] WASHINGTON -- The government is taking the first steps ] toward a targeted military draft of Americans with ] special skills in computers and foreign languages. ] ] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is adamant that he will ] not ask Congress to authorize a draft, and officials at ] the Selective Service System, the independent federal ] agency that would organize any conscription, stress that ] the possibility of a so-called "special skills draft" is ] remote. ] ] Nonetheless, the agency has begun the process of creating ] the procedures and policies to conduct such a targeted ] draft in case military officials ask Congress to ] authorize it and the lawmakers agree to such a request. ] ] "Talking to the manpower folks at the Department of ] Defense and others, what came up was that nobody foresees ] a need for a large conventional draft such as we had in ] Vietnam," said Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the ] Selective Service System. "But they thought that if we ] have any kind of a draft, it will probably be a special ] skills draft." Computers? No, I don't know anything about computers. And I only speak English. Really. I forgot everything I learned in college. |