Future of Draft System Hazy as Proponents, Foes Mobilize : The end of the Cold War has raised questions about whether to abolish the agency. The House slashed its budget severely.

With the Cold War over, should the United States abolish the Selective Service System--the bureaucracy set up to administer the military draft?

Congress has already gone halfway toward eliminating the agency. Last month, the House voted to slash the Selective Service System budget from $28.6 million to $5 million in fiscal 1994, leaving barely enough to maintain its files and computer programs.

The Senate is set to consider the issue when Congress comes back from its holiday recess, but the outlook for the measure is unclear. One thing is plain: The debate is certain to be emotional, with both liberals and conservatives split over the legislation.

The issue is especially awkward for President Clinton, given the political controversy over his efforts to avoid the draft during the Vietnam War.

Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget initially called for $29.1 million to continue the Selective Service System, but White House officials say he “hasn’t made up his mind yet” on the pending legislation to abolish the agency.

To opponents of the Selective Service System, the argument for abolishing it is simple: With the Soviet threat no longer here, the United States is not likely to need massive numbers of ground troops. They assert that the current all-volunteer armed forces are big enough to do the job.

Rep. Louis Stokes (D-Ohio), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that has proposed scrapping the system, contends that the Selective Service System is a relic of the past, and he argues that the money can be better spent on more pressing needs.

“The bottom line is that we are currently spending $25 million a year for a service that is not needed or required,” Stokes said. “If we ever need Selective Service again, we can reconstitute it” quickly without threatening the national security, he added.

But supporters of the system argue that with the size of the U.S. military force now shrinking, the system would be needed even more urgently if a full-scale war ever broke out. They say that maintaining the system is an “inexpensive insurance policy.”

Rep. Gerald B. H. Solomon (R-N.Y.), who led an unsuccessful fight in the House to save the agency, contends that if the system were dismantled, Clinton would have to pardon those who have violated the draft-registration law because there would be no one around to administer it.

The 267-person agency registers about 1.6 million young men each year, adding them to a computerized list of about 14 million youths between the ages of 18 and 26 whose names are on file at any one time.

Failure to register is a felony that can net the offender up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. Violators are barred from receiving federal college scholarships and job-training benefits and from obtaining jobs in the executive branch of government.

The government has not drafted anyone since mid-1973. The United States switched to an all-volunteer military on June 30 of that year. The agency goes through the motions each year only as a drill.

Some have argued that the Selective Service System may have other uses besides its role in military conscription--such as administering the “national service” program that Clinton has suggested.

But few analysts can offer any serious reasons for keeping it around. Even some military strategists concede that, as the Persian Gulf War showed two years ago, the United States has enough active and reserve forces to handle current threats.

Congressional strategists say there is still a better-than-even chance that the Senate may reject the House proposal, leaving it to a House-Senate conference committee to decide the agency’s fate. In that case, the prospects for keeping the system intact would be reasonably good.

If not, the system, after years of picking draftees by lottery, may be about to find that its own number is up.