Does the U.S. Need the Draft?

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For the troops on the ground in Iraq and those preparing to head back into battle, relief is still a long way off. Yet military commanders argue that Schoomaker's plan to remold the Army will soon show results in Iraq. "We're going to go back with much more capability than we had before," says Major General William Webster, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, which will return to Iraq later this year. It will be the first unit retooled by Schoomaker. "We'll have more brigades, more ground-controlling combat power and more ability to kill and capture the enemy." But as the Marines in Ramadi have learned, there's little room for complacency against such an elusive, shadowy foe.

On a recent afternoon, the Marines from Golf Company spot an abandoned car that looks suspicious. It's in a place where cars don't usually park, and pedestrians seem to be avoiding it. And it's on the route the Marines often use to return to their base at the end of their shift. The Marines summon the Iraqi police to take a look, but the cop car passes by several times without actually stopping to check out the vehicle. Frustrated, Lieut. Phillip Downs radios for permission to destroy the vehicle. Once he gets it, one of his men turns the abandoned car into a burning hulk with three volleys from his Mark 19 grenade launcher. Downs is sure he made the right choice, eliminating an unknown before it could do harm to U.S. forces. Whether the U.S. military can repeat that success across Iraq and around the globe with the forces at its disposal is less certain. And the cost of guessing wrong could be much higher.