[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 136 (Friday, October 3, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10315-S10317]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        A LANDMINE IS A LANDMINE

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, for those who are planning schedules, I do 
not expect to take long, but I will speak about an issue that I have 
talked about many times, the issue of landmines, something, I must 
admit, I think about in waking hours and sometimes in my dreams.
  There was an ad in yesterday's Roll Call newspaper. It said:

       There's just one problem with President Clinton's 
     ``landmine ban.'' . . . It doesn't ban landmines.

  An ad in the Hill newspaper 2 days ago asked the question:

       Would a landmine by any other name be as deadly?

  That may seem like a strange question because the answer is so 
obvious. Landmines are those tiny hidden explosives that kill and maim 
randomly. They are strewn by the thousands, by the tens of millions, in 
over 100 million in over 60 countries.
  They do things like what is shown in this photograph. They do it to 
children in as many foreign countries as there are States in the United 
States. That was a healthy young child walking down a road. That child 
in a single instant was maimed, crippled for the rest of his life, if 
he survives the surgery he will have to undergo. If he survives, he 
will grow up in a poor country with one arm, one leg and somehow be 
expected to make a living.
  Imagine if something like this was happening in the United States. We 
would call it terrorism. We would make it a Federal crime. We would do 
everything possible to stop it. At my own home in Vermont, I can walk 
through acres of fields and woods, I can do it easily at this time of 
the year, in the great beauty of the fall foliage. If I was in most of 
these other countries, I would not dare step off the traveled part of 
the road.
  So there should not be any question about what a landmine is. For 
hundreds of millions of people around the world, they are a daily, 
deadly nightmare. Everyday on their way to the fields, or to gather 
water or in school yards or on roads once safe to travel, innocent 
people, often children, are blown to bits by these indiscriminate 
weapons.
  A year ago at the United Nations, President Clinton called on the 
nations of the world to ban antipersonnel landmines. The President 
said:

       The United States will lead a global effort to eliminate 
     these terrible weapons and stop the enormous loss of human 
     life.

  Those were inspiring words. I commend him today for saying them; I 
commended him at the time.
  But today we are confronted with a question we thought had been 
answered a long time ago: When is a landmine a landmine?
  It is relevant today because 2 weeks ago, rather than join 89 other 
nations, including most of our NATO allies, in agreeing to sign a 
treaty to ban antipersonnel mines, the White House resorted to 
doublespeak. Rather than make the hard choice, the right choice, rather 
than pledge unambiguously to do away with these weapons, they said one 
thing but then they did another. They said the United States would ban 
antipersonnel mines, but then in the same breath, they redefined what 
an antipersonnel landmine is so they wouldn't have to ban them after 
all.
  Mr. President, some people were fooled, but not many. A September 24 
article in the Washington Post begins with the same question:

       When is an antipersonnel landmine . . . no longer an 
     antipersonnel landmine?
       When the President of the United States says so.

  I am told that article upset some people in the Pentagon. I am not 
surprised. When the Pentagon tried to explain that a weapon that just a 
few months ago they called an antipersonnel landmine is no longer an 
antipersonnel landmine today--they said it was yesterday; today they 
say it is not--it is like watching someone who is caught telling a lie 
that even he convinced himself was not a lie, and then acting offended 
at the suggestion he tried to pull a fast one.
  A weapon they once called a landmine, now isn't. Why do they say 
that? So they can say ``Look, we banned landmines. Except some of them 
we renamed so we can still use them.'' It is Orwellian at best.
  The Pentagon thought they could come up with a nifty way to get 
around a landmine ban that they never wanted. They asked themselves, 
``How can we be part of a treaty that bans antipersonnel mines, and 
still keep using them? We'll just call landmines something different. 
Then you don't really have to ban them, you can just say you are.''
  If antipersonnel mines are used in the vicinity of an antitank mine, 
then they miraculously become something different from an antipersonnel 
landmine even though that is what they were called just a few monts 
ago. Without changing in any way, shape or form or explosive 
capability, they suddenly become a submunition, not a landmine.
  Thank God, Mr. President, we have banned landmines from our arsenal. 
Only now we have submunitions. I am waiting for the appropriations bill 
to come forward to pay to relabel these millions of former landmines. 
Somebody will have to paint over where it says ``landmine'' and relabel 
them as ``submunitions.'' And since submunitions are not banned, 
presto, the United States can say it is banning landmines even though 
everyone knows we are not.
  Unfortunately, this kind of cynical ploy is seen too often in 
Washington. That is the problem.
  So, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Washington Post 
article and a September 19 editorial from the Rutland Daily Herald, a 
Vermont newspaper that has kept up with the international campaign to 
ban landmines, be printed in the Record at the end of my remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibits 1 and 2.)
  Mr. LEAHY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, there are serious issues here. One, of course, is 
about pretending a landmine is something else, in a last-minute attempt 
to avoid being embarrassed by being left out of an international treaty 
that the United States called for a year ago. It is embarrassing. We 
urged other nations to negotiate a treaty, and when they did we stayed 
out of the negotiations until

