Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich is accusing the Bush Administration of laying plans to reinstate a military draft. About two-hundred students at Valley High School in West Des Moines got out of class to hear Kucinich speak in the school’s auditorium, but the raucous atmosphere quickly turned sober as Kucinich began talking about a draft. Ben Hopkins, one of the students, says he doesn’t want to go to war, especially to a place like the Middle East where Hopkins says there’s “ruthless violence all over the place.” Zach Tafelski doesn’t want to be drafted, either. Tafelski says a draft would be “horrible” because so many kids have dreams of going to college and it would be “tough” to delay their lives with a stint in the service. Kucinich, who is an Ohio Congressman, has made his opposition to the war in Iraq a cornerstone of his presidential campaign. Kucinich says young people realize how wrong it is for the U.S. to be in Iraq, and are concerned about the direction of the war. Kucinich accuses the Bush Administration of lining up staff for local draft boards. Kucinich says 85,000 new troops are being sent in to Iraq so the troops who’ve been there a year can rotate out and another 43,000 Guardsmen are being told to be at a readiness status. Kucinich says those numbers indicate to him that there’s “no question” a “draft is in the offing.”
