Selective Service Registration Termination Act

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 163) to provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes.

Is that a parliamentary inquiry?

I know the gentleman thinks it is. I am waiting for direction from the Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I would say I support the consideration of the this bill at this time.

Mr. Speaker, I fully support the consideration of this bill at this time.

Mr. Speaker, I would say, if I may, in response to the gentleman's claim, that I am disappointed he has less faith in his power of persuasion than I do, because I came here prepared to be persuaded. But if I must decide now, I would vote no, so I do not claim to be a proponent of the bill.

Mr. Speaker, that leaves me where? I would claim the time in opposition.

Under the rules of the House, I would claim that time in opposition.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the time has already been claimed.

Mr. Speaker, as a matter of comity, I would be happy to split the time in opposition with the distinguished gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), the ranking member on the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think there is much controversy here. Nobody is going to vote for this bill. If it were controversial, I think we would have a very close vote here. I doubt we will. In fact, I was not going to raise a point of order. I will not. I would ask the Chair rhetorical without expectation of a response, what happens when the sponsor claiming the time in support of the bill actually will vote against it? It will be interesting to see how the final tally is actually taken.

I am fascinated. I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman from New York, my fellow New Yorker, but I find it a bit amusing at best to hear him claim that the reason that this is a controversial issue is we read about it on the Internet. The only thing we read about on the Internet is what some of his colleagues are planting with respect to that.

The basis for our being here today is simply to answer the concerns of the

American people that have been created by political forces who are trying to create controversy where none should exist. The administration clearly, the Department of Defense clearly, and I suspect that at the end of this vote it will be shown the House of Representatives clearly rejects the fact, either before an election, at election or after election, that there is a need, there is a rationale, for returning to mandatory conscription by the United States military.

I would say to the gentleman from New York that he is the only sponsor of a bill in my 12 years in the House that is complaining that his bill has been brought to the floor. We have a great deal of respect for the gentleman. I suspect and I strongly believe he put together his bill with a great deal of conviction and belief, and we felt it time, given the Internet discussion and all the other absolutely baseless charges that were floating about, that this issue be put to rest, not for the issue and not for the concern of politics, but for the comfort of the American people who have been whipped into a frenzy unnecessarily about this issue.

Now some may say today that this legislation is really about the need to establish a system of national service--an attempt to instill in our youth a sense of responsibility and a clearer understanding of the sacrifices made over many years to win our freedoms--and what it takes to better secure our future. And I would say--that is a legitimate topic of discussion--an area that perhaps merits exploration.

But the clear objective of this bill--and the undeniable intent of recent claims of secret plans and post election plots is focused on a return of the draft--forced military conscription.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Michigan feels it is inevitable, he has a chance to vote for the resumption of the draft, if that is what he wants. By the way, he said the bill was introduced 2 days ago. I suspect he misspoke. It was introduced in January of 2003.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am stunned by the fact that my friend from New York stands up in his beginning comments and sites the reason we have to deal with this is because the Internet is saying so, and then criticizes people that it is an Internet rumor. He seems to be very comfortable with his Presidential candidate's position of being everywhere at every time.

Also, I would just say to the gentlewoman from California, who complained about her bill and increasing end-strength, the House Committee on Armed Services which, as we will remember, has already passed a bill into the House and we are in conference with the Senate, would increase end-strength by almost 40,000 troops. So we have responded to that this year and have for the past 2 years as well. Frankly, we did not need her bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Hayes), a distinguished member of the House Committee on Armed Services.

(Mr. HAYES asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman's comments, and it proves perfectly why we are here tonight because that is what the message is the American people are listening to, what the gentlewoman just said. And there is one way to dispel this, and that is to defeat this. No President can impose a draft without the consent and the approval of the United States House of Representatives. It will not come tonight or at any other time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 10 seconds to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), the distinguished majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

There are few people I have more respect for than the gentleman from Pennsylvania. He made a very eloquent argument, very correctly, for an increase in end strength, not to a return of the draft and for the problems that that would create.

