‘No Brainer’: Chiefs Must Not Accept Backdoor Landmine Ban

(Washington, D.C.): If the Clinton Administration’s rhetoric is to be credited, the United
States is
at this moment poised to go to war with Iraq. As part of its highly publicized preparations for this
conflict, the Pentagon has dispatched some 6,000 ground troops to Kuwait. Their critical task:
Deter another attack by Saddam’s vastly larger forces against the kingdom — an attack which
could deny the U.S. what is today its most important forward base of operations in the region.

The frightfully exposed position of these troops is a vivid reminder of the circumstances in
which
America often finds itself, namely obliged to project power over long distances and to insert onto
foreign shores military units that are, at least temporarily, seriously outnumbered by their
adversaries. To prevent such operations from being suicide missions, the U.S.
military equips its
troops with short-duration (“smart”) anti-personnel landmines (APLs).<a
href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾ These devices are used
to secure defensive positions and to shape the battlefield — measures that may be the difference
between victory and defeat, even between life and death for numerically disadvantaged American
troops.

You Can’t Be Serious

The Center for Security Policy has learned that, incredibly, the Clinton
Administration has
chosen this moment to ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to agree to a draft Presidential Decision
Directive (PDD) that would commit the United States to conform to the international
landmine ban signed last December in Ottawa, even though the U.S. would continue to
refrain
from becoming a party to that accord.

Such an initiative, reportedly being made on an extremely close-hold basis at this writing,
would
represent an extraordinary breach of faith by President Clinton. After all, on 17 September 1997
he declared, in announcing his refusal to agree to sign the Ottawa treaty:

“As Commander-in-Chief,

I will not send our soldiers to defend the freedom of
our
people and the freedom of others without doing everything we can to make them
as secure as possible….There is a line that I simply cannot cross, and that line is
the safety and security of our men and women in uniform

.”<a

href=”#N_2_”>

⁽²⁾

Even if President Clinton is now prepared to cross the line that assures the “safety and
security of our men and women in uniform,” it strains credulity that the senior leadership of those
men and women will also be willing to do so. After all, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have publicly
declared their opposition to measures — whether imposed unilaterally or multilaterally — that
would impinge upon the U.S. military’s ability responsibly to use APLs. For example:

• On 10 July 1997, the entire senior leadership of the U.S. military — i.e., every
  member of the
  Joint Chiefs of Staff and each of the Combatant Commanders-in-Chief — sent an
  unprecedented letter ⁽³⁾ to Chairman of the Senate Armed
  Services Committee, Senator Strom
  Thurmond (R-SC). It stated their strong opposition to an effort to impose a
  moratorium on
  the use of APLs through legislation — a step these 16 officers declared would “unnecessarily
  endanger U.S. forces and significantly restrict the ability to conduct combat operations
  successfully.” The letter made the following, among other, points:

“Landmines are a ‘combat multiplier’ for US land forces, especially since the dramatic
reduction of the force structure. Self-destructing landmines greatly enhance the ability to shape
the battlefield, protect unit flanks, and maximize the effects of other weapons systems.
Self-destructing landmines are particularly important to the protection of early entry and light
forces, which must be prepared to fight outnumbered during the initial stages of a deployment.

“Until the United States has a capable replacement for self-destructing APL,
maximum
flexibility and warfighting capability for American combat commanders must be preserved.
The lives of our sons and daughters should be given the highest priority when deciding
whether or not to ban unilaterally the use of self-destructing APL.” (Emphasis added.)

• On 13 September, the then-incoming Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General
  Hugh
  Shelton, wrote a forceful defense of APLs in a letter to Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK).<a
  href=”#N_4_”>⁽⁴⁾ It said,
  in part:

“Anti-personnel landmines are integral to the defense of the Republic of Korea, and as
long
as there is risk of aggression in Korea and we do not have suitable alternatives fielded, we must
ensure the best protection of our forces and those of our allies….

“I firmly believe that our anti-tank (AT) and anti-vehicle (AV) munitions – which are
mixed systems composed entirely of smart AT and AP mines that self-destruct or
self-deactivate in a relatively short period of time – are vital to the protection of our men
and women in the field….Our smart, mixed AT/AV munitions are critical to our efforts to
protect our men and women in the field….The military utility of these systems is, in my
mind, unquestionable.” (Emphasis added.)

Additional Voices of Experience

The Nation’s active duty military leaders are not the only ones to have made their opposition
to
anti-personnel landmine bans a matter of public record. President Clinton is also in receipt of a
letter dated 21 July 1997 in which 24 distinguished four-star Army and Marine generals with
first-hand experience with mine operations urged him to reject unilateral or multilateral APL
prohibitions.⁽⁵⁾ The signatories included: a former Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Gen.
John W. Vessey); a former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe — and Secretary of
State (Gen.
Alexander M. Haig, Jr.); six former Commandants of the Marine Corps (Gens.
Leonard F.
Chapman, Jr., Louis H. Wilson, Robert H. Barrow, P.X. Kelley, Alfred M. Gray and Carl
E. Mundy); two former Chiefs of Staff of the Army (Gens. William C.
Westmoreland and
Gordon R. Sullivan); two recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, (Gen. Wilson
and
Gen. Raymond G. Davis, former Assistant Marine Corps Commandant); four service
vice chiefs
of staff (the Army’s Gen. Robert W. RisCassi and the Marines’ Generals Davis,
Walter E.
Boomer and Joseph J. Went); and ten generals who retired from
posts as the
Commanders-in-Chief of major regional or Army commands (Gens. George B. Crist,
Michael S.
Davison, John W. Foss, Frederick J. Kroesen, Gary E. Luck, David M. Maddox, Glenn K.
Otis, Crosbie E. Saint, Donn A. Starry and Louis C. Wagner, Jr.)
These officers wrote, in
part:

“We write to express our strong opposition to U.S. participation in any international

agreement that would prohibit the defensive use by American forces of modern,

self-destructing anti-personnel landmines (APLs) and/or the use of so-called ‘dumb

mines’ in the Korean demilitarized zone.