[[Page S10316]]

the last minute and then we said we would not sign it.
  But another serious question is what to do with certain types of 
antitank mines that the United States has in its arsenal and that are 
packaged with antipersonnel mines.
  I fully understand how important the Pentagon considers these weapons 
to our defense. I have spoken with people in the Pentagon about this. I 
do not intend to minimize this problem. What I am saying, though, is 
face the problem, be straight about it, do not play word games.
  Because it is just as important that the United States support a 
landmine ban. If we are not going to be among the 100 nations that sign 
the treaty in Ottawa this December--and I understand that is the 
President's decision--then we need to find a way to remove the 
obstacles that keep us from signing, because I the United States needs 
to be part of this treaty. If that means redesigning our antitank 
mines, then that is what we ought to do.
  We need to sign the treaty as soon as possible, because as remarkable 
an accomplishment as it is, without the United States it is never going 
to achieve the international ban that everyone, including the 
President, wants. No country has the ability that the United States has 
to broaden support for the treaty and obtain adherence to it. Nobody 
can exert the leadership that the world's only superpower can exert. 
The American people do not want the United States to use a weapon that 
does not belong in the arsenal of civilized nations. They do not want 
the United States to be standing in the way of a treaty that will set a 
new moral standard for the next century. As the most powerful Nation, 
it is time to put an end to the doublespeak and the excuses and get 
busy solving the problem.
  Mr. President, I said when I spoke in Oslo to the representatives of 
nations and organizations that were meeting there, I dream of a 
century, a new century, when armies of humanity dig up, disarm, and 
destroy landmines and nobody--nobody--puts new landmines down. Think 
what a century that would be for the children and the children of the 
children in those countries.
  Think what that would mean to the United States when it sends 
peacekeepers around the world, when it sends humanitarian workers, 
missionaries, doctors, whatever. Think what it would mean if they did 
not have to face the constant threat of landmines.
  Think what it would mean if we could go into countries that today 
have to spend their scarce resources to import food because their 
people cannot go into their fields to plant or to harvest, fields that 
are death traps because of landmines. There might be only one landmine 
in a field, but if you do not know where that landmine is, there may as 
well be a hundred.
  Think what it would mean if we could go to countries ravaged by civil 
war and now reaching toward democracy, to help them rebuild the 
infrastructure they need and not have to spend money on removing 
landmines, expending $100 to $1,000 to remove a $3 or $5 landmine.
  Think how wonderful it would be if our country did not have to fund, 
every year now to the tune of $5 million, the Leahy War Victims Fund 
which pays for artificial limbs--something that is supported, I say 
with gratitude, by every Member of this Senate, Republican and 
Democrat. But think if we did not have to do that. Think if we would 
not have to see children learning to walk on crude prosthetics. Think 
what a different world it would be.
  We have worked to ban nuclear testing. We have worked to ban chemical 
weapons. Far more civilians have died and been injured and maimed by 
landmines than by nuclear weapons or chemical weapons.
  We can find a way to protect the legitimate defense needs of the 
United States and to maintain our legitimate obligations around the 
world whether on the Korean Peninsula or anywhere else. We can do that 
and still be part of the remarkable global effort to ban landmines.
  Mr. President, I have been in many countries where I have gotten out 
of a car and been told where I should walk, to be careful, that I 
should step only here, not a foot away. I remember in one country I was 
about to step off the road and somebody grabbed my arm and yanked me 
back because there were landmines there.
  These are things I remember, and they are a daily terror for people 
who live there.
  Mr. President, let us join together to bring that to an end.