We have an end strength increase of 40,000 in our bill in the House that has passed, and there is a conference with the Senate. Those are the people we need, and we should move on that and not a draft.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Wilson), a distinguished member of the Committee on Armed Services.

(Mr. WILSON of South Carolina asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks, and include extraneous material.)

Mr. Speaker, perhaps the gentleman's heard of the 9/11 Commission.

I am happy to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Cunningham), a distinguished member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth).

(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer), a veteran of the first Gulf War.

(Mr. BUYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Saxton), a senior member of the Committee on Armed Services.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, very simply, this is a bill that is necessary to be dealt with in what I agree is perhaps an unconventional way, but nevertheless has caused great anxiety, great fear and concern amongst mothers, fathers, and children. This is a way to put the fear aside. That should be a primary duty of the House of Representatives. And, as I suspect even the proponents will, a ``no'' vote is the right vote.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on the bill now under consideration, H.R. 163.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the right to object.

Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inquire whether the proponent of this motion to suspend supports the bill, and, if he does not, whether or not his motion is in order.

Yes, it is.

Mr. Speaker, the question that I raised before I raised the point of order is not whether he supports consideration of the bill but whether he supports the bill.

Mr. Speaker, based on that, I raise a point of order, and I would like to claim the time in support of the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this bill because it gives this great august body an opportunity for the first time to discuss whether or not the administration or the party in the majority intends to have a draft.

I suspect that one of the reasons that this has to be cleared up before the election, the evidence clearly indicates that everyone in the Pentagon, the Defense Department, has indicated that we need a robust military force in Iraq. All of the evidence indicates that we have exhausted our active troops; we are exhausting the Reserves; we are exhausting the National Guard.

We have a back-door draft, where we do not let people who enlisted and have finished their term get out. In addition to that, the Army is over there in combat. Where the normal term is 1 year, the Pentagon has indicated they are going to reduce it to 6 months, to go along with what the Marines do, because of fatigue.

It just seems to me as many times as the administration says that they are against a draft, all we hear on the Internet and around the country is that, after the election, they are going to have the draft.

If they are going to have the draft, I support this legislation, even though, quite frankly, I would have preferred that the bill be referred to the Committee on Armed Services, because I think it is important enough to have hearings on this matter and for the administration to really show why they really do not need to get people through an involuntary conscription.

But since they knew I had this bill and since they knew it was election time, I rise in support of the bill, even though I would gladly yield to the committees of jurisdiction, because it just seems to me that, if we abuse the system by continually taking legislation for the purpose of embarrassment and not in order to say that it is so noncontroversial that we should put it on the suspension calendar, then, no matter who is in the majority, we are violating every principle of the House, and that is the reason why the Parliamentarian and the Speaker have decided that I am in control of the time.

This system should be used only when there is no controversy. But I am not a Member of the House that runs away from controversy. Those who run away from it are those people who have the responsibility to discuss bills in the committee with hearings and bring the legislation so the American public can see what you do believe before an election.

But now you cannot even decide who is for the bill, who is for consideration, ``I want it up; I want it down.'' It is a political thing that you are using that determines the lives of people as to who fights in wars and who is exempt from wars and who should do national service.

It is a disgrace, what is going on here today, and you cannot find anyone to put the blame on. You are against your own bill. It came out of your Committee on Rules. You have the majority. But yet you need some way, some vehicle.

And just because justice does not cave in to people who are hypocritical in nature, we got the time to tell you why we support the bill and why we oppose the bill. But, unfortunately, we are doing this on the suspension calendar. The majority, I guess, will say that this is a noncontroversial issue, because if you do not admit that it is controversial, then you are saying that it should not have been on this calendar in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

(Mr. CONYERS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I want to applaud the candidness and the honesty of the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services to admit that they are using the Rules of the House of Representatives to rebut the rumors on the Internet that President Bush wants to enact a draft. I thought we did this through the Republican National Committee. This is a political thing.

