In an opinion piece printed in the October 16 Washington Post, 12 former US Army captains who served in Iraq between 2003 and 2006 argued that the US should either reinstate compulsory military service — "the draft" — or immediately withdraw all its troops from Iraq.
They argued that even with US President George Bush's troop "surge", which has boosted the size of the US occupation force by some 30,000 troops, the US military forces "simply do not have enough soldiers and marines to meet the professed goals of clearing areas from insurgent control, holding them securely and building sustainable institutions.
"Though temporary reinforcing operations in places like Fallujah, An Najaf, Tal Afar, and now Baghdad may brief well on PowerPoint presentations, in practice they just push insurgents to another spot on the map and often strengthen the insurgents' cause by harassing locals to a point of swayed allegiances."
The US Army's official manual on counter-insurgency warfare — written by General David Petraeus, currently the top US commander in Iraq — says that successful prosecution of such a war requires deployment of 20 combat soldiers for every 1000 people of a country's population. Such a ratio would require simultaneous deployment of 540,000 US combat troops.
The US Army has some 130,000 combat troops, organised into 37 combat brigades of about 3500 troops each; 18 brigades are currently deployed in Iraq.
There are also two 3500-strong Marine Corps regiments deployed. In addition to the total of 70,000 US combat troops, there are 100,000 US support troops in Iraq, bringing the total size of the US occupation force to 171,000 troops.
In their Post article, the 12 ex-captains go on to argue: "There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately ...
"America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice."
Currently there is little public support to return to compulsory military service, abolished in 1973 in the wake of the US defeat in Vietnam. An August 13-16 Gallup Poll found that only 18% of US voters favoured reinstituting the military draft; 80% were opposed.
The Gallup News Service noted: "That low level of support is similar to what Gallup has found throughout the Iraq war. Prior to the beginning of the war, in January 2003, a slightly higher percentage of Americans (27%) favored a return to the draft, but still well below a majority."
The poll was taken several days after US Army General Douglas Lute, Bush's newly appointed war adviser, declared on National Public Radio that the unpopularity of repeated tours of duty in Iraq among regular US Army soldiers and their families made it worth "considering" a return to a military draft.
Associated Press reported on October 18 that seven US National Guard units — around 20,000 troops — are about to be told by Pentagon top brass that they'll be heading to Iraq starting late next northern summer.
AP reported that the "US military is reaching out to more Guard units in an effort to maintain needed troop levels, ease some of the strain on the active duty Army and provide security for ports, convoys and other installations ... Two of the units will be full combat brigades heading to Iraq — between next summer and into 2009, to serve as part of the rotation with active duty troops."
Since January, the US occupation force has been boosted from 134,000 troops to its current size of 171,000 troops as a result of a Pentagon decision in April to extend US troops' tours of duty in Iraq from 12 to 15 months, and because several units' tours are overlapping as some move in and others move out of the country.
Beginning next April, the total number of US troops deployed in Iraq will begin to decline back down toward 134,000 unless the Pentagon further extends the time-period of regular Army and Marine Corps war-zone tours beyond 15 months or deploys more part-time National Guard soldiers or Army reservists.
National Guard and Army Reserve troops currently make up about 20% of the US occupation force in Iraq. "This is the biggest call-up [of Guard units] since World War II, there's no question about it", retired Air National Guard General Stephen Koper, president of the Washington-based 40,000-member National Guard Association, told AP.