WASHINGTON, Oct. 16: Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Saturday renewed charges that US President George Bush plans to reinstate the military draft, which the Bush administration refuted saying they have no plan to do so.

The charge, coming a day after US authorities confirmed that as many as 19 members of an army reserve unit recently refused to go on a dangerous mission outside Baghdad, has revived the bitter memories of the Vietnam war for many Americans.

The reservists refused to deliver a fuel shipment north of Baghdad saying that it would have been a suicidal mission, authorities said. The soldiers claimed that the trucks sent to fetch them were not armour-plated, had not been properly serviced and would not have an armed escort.

Officials said the reservists, who were detained on Thursday, have since been released but could be reprimanded or even court-martialled. Insubordination in wartime is a grave offence, they said.

Such stories, and Senator Kerry's warning that President Bush was planning to reintroduce the draft, have reminded many in America of the days when young men were snatched away from their homes to fight in Vietnam against their will.

The most famous victim of the draft, a legal provision that allows the government to force its citizens to participate in a war even if they do not approve of it, was boxer Mohammed Ali, who was jailed for refusing to go to Vietnam.

"With George Bush, the plan for Iraq is more of the same and the great potential of a draft," said Mr Kerry while campaigning in the midwest.

Mr Kerry said he can't imagine how the Bush administration could continue "with the current overextension" of troops in Iraq without instituting the draft.

The Bush campaign reacted sharply to Mr Kerry's comments, saying that he was a candidate "willing to do or say anything to score political points".

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said Mr Bush has assured Americans he would not revive the draft. The administration would continue training Iraqis to replace US troops so that he (Mr Bush) does not have to send more troops to the "war zone", the spokesman added.

But a Kerry campaign spokesman, Mike McCurry, said it were the foreign policy choices of the Bush administration that would make the draft inevitable.

"If you go and talk to any college kid on any campus or report out what people are nervous about, you run into this," Mr McCurry said. "We get asked this all the time. This is something people are very worried about."

Rumours about a draft reinstatement have been rampant on the Internet, but Kerry campaign officials deny they are trying to stoke such fears among parents and young voters simply for political points.

A poll released last week by the Annenberg Public Policy Centre found that roughly half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 believe Mr Bush wants to reinstate the draft.

Republicans believe Mr Kerry, who has made references to the draft during his campaign, specifically raised the issue again while in Iowa, a battleground state with a history of anti-war political sentiment. But Mr Kerry said it was Mr Bush who failed to build alliances for the invasion of Iraq and thus overstretched the US military.