It may be vicious to believe that people do not trust the President when he says no, and they do not trust Rumsfeld, and they do not trust Republicans; that is a terrible political problem, but do not use my House of Representatives to correct it. Do not use the rules of this House to correct it. This place is a place for legislation and not to play political games.

If you do not have the trust of the American people when you say there is not going to be a draft, then you had better use the Republican National Campaign Committee to rebut it. But each time you think you have to run an election on the Rules of this House, after all of us are gone, we have an obligation to those who succeed us to abide by the Rules of the House that were left to us for one purpose: not to win elections, but to legislate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

(Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) who is an outstanding member of this House of Representatives, and he is in support of this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, are we allowed to use the floor of the House to campaign and specifically name the Presidential candidate that we are supporting?

Did I frame my question correctly?

Mr. Speaker, I would like to close, and so if I only have 1 minute remaining, I reserve it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith).

(Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

My Republican colleagues have convinced me they will not vote for a draft before this election, and I appreciate their sincerity in stating that. But I support my bill for the very reasons that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha) has done so.

If the issue is the protection of our country against an enemy, then all Americans should have the opportunity to fight and defend for all our freedom so that we can sit here. And there should be a plea for the rich and the poor, which is so eloquently stated but not followed, to be volunteering and joining and having the honor to say they defended our country at a time of war.

Mr. Speaker, that is not going to happen before the election, and because of my 34 years in the House and my respect for the rules, as much as I appreciate the fact that the leadership has brought my bill up, even though they did not support it, they have brought my bill up because they have a problem with the President's integrity on this issue.

So as much as I appreciate that, what I appreciate more are the standing committees that we have in this House, and so I would hope that my bill will be referred to the committee process for hearings so that the entire House of Representatives would understand the necessity for this legislation.

But on this I will vote ``no''.

Mr. Speaker, I hate to rise in opposition to both leaderships on both sides of the aisle. I am probably the only one that is going to vote for a draft. I believe we have to start looking at this right now. And I will tell you why it is a serious problem. We have 135,000 troops in Iraq right now. We are going to have to have 135,000 there for at least 2 years. We are training people, the Iraqis about 4,000 a month, and a lot of them are deserting. So there is no way that we have had cooperation with the international community. There is no way we are going to be able to do the fourth round of replacement without some kind of a draft.

Now, I remember the President of the United States asking to extend the National Guard in 1941, just a few months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. He extended it by one vote, and this is serious business here. We can get up and talk politics, we can get up and blame each other for what we are involved in here, but we have to have the personnel to do this job.

I go out to the hospitals every week, and I see these young people who are in their second and third tours in Iraq. I see them without legs and without arms, and I know how hard this is.

Now, let me tell you, on the street that I lived on when I was a kid, four people in my family, my father and three of his brothers, were involved in World War II. Some of them were drafted, and some of them were volunteers. And in the next house, there were seven from the same family. In the next house from that, there were six from the same family that went into World War II. Now, they went; some drafted, and some not drafted. We had 15 million people. We are in a war. And not only a small segment of the population should fight in that war.

I voted against the volunteer army in the first place because I said that I did not believe that, if we got into a crucial situation, we would be able to sustain our national security. This is a national security problem. This is something we have to face now.

I remember standing right over here when Jack Kemp was a Member, and he did not want to vote to extend registration because he believed it was not necessary. I said, Jack, we have to be prepared here. We have to be prepared in case something happens.

They have advertisements for the volunteer army, and they say, we want you to come in. We want you to get an education. We want you to better yourselves. We want you to come in, and you will have a steady job, and an

awful lot of people joined the military with that in mind.

I was talking to a father the other day. He said his father was in World War II. His uncle was in the Battle of the Bulge, and another uncle served in the Pacific. And he was in the Reserves, and his boy was just killed in Iraq. And he was so worried because they were sending people back for the second and third time.

I mean, we have got people in the National Guard who they have stopped letting out. His son was supposed to come home in August, and he was killed.

