HOW BUSH PLAN ROLLS BACK U.S. LANDMINE POLICY

Senator Leahy Issues March 12, 2004 Statement on Squandered Opportunity on Landmines

Feb. 27, 2004 Comment of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) On The Administration’s Revised Landmine Policy And It’s Reversal Of The U.S. Pledge To Eventually Sign The International Landmine Treaty

Senator Leahy Issues March 12, 2004 Statement on Squandered Opportunity on Landmines
March 12, 2004 (States News Service)

The office of Sen. Patrick S. Leahy, D-Vt., issued the following statement:

Mr. President, on February 27, I spoke on this floor about the Bush Administration's new policy on landmines, which unnamed Administration officials leaked to the press the previous day in order to give it the most positive spin possible.

I want to take a moment to discuss this because Senators deserve to know what the policy does and what it does not do.

The centerpiece of the policy is the Administration's announcement that it will eliminate, in six years, all persistent or "dumb" landmines that remain lethal indefinitely.

First, let me say that any decision to eliminate any type of landmine is a positive step. These indiscriminate weapons do not belong in the arsenal of the world's only superpower, or in the arsenal of any civilized nation, for that matter. They cannot differentiate between a child and a soldier. They are inhumane. They should be banned. So the fact that the Administration is pledging to get rid of these dumb mines, including anti-vehicle dumb mines, albeit not until 2010, is constructive.

But what the Administration did not say, is that the United States has not used this type of landmine for decades. We have not even used them in Korea. While we have stockpiles of these mines around the world, they are widely recognized to pose an unacceptable danger to civilians as well as to the mobility of our own troops.

I cannot imagine a combat officer who would support using these indiscriminate weapons in this day and age, and I would challenge the Administration to find one who says they would.

Essentially, what the Administration is saying, is that since we don't use these mines, we will get rid of them. That is their new policy, in a nutshell, at least that's the part of the policy they want to talk about.

We are eliminating a type of weapon we have not used probably since the Vietnam War. Again, a positive step, but a bit like saying we will no longer use leaded gasoline. In fact we stopped using leaded gasoline years ago. So what have we really done?

The Administration claims that this will, and I quote, "help reduce humanitarian risk and save the lives of U.S. military personnel and civilians." But since we do not use these mines, that claim is meaningful only to the extent that we can convince other nations to stop using them.

To do that, the Administration says it will seek a worldwide ban on the sale or export of dumb landmines. Again, a positive announcement, but how realistic? We tried this back in 1994, and we got nowhere because other nations refused to even discuss giving up their mines if we refused to give up our mines.

I would like to hear someone in the Administration say why they believe the reaction of other nations, like China, Russia, Pakistan and India will be any different this time.

Mr. President, the Administration spent over two years reviewing its landmine policy. The result is that they will eliminate the dumb mines the Pentagon no longer uses. But there is more to the policy.

What the Administration glossed over is that it is abandoning the key pledges the Pentagon made six years ago to phase out all anti-personnel mines outside of Korea by 2003 and in Korea by 2006. That commitment included not only dumb mines, but also self-destructing/self-deactivating mines.

The commitment to find suitable alternatives to replace these self-destructing/self-deactivating mines was painstakingly negotiated in 1998 between myself and the White House with the active involvement of the Pentagon.

The Administration now argues, and I quote, that "after they are no longer needed on the battlefield [these mines] detonate or turn themselves off, eliminating the threat to civilians." They say, and I quote, that "self-destructing/self-deactivating landmines have been rigorously tested and have never failed to destroy themselves or become inert within a set time."

It is true that these mines pose far less of a humanitarian problem than the long lasting dumb mines. If the world only used this type of self-destructing/self-deactivating mines, the number of mine casualties would be far less. But it is not that simple.

First, these mines are also dumb. Once activated, they cannot distinguish between an enemy soldier and a fleeing refugee any better than any other dumb mine.

Second, we have used this type of mine only once, and that was in the first Gulf War. After that war, U.S. and British deminers reportedly discovered thousands of these mines that had not self-destructed as designed, and which needed to be disarmed.

How many of those had self-deactivated is unknown, but the deactivation time is considerably longer than the time they are designed to self-destruct.

The bottom line is that every one of those mines had to be treated as lethal. No military officer in his right mind would send his troops through an area with those mines, when there is doubt about whether they still pose a danger.

Third and most important, by insisting that we will continue to use our more expensive self-destructing/self-deactivating mines - which the Bush policy does - we give other nations an excuse to continue to use their cheap dumb mines.

I cannot count how many times I have urged officials of other nations to stop using landmines, only for them to ask me when the U.S. is going to stop using landmines.

But this Administration, known for its unilateral arrogance, seems oblivious to this argument. It prefers to ignore that 150 nations have already banned every type of anti-personnel mine.

Mr. President, I tried for over two years to reach out to this Administration to find a way forward that we all could support. I was more than willing to compromise. I spoke with the Secretary of State. I spoke with the Secretary of Defense and Deputy Secretary of Defense. I spoke with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and with the former Chief of the Army. I spoke with the National Security Adviser. I even spoke with the President.

Retired US military officers, including some of our most distinguished combat officers, also urged the Administration to replace these indiscriminate weapons with man-in-the-loop alternatives which do not pose the same danger to civilians or our troops.

Yet, everything we said appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

Once again, the United States has decided to go it alone.

Once again, the White House has succumbed to hardliners in the Pentagon who have never seen a weapon they didn't like.

Once again, we have squandered a chance to show real leadership on an arms control and humanitarian issue that could have been so easily done by this Administration.

© 2004 States News Service