Secretary Rumsfeld has spoken vociferously against reinstituting the draft, pointing out that the All Volunteer Force method of recruiting men and women to the U.S. military is working well. The secretary has a long record of opposing the draft going back to his days as a U.S. Representative from Illinois , when he was one of the first members of Congress to introduce legislation to create an All Volunteer Force. 

Following are highlights from a letter outlining his opposition to the draft that Secretary Rumsfeld sent to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. (link to letter)

• First and foremost -- the United States does not need a draft.
  • There are 295 million people in the United States.
  • Some 2.6 million of them serve in the Active and Reserve Forces.
  • The military can attract and retain the people it needs through pay and other incentives.
    
• The stress on the force is not from a shortage of uniformed personnel; there is stress on the force because it isn't organized properly for a post -Cold War era.
  • Too many of the needed skills are heavily concentrated in the Reserve components.
  • Too many of the Active forces are organized in large, heavy divisions that aren't readily deployable.
  • Too many military personnel are performing tasks that should be civilian jobs, because the complex civilian personnel rules make it easier to give the task to someone in uniform.
    
• The Department of Defense has taken action to reduce the stress on the force.
  • Using emergency authority provided by Congress, the size of the Active Army has been increased by as many as 30,000 troops since the Sept. 11 th attacks.
  • The Army is increasing the number of active, deployable brigades from 33 to 43 or more. They will be redesigned to take into account post-Cold War capabilities and needs.
  • The Army is retraining and restructuring the Active and Reserve components to ensure useable skill sets are better appropriated. This will improve overall responsiveness and deployability.
  • The Services rebalanced about 10,000 military spaces both within and between the Active and Reserve components in 2003. This year they expect to rebalance another 20,000 spaces. The goal is that individual Reservists and Guardsmen will mobilize less often, for shorter periods and with somewhat more predictability.
    
• The All Volunteer Force is a professional force that is performing superbly.
  • The men and women who serve in the military are committed, enthusiastic and are contributing to the defense of the nation.
  • Each stepped forward to volunteer. All serve proudly.