                               Exhibit 1

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 24, 1997]

           Clinton Directive on Mines: New Form, Old Function

                            (By Dana Priest)

       When is an antipersonnel land mine--a fist-sized object 
     designed to blow up a human being--no longer an antipersonnel 
     land mine?
       When the president of the United States says so.
       In announcing last week that the United States would not 
     sign an international treaty to ban antipersonnel land mines, 
     President Clinton also said he had ordered the Pentagon to 
     find technological alternatives to these mines. ``This 
     program,'' he said, ``will eliminate all antipersonnel land 
     mines from America's arsenal.''
       Technically speaking, the president's statement was not 
     quite accurate.
       His directive left untouched the millions of little devices 
     the Army and Defense Department for years have been calling 
     antipersonnel land mines. These mines are used to protect 
     antitank mines, which are much larger devices meant to 
     disable enemy tanks and other heavy vehicles.
       The smaller ``protectors'' are shot out of tanks or dropped 
     from jets and helicopters. When they land, they shoot out 
     threads that attach themselves to the ground with tiny hooks, 
     creating cobweb-like tripwires. Should an enemy soldier try 
     to get close to the antitank mine, chances are he would trip 
     a wire, and either fragments would explode at ground level or 
     a handball-sized grenade would pop up from the antipersonnel 
     mine to about belly height. In less than a second, the 
     grenade would explode, throwing its tiny metal balls into the 
     soldier's flesh and bones.
       In the trade, these ``mixed'' systems have names such as 
     Gator, Volcano, MOPMS and Area Denial Artillery Munition, or 
     ADAM.
       These mines, Clinton's senior policy director for defense 
     policy and arms control, Robert Bell, explained later, ``are 
     not being banned under the president's directive because they 
     are not antipersonnel land mines.'' They are, he said 
     ``antihandling devices,'' ``little kinds of explosive 
     devices'' or, simply, ``munitions.''
       Not according to the Defense Department, which has used 
     them for years.
       When the Pentagon listed the antipersonnel land mines it 
     was no longer allowed to export under a 1992 congressionally 
     imposed ban, these types were on the list.
       And when Clinton announced in January that he would cap the 
     U.S. stockpile of antipersonnel land mines in the inventory, 
     they were on that list too.
       At the time, there were a total of 1 million Gators, 
     Volcanos and MOPMs, as well as 9 million ADAMs. (Only some 
     ADAMs are used in conjunction with antitank mines, and those 
     particular devices are no longer considered antipersonnel 
     land mines.)
       The unclassified Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing charts used 
     to explain the impact of legislation to Congress this year 
     explicitly state that Gators, Volcanos, MOPMS and ADAMs are 
     antipersonnel land mines.
       So does a June 19 Army information paper titled ``U.S. 
     Self-Destructing Anti-Personnel Landmine Use.'' So does a 
     fact sheet issued in 1985 by the Army Armament, Munition and 
     Chemical Command.
       As does a recent Army ``Information Tab,'' which explains 
     that the Gator is ``packed with a mix of `smart' AP 
     [antipersonnel] and `smart' AT (antitank] mines.''
       And when Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, vice chairman of 
     the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed reporters at the White 
     House on May 16, 1996, he said: ``Our analysis shows that the 
     greatest benefit of antipersonnel land mines is when they are 
     used in conjunction with antitank land mines. . . . If you 
     don't cover the antitank mine field with antipersonnel mines, 
     it's very easy for the enemy to go through the mine field.''
       A diplomatic dispute over the types of antipersonnel land 
     mines Ralston was describing then and arms control adviser 
     Bell sought to redefine last week was one of the main reasons 
     the United States decided last week not to sign the 
     international treaty being crafted in Oslo, Norway.
       U.S. negotiators argued that because these mines are 
     programmed to eventually self-destruct, they are not 
     responsible for the humanitarian crisis--long-forgotten mines 
     injuring and killing civilians--that treaty supporters hoped 
     to cure with a ban, and therefore should be exempt from the 
     ban.
       Also, because other countries had gotten an exemption for 
     the type of antihandling devices they use to prevent soldiers 
     from picking up antitank mines--U.S. negotiators contended 
     that the United States should get an exemption for the small 
     mines it uses for the same purpose.
       Negotiators in Oslo did not accept Washington's stance. 
     They worried that other countries might seek to exempt the 
     types of antipersonnel mines they wanted to use, too, and the 
     whole treaty would soon become meaningless.
       The administration was not trying to deceive the public, 
     Bell said in an interview yesterday, bristling at the 
     suggestion. Given the fact that the U.S. devices are used to

