US army accused of 'return to the draft'

The expansion affects units that are 90 days away or less from deploying, said Lt Gen Frank Hagenbeck, the army's deputy chief of staff for personnel. Commanders have the ability to make exceptions for soldiers with special circumstances, but otherwise soldiers will not be able to leave the service or transfer from their unit until they return to their home base after the deployment.

The move will allow the army to keep units together as they deploy, Lt Gen Hagenbeck said. Units with new recruits or recently transferred soldiers would not perform as well because the troops would not have had time to work together.

"The rationale is to have cohesive, trained units going to war together," Lt Gen Hagenbeck said.

The Democratic presidential candidate, John Kerry, said the Bush administration was essentially increasing troop force "on the backs of the men and women who've already fulfilled their obligation to the armed forces and to our country".

"It runs counter to the traditions of an all-volunteer military," said Mr Kerry, a veteran of the Vietnam war.

In an opinion piece in yesterday's New York Times, Andrew Exum, a former army captain who served under Lt Gen Hagenbeck in the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, called the treatment of soldiers under stop-loss programs "shameful".

"Many, if not most, of the soldiers in this latest Iraq-bound wave are already veterans of several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan," he wrote. "They have honourably completed their active duty obligations. But like draftees, they have been conscripted to meet the additional needs in Iraq."

The announcement comes as the army is struggling to find fresh units to continue the US-led campaign in Iraq. Almost every army combat unit has faced or will face deployment either there or in Afghanistan, and increased violence has forced the deployment of an additional 20,000 troops to the region, straining units even further.

Lt Gen Hagenbeck said the stop-loss move was necessary only because the army is also undergoing a major reorganisation that requires some units to be taken out of service while they are restructured.

He gave no indication of how many soldiers would be affected.

Without the programme, an average division would have to replace 4,000 soldiers - perhaps one-quarter to one-fifth of its strength - before or during a deployment, according an army press release.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1230640,00.html