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

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

Friday, Feb. 27, 2004

“Though there are some positive aspects of this policy, on the whole it is a deeply disappointing rollback of U.S. policy on landmines. This is another squandered opportunity for U.S. leadership on a crucial arms control and humanitarian issue.

“Worst of all, in a reversal of current U.S. policy, it says the United States will continue using landmines indefinitely. We are by far the most powerful nation on earth, and the world looks to us for leadership on this issue. When we back away from the progress we have pledged to rid the world of these indiscriminate weapons, others will ask why they, with their much weaker armies, should stop using them.

“Anti-personnel landmines have only limited military utility, while their proliferation around the world has been a plague on civilian populations and also for U.S. troops. Many combat veterans oppose using landmines because they have seen this. They continue to kill or maim our soliders in Iraq and Afghanistan. Ending this scourge not only is the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do. The Bush Administration has wasted this opportunity to move the world toward banning these indiscriminate weapons.

“Once again the Bush Administration had the opportunity to join the civilized world in solving a global crisis, and once again they have chosen unilateralism and arrogance over leadership and cooperation.”

NEWS BACKGROUNDER:
How The Administration’s Revised Policy Rolls Back Current U.S. Policy On Anti-Personnel Landmines:

1.) The Bush Administration says it will eliminate “persistent” (otherwise known as “dumb”) landmines by 2010. (These mines are not designed to self-destruct automatically after a set period of days or months, and remain active indefinitely.) Yet except in Korea, the United States has not used persistent mines anywhere for decades because of the danger they pose to innocent civilians and our own troops. The Bush Administration is crediting itself for eliminating a type of mine that the United States long ago stopped using except in Korea, even though the Bush Administration’s new policy reserves the right to use these mines for another 6 years.

2.) The Pentagon, during the Clinton Administration, pledged to end use of all anti-personnel mines outside of Korea, including self-destructing mines, by 2003. (Self-destructing mines are as indiscriminate as dumb mines, until they self-destruct; they also are subject to malfunction – more than 1000 self-destruct mines used in the first Gulf War did not self-destruct.) The Bush Administration abandons this pledge. This rollback now makes it U.S. policy to allow the use of self-destructing anti-personnel mines indefinitely.

3.) The Pentagon, during the Clinton Administration, pledged to “search aggressively” for alternatives to self-destructing anti-vehicle mine systems, by 2006. The Bush Administration abandons this pledge and will allow the use of these mines anywhere, indefinitely.

4.) In 1998, the Clinton Administration pledged that the United States would sign the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel mines by 2006, if suitable alternatives to anti-personnel landmines were fielded by then. The Bush Administration abandons this pledge. More than 150 nations now have joined the treaty, including all our NATO allies and all nations in the Western Hemisphere except the United States and Cuba.

5.) The Bush Administration says it will seek a worldwide ban on the sale or export of persistent mines. This approach was tried back in 1994 by the United States and Great Britain. It was a failure, as other nations (especially China, Pakistan, India and others that have not joined the Ottawa Treaty) insisted that if the United States – the world’s preeminent military power -- was unwilling to give up its costlier self-destruct mines, they would not give up their cheaper persistent mines.

6.) The Bush Administration says it will, within 2 years, begin destroying all persistent landmines outside of Korea. This is constructive; but in 1998 the Pentagon, during the Clinton Administration, pledged to destroy all persistent anti-personnel mines outside of Korea by 1999 – five years ago.

7.) The Administration proposes raising the funding of the State Department’s Humanitarian Mine Action Program by 50 percent (over FY03 levels) to $70 million. This is constructive.

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Contact: David Carle, 202-224-3693