In our experience, such responsible use of
APLs is not only consistent with the Nation’s humanitarian responsibilities; it is
indispensable to the safety of our troops in many combat and peacekeeping
situations.

“…Studies suggest that U.S./allied casualties may be increased by as much
as 35% if self-destructing mines are unavailable — particularly in the ‘halting
phase’ of operations against aggressors. Such a cost is especially unsupportable
since the type of mines utilized by U.S. forces and the manner in which they are
employed by those forces do not contribute to the humanitarian problem that
impels diplomatic and legislative initiatives to ban APLs.”

Rewarding Fraud?

Adding to the ignominy of the Clinton Administration’s renewed effort to euchre the Chiefs
into
disavowing such well-founded military advice is one other, recently disclosed fact: In their
campaign to promote an international ban on landmines, the anti-APL activists have
deliberately inflated the numbers of landmines now in the ground. The rationale for
such
cynical behavior? The bigger the number, the more irresistible the demand for a treaty abolishing
these weapons.

The reality and magnitude of this deceit was actually acknowledged earlier this month by one
of
these activists. The 8 February edition of the Washington Post featured an article by
Laurie
Boulden, the principal researcher for the Landmines in Southern Africa Project at the
South
African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg. According to data cited by Ms.
Boulden, the number of landmines in the ground have been exaggerated by the landmine
ban campaign — and by sympathetic governments and non-governmental organizations —
by as much as 50 to 75 percent. She candidly acknowledges that, “Statistics have been
an
effective tool for astounding the listener and generating support for a ban.” Ms. Boulden goes on
to confess, however:

“Because of the nature and history of anti-personnel mines and their use, it is

impossible to verify how many are in place. I have spoken to many ‘deminers’ —

primarily those involved in clearing mines in Mozambique and Angola — and they say

the ‘official’ numbers vastly overstate what they have found.

Exaggerating the

problem, they argue, creates a sense of hopelessness about the task of removal at a

time when real progress is being made.”

The discouragement of deminers induced by such willful misrepresentations is of a piece
with the other, counterproductive impact of the landmine ban: It diverts resources away
from
the one thing that actually reduces the humanitarian disaster caused by the irresponsible
use of anti-personnel landmines by nations other than the United States (and subnational
groups) — removing APLs from the ground.⁽⁶⁾
As Ms. Boulden puts it:

“Thoughtful consideration of landmine numbers is important not just for truth’s sake,

but because

some demining operators — the real landmine workers — believe
false
reporting creates problems for the future of mine clearance.

The operators, who

usually stay away from politics, are concerned that inflated figures lead to inflated

pessimism.

“While land mines are a hot issue now, they fear that potential donors will send
their money elsewhere, perhaps to causes that seem more likely to produce a
finite, achievable goal. Donors and organizations supported the recent campaign
to ban land mines in droves; it was a time-bound, concrete goal. Billionaire
financier George Soros, a supporter of the ban campaign, caused a big stir in the
demining community when he said publicly in December 1996 that he would not
give money for mine removal until it becomes more cost-effective.”

The Bottom Line

Clearly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff must not betray the trust of their troops (particularly if we
are on
the eve of hostilities), repudiate their own, on-the-record professional military advice (and that of
some of their most eminent retired colleagues) and reward the fraud perpetrated by those who
aspire to the absurdly impossible task of disinventing anti-personnel landmines. Their response to
any Clinton Administration effort to reopen the idea of subordinating U.S. forces to the Ottawa
ban should be a respectful — but firm — “Thanks, but no thanks.”

– 30 –

1. The only place where the United States military currently uses
long-duration APLs is on the
Korean Peninsula, in the well-marked no-man’s-land near the Demilitarized Zone.

2. See the Center’s Press Release entitled
Back From the Brink: Center Commends President
Clinton For Rejecting a Defective, Unverifiable Landmine Ban (<a
href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-P_141″>No. 97-P 141, 18 September
1997).

3. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
Celestial Navigation: Pentagon’s Extraordinary
’64-Star’ Letter Shows Why the U.S. Cannot Agree to Ban All Landmines (<a
href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_97″>No. 97-D 97, 14
July 1997).

4. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
New Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Draws
Line in the Sand: No Exceptions, No Military ‘Chop’ on Landmine Ban (<a
href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-D_136″>No. 97-D 136, 16
September 1997).

5. See the Center’s Press Release entitled
Many of Nation’s Most Respected Military Leaders
Join Forces to Oppose Bans on Use of Self-Destructing Landmines (<a
href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=97-P_101″>No. 97-P 101, 21 July
1997).

6. The International Committee of the Red Cross-sponsored
conference held in Oslo in
September 1997 to finalize the Ottawa treaty is estimated to have cost some $25 million.
According to data cited by Ms. Boulden, that sum would have been enough to fund over
800 deminers in Mozambique for three years!