and women who, whether they remember it or not, once signed up for active duty and a total obligation of eight years. Even if they served four years on active duty, the can be called up and sent back to the war zones. They are part of the Army’s Individual Ready Reserve. There is one exception: Anyone who served in either Iraq or Afghanistan within the previous 12 months will be exempt from the call-up.

Those summoned will have 30 days to arrange personal matters before reporting to a mobilization site. Those found qualified for deployment will get testing and training in weapons handling and such matters as how to recognize an improvised bomb and how to react to an ambush. The orders call for at least 18 months and possibly two years of active duty.

The mobilization will seek mostly truck drivers, mechanics, logistics and administrative specialists, and military police to fill vacant slots in units scheduled for rotation into the war zones. Officials said “thousands” more would be called up in the future.

Some members of Congress call the new orders an unofficial draft. One solution for the manpower shortfall, of course would be resumption of an actual draft, last employed in the Vietnam War. President Nixon ended it, some believed because it had helped fuel the anti-war movement. Maine’s two senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both moderate Republicans, joined in an overwhelming vote to increase the strength of the regular army by 20,000. The Pentagon opposed the measure on budgetary grounds, preferring to rely on the reserves.

Sen. Snowe reaffirmed her position opposing any reinstatement of the military draft. She said rightly that the Defense Department should “be forthcoming in both its assessments of troop strength for both Iraq and Afghanistan and any planned future deployments.” She added that America’s allies, particularly those in NATO, should increase their military participation in combating terror.

The Bush administration underestimated what it would take to conquer and pacify Iraq. And it is still feeling the impact among the allies of its disregard for international treaties and its initial reluctance to involve the United Nations in Iraq.