Now, that is the kind of thing we are facing. This should not only be borne by people who are volunteering because they could not find a job. This is something that every one of us across the board, rich and poor, everyone should be willing to serve in the armed services of the United States.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that we would take this seriously. I would hope that we would not get into a political debate about whether this is politics or not. I would hope we would look ahead.

What I said before, my colleagues have got to remember we have got 135,000 troops on the ground. We have sent some of these people back a couple of times. The Army is looking at the possibility of having a 6- month tour, and that will not help the situation because they are going to have to send them back sooner. Some of the people who are supposed to be home for a year are unable to stay home for a year.

I remember being in Europe talking to General Jones, and they extended the 1st Infantry Division. He was worried that the families, because they extended them, how many people would be killed and what a pressure that would put on the families. All of us worry about that. All of us have to worry about that. That is our job, and we have to look ahead.

We cannot just look ahead to the election. We have got to look ahead after the election at what it is going to mean to our troops.

I think that we make a mistake when we get up here and accuse each other when we are in a war. When we were in a war in World War II, we were attacked here, and everybody ought to be willing to serve. I mean, a draft is a fair way to cut, no deferments for anybody. We pick it by lottery; we take the number of people we need and send it down to the Armed Forces.

Let me tell my colleagues something. They are already taking category fours, and I think that is good for the country. I think it is good because the best training people will get in the world today is the military training. They will take category fours, and they will make those people into good citizens. They will work them, and the Army does not like it. The military does not like category fours because it is too much time to train those people.

Let me tell my colleagues something. All of us need everybody to go into the Armed Forces. From every level, from the rich and the poor, from the middle class, everybody needs to go, and we have to, and there is no question about it. If we are going to be there, if what the leaders on both sides are saying, both candidates are saying, we are going to be there. We are not going to leave there until the Iraqis can take over. They cannot take over overnight. It is going to take time to train those people; and if we are going to train those people, we have got to have somebody in the United States who can replace them.

It takes us a year to train. The gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), the chairman, and I put in the money for the extra 30,000 people because we knew they needed 30,000 people this year. I asked the personnel guy, are you going to ask for this in the budget this year? He said, no, sir, we are going to expect a supplemental to take care of it.

The point is, we needed an extra 30,000 people. We have got to face that we are in a war, and we have got to face that everybody should be bearing the burden of this war, not just the few volunteers that are time after time sacrificing and the young people are being so mangled by this war. Their spirit aside, they are doing a marvelous job and are so proud.

When I go out to the hospital every week, Bethesda one week and Walter Reed the next week, and I see these young people, and even then the fighting is so intense that they are saying to me, this is a tough war, Congressman, and we need help, we need support; and we are giving them support. In this Congress, we are giving them everything they need except we are not looking ahead to the very thing that we are going to need down the road and that is additional troops, and we are not meeting the requirement of the National Guard, and that is the first step.

So I would ask Members to reconsider this, and I would hope that a number of us would vote for a draft as a serious business rather than talking of politics and the whole thing.

Mr. Speaker, the bill we are voting on today has been used by Democrats to scare young voters and their parents with the lie of an impending draft.

As a retired veteran of 31 years' service in the Army National Guard, with three sons serving today in the military, including one serving in Iraq, I agree with the Newsweek magazine expose of October 12 which discredits the rumor has having no basis in fact. Crying wolf about the need for a draft causes doubt about the ability of our Armed Forces and hurts our morale and recruitment.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote against H.R. 163 and end this false rumor.

Mr. Speaker, the bill we are voting on today has been used by Democrats to scare young voters and their parents with the lie of an impending draft.

In South Carolina, the Democratic Party sent out a

despicable campaign letter, disguised as a draft notice. The

Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry speaks

disingenuously about a ``back door draft.'' He has said to

elect him President because he ``will give us a foreign

policy that absolutely makes it unnecessary to have a

draft.'' Democrats' false rhetoric has helped fuel a

nationwide scare campaign.

