The Pentagon sharply rejected Monday a key general's assertion that a return to the military draft has always been "an option on the table" and should be considered.
"I can tell you emphatically that there is absolutely no consideration being given to reinstituting the draft," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. "The all-volunteer force has surpassed all expectations of its founders."
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, a White House deputy national security adviser, discussed the draft in a radio interview Friday in which he said military leaders were right to be concerned about the impact of repeated deployments on military morale and readiness.
Lute, who is in charge of coordinating the US war effort in Iraq, said the all-volunteer military is serving "exceedingly well" and the administration has not decided it needs to be replaced with a draft.
But he said, "I think it makes sense to certainly consider it, and I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table."
"But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another," he said in the interview with National Public Radio.
Reinstating the draft has become a virtual taboo since it was ended in 1973 near the end of the Vietnam War, and replaced with a smaller, better paid all-volunteer force.
The US military found that it preferred voluntary service to universal conscription because it drew better educated, more highly motivated recruits looking to make a career of the military.
