Are the recent elections in Iraq the right opportunity to begin a withdrawal? Margaret Warner asks Bobby Muller on The Newshour.

"When you're fighting an irregular war, you're fighting a political war," said Vietnam veteran Bobby Muller of the Iraq War at a talk in Kane Hall last night. "In an irregular war, they all start small, and then they grow."

The claims of President Bush, Sen. John Kerry and most other politicians notwithstanding, a military draft is almost certainly in the country's future, a disabled Vietnam veteran and anti-war activist told an audience at the University of Oregon on Sunday night.

Kerry is rattling Republicans by accusing Bush of a 'back-door' draft. A disabled Vietnam vet finds the issue is also resonating on college campuses.

Yesterday afternoon, Monmouth College's Dahl Chapel and Auditorium was host to noted activist Bobby Muller, as he addressed a full house on the possibility of the initiation of a military draft in the United States in the near future.

The draft is becoming a political hot potato. Last week, Congress even took the extraordinary step of hastily scheduling a phony vote against legislation to restore the draft. But an empty vote in Congress will not end the debate.

An army of new voters received a startling call to serve recently, when one of the largest nonpartisan groups trying to increase voting by young people sent fake draft cards to nearly 640,000 e-mail addresses.

The founder of "Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation" wants young people to consider the possibility of a military draft. Bobby Muller, who is also president of a group called "Alliance for Security," has been touring college campuses and spoke Wednesday night at Kent State University.

With the Internet abuzz with rumors that a military draft would be reinstated after the November election, House Republicans on Tuesday forced a surprise vote on the issue and blamed Democrats for scaring young people.

Rumors of reinstating the military draft, which have flourished for months in panicky e-mails, online chat rooms, college dorms and student newspapers, suddenly dominated the House floor yesterday in one of the strangest parliamentary maneuvers in memory. With even its sponsor voting against it, a bill to require young adults to perform military or civil service failed, 402 to 2.

Seeking to dispel suggestions that the war in Iraq could lead to reinstatement of the draft, House Republicans on Tuesday hastily brought the idea to a vote — with the express intent of shooting it down.

Moving to dismiss politically troublesome rumors that the war in Iraq could revive a military draft, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly defeated a bill Tuesday that would have restored mandatory service.

On the evening before the first Bush-Kerry debate, NBC Nightly News reported that all over the country college students and their parents are receiving letters and e-mails warning that the administration has a secret plan to restore a military draft.

Nobel Prize winner and Vietnam War veteran, Bobby Muller spoke, sometimes shouted from his wheelchair on stage to University students and faculty last night. "What the hell do you know out here?! What do you know about Islam?!"

"I don't fault you for not knowing. I fault us as a society," Muller continued on.

Reinstating the military draft — an idea scorned by President Bush and his rival, Sen. John Kerry, and with little support in Congress — is emerging as an issue in the fall election campaign, mainly because lots of young people believe conscription is in their future.

"The problem is that Iran really does think that there is a strong likelihood if the Bush administration comes back for a second term that they will go after them. And they've said, look, we'd rather fight the United States in Iraq, as opposed to waiting to fight in our own country..."

Most politicians think it's so radioactive, they won't go near it, and government officials keep insisting it's not going to happen any time soon. But the military draft is a subject that just won't go away, particularly for young Americans and the adults who love them...

Reinstating the military draft -- an idea scorned by President Bush and his rival, Sen. John Kerry, and with little support in Congress -- is emerging as an issue in the fall election campaign, mainly because lots of young people believe conscription is in their future...

Despite repeated assurances by the Bush administration that there are no plans to reinstitute conscription, a national survey released Wednesday found nearly six in 10 adults — 58 percent — are concerned the country "could be headed for a draft in the near future."...