As a retired veteran of 31 years service in the Army National Guard, and with three sons today in the military, one of whom is serving in Iraq, I agree with the Newsweek magazine's expose (Oct. 12th) which discredited the rumors as having no basis in fact. Crying wolf about the need for a draft causes doubt about the ability of our Armed Forces, and hurts our morale and recruitment.

Let's be clear. The all-volunteer American military is succeeding in the War on Terror, and retention remains high. We have the best- trained, best-equipped, most competent military in history. We have a new greatest generation that I have visited three times in Iraq who are dedicated patriots protecting American families by taking the war to the terrorists. There is absolutely no need for a draft. Not one person in the executive branch supports or has talked about reinstating the draft.

Clearly, by resorting to the politics of fear, Kerry and the Democrats have no positive agenda for America. Americans deserve more. President Bush and Republicans have a proud record of achievement in the last 4 years: of tax relief, better education for our children, improved health care through prescription drug coverage, and a strong national defense against terrorism.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote against H.R. 163, and end this false rumor.

[From Newsweek, Oct. 11, 2004]

The Draft: Rumors, and That's All They Are

For months, Democratic operatives have muttered that news

about a revived military

draft could become the silver bullet that stops President

George W. Bush's re-election campaign. But the White House

and Pentagon emphatically deny any intention to reinstitute

conscription: in the first presidential debate last week,

Bush made sure to include a reference in his closing remarks

to the ``all-volunteer Army.''

Democratic presidential contender John Kerry carefully

limited his debate remarks to a factually supportable charge

that current Bush policies may constitute a ``backdoor

draft'' because some soldiers' tours of duty are being

involuntarily extended. But some Kerry supporters--and

prominent Kerry surrogates--are spreading more alarming

rumors about a reinstated draft. ``You do not have the draft

hanging over your heads--not yet. But pay attention, boys and

girls, to what you've got going on in Iraq,'' disabled

Vietnam vet and former U.S. Senator Max Cleland, an important

Kerry backer, recently told a student audience. At the

University of Colorado-Boulder last week, cafeteria tables

were littered with cards signed by self-described Students

for Kerry, warning YOU'RE GONNA GET DRAFTED. (In an ``open

letter'' to America's students, independent candidate Ralph

Nader recently claimed the ``machinery for drafting a new

genration of young Americans is being quietly put into

place.'') The most explicit claims about a Bush plan to

revive conscription have come from onetime Kerry rival Howard

Dean, who charged in a recent newspaper column that draft

boards ``have already been notified that 20-year-olds and

medical personnel will be called up first.'' Laura Gross,

Dean's spokeswoman, says Dean spoke with two draft-board

officials in different parts of the country who told him they

had been ``put on notice there is going to be a draft . . .

Bush has not denied that there's going to be a draft.''

Rumors about a new draft were sparked when a Pentagon Web

site earlier this year posted a solicitation for volunteers

to man local draft boards. But officials say the ad has

appeared every year since 2001, and didn't signal a plan to

reactivate the draft. Two bills in Congress propose reviving

conscription, but both were introduced by anti-Iraq-war

Democrats to highlight the fact that the burden of military

service falls disproportionally on poor people. The bills

have no chance of approval. Selective Service spokesman Dan

Amon says he has fielded ``hundreds'' of calls about the

possibility of a renewed draft, which he calls an ``urban

legend . . . If the White House is planning a draft, you'd

think they might have told us about it.'' The uniformed

military are among the last people who want to see the draft

revived. While U.S. forces are stretched by current

commitments--including Iraq--Army leaders don't want a draft,

don't think they need one and recognize that, politically, it

would be virtually impossible. Two-year waves of unwilling,

unskilled soldiers would contribute little except, the brass

fear, the same discipline problems the Army spent years

purging after Vietnam. Army lobby spokesman John Grady says:

``Nobody wants to go there again.''

Mr. Speaker, bringing up a bill today, nearly 2 days since it was introduced without a hearing, to anybody in any committee, nothing, to just bring it up today, 3 days before the end of the session, makes it very clear what is on the minds of the leadership in this House. This is a smoke screen to divert the focus from the real facts about the war in Iraq.

The authors of this bill want a hearing. Why do you not want a hearing? Why do you want to bring it up out of nowhere? This was not even scheduled. Yesterday, this was not scheduled or noted for scheduling.

But they do not want a hearing because they do not want the public thinking about the fact that, as of today, we have spent nearly $200 billion on this war, the United States has lost over 1,000 lives, these figures represent 90 percent of the costs of the war, and more than 90 percent of the casualties in what the President continues to paint as a global problem led by a willing coalition, when no coalition exists.

Worse, the President sends our troops into Iraq without body armor, without sufficient troop strength, and without any discernible exit strategy, and guess what? We are running out of troops. It is not a secret, I say to my colleagues. We are continuing to keep National Guardsmen in the service beyond their career. We are taking Reservists and we are running out of volunteers. So let us not be astounded that what follows that is a draft. The only problem is that we cannot announce it until after the election.

Bringing this bill up today--nearly two years since the day we introduced it--is nothing but a Republican attempt at a smokescreen to divert the focus from the real facts about the war in Iraq.

The Republicans don't want the public thinking about the fact that as of today, we've spent nearly $200 billion on this war, and the United States has lost over 1000 lives. These figures represent ninety percent of the cost of this war and more than ninety percent of the casualties--in what the President continues to paint as a global problem led by a willing coalition. No such coalition exists. Worse, President Bush sends our troops into Iraq without sufficient troop strength, and without any discernable exit strategy or plan to win the peace. The Administration doesn't want the public to know that, when it comes to Iraq, this President has failed the American people.

Even Paul Bremmer, the U.S. official who governed Iraq after the invasion, has admitted that the United States made a mistake in not deploying enough troops in Iraq, and then made a mistake in not containing the violence and looting after the ouster of Saddam Hussein.

The Administration doesn't want to call attention to the fact that the Pentagon has had to resort to the use of a ``stop loss'' policy to mask the fact that we do not have enough troops in Iraq. This policy is in a sense a military draft because it is used to keep tens of thousands of soldiers bound for Iraq and Afghanistan in their service beyond their originally scheduled discharge dates. Under this policy, the Army alone has blocked the retirements and departures of more than 40,000 soldiers, about 16,000 of them National Guard and reservists who were eligible to leave the service this year. This just shows that politics has taken priority over readiness. The administration uses these policies to meet the needs in Iraq because they are expedient and convenient, but all it amounts to is playing politics with the lives of the men and women overseas, and with their families back home.

And while the Administration likes to talk about what a good job it's doing in Iraq, it consistently fails to mention the other impending crises we will eventually have to deal with. Iraq does not scratch the surface when you consider the situation we're in with North Korea and Iran.

No, rather than have the American people focusing on these facts and statistics, the Republican members of Congress want to use this bill as a political maneuver to kill rumors that the President plans to reinstate the draft after the election. The Republicans want to use this bill--a bill that strives to bring equality to our military--to shift the focus from their extreme and devastating shortcomings.

What our bill does is address the growing disparity in socio-economic background between those who go to fight our nation's conflicts and those who send them. The statistics show that minorities and the working class segments of society constitute a disproportionate percentage of the military. African Americans represent 21 percent of the military as opposed to 13 percent of the civilian age population. Only 24 percent of the persons in

the military have parents in white collar management jobs, while that is true for 34 percent of the general military population. It is plain fact that the military does not come from the higher socio-economic status of society.

This bill deserves better than placement on the suspension calendar. It deserves serious consideration. As my colleague Mr. Rangel has stated, we should be hearing testimony and gaining an understanding of our needs in Iraq. But as it stands, the Republicans only care about his bill to divert attention from the true fact--that the President has made a colossal error in judgment that is costing American lives every single day.