[[Page S10317]]

     protect antitank mines, ``it seems entirely common-sensical 
     to us'' to call them antihandling devices.
       Said Bell: ``This was not a case of us trying to take mines 
     and then define the problem away.''

                               Exhibit 2

            [From the Rutland Daily Herald, Sept. 19, 1997]

                           Clinton's Stumble

       Sen. Patrick Leahy is charitable to President Clinton in 
     his statement, printed below, about the treaty negotiated 
     this week in Oslo, Norway, banning anti-personnel land mines.
       Leahy says he is convinced Clinton wants to see land mines 
     eliminated and that Clinton's commitment is real.
       But his statement also contains a damning account of 
     Clinton's pusillanimous surrender to the Pentagon and his 
     incompetent, eleventh-hour effort to negotiate a compromise. 
     Leahy, a champion of the international effort to ban land 
     mines, covers up his scorn for Clinton's effort with the 
     barest fig leaf of decorum.
       The land mine negotiations are an excellent lesson in why 
     the U.S. Constitution ensures that control of the military 
     remains in civilian hands. In a democracy, the U.S. military 
     is an instrument of the people, not a separate warrior caste. 
     Thus, it is up to the civilian government to institute the 
     humanitarian standards and the political boundaries that 
     reflect the people's values. Clinton chickened out.
       Clinton used Korea as an excuse, but in doing so he failed 
     to make the necessary calculation; the marginal difficulty of 
     reconfiguring our defenses in Korea weighed against the daily 
     carnage the land mine treaty is designed to prevent.
       About 100 nations have signed on to the treaty, which 
     forbids them to use, produce, acquire, store or transfer 
     anti-personnel land mines. They have also agreed to destroy 
     current stocks and to remove any mines they have in place. 
     Further, they have agreed to assist in the care of land mine 
     victims.
       The treaty represents an extraordinary response, outside 
     the usual bureaucratic channels of the United Nations, by the 
     governments of the world to a popular demand for change.
       U.S. participation is necessary, however, if the ban is to 
     become a true worldwide ban. That's because there is no 
     chance those nations who have not signed will join the ban 
     until the United States does. These include China, Russia, 
     India, Pakistan and Israel, all of which could continue to 
     serve as sources for land mines for terrorist organizations.
       Thus, Leahy is holding to his goal of making the United 
     States a signatory of the treaty. A bill of his that has 60 
     co-sponsors would have established a ban on use of land mines 
     by the United States in 2000. The prospect that that bill 
     might pass goaded the Clinton administration into joining the 
     Oslo talks in the first place.
       Now Leahy plans to consult with participants in the Oslo 
     talks, including the Canadians who have led the treaty 
     movement, plus Clinton and members of Congress, to determine 
     how best to move the United States toward signing the treaty. 
     Pushing the Leahy-Hagel bill, which includes an exception for 
     Korea under some circumstances, is one option.
       It is clear Clinton needs to be reminded he was elected by 
     the people, not by the Pentagon, and that the people believe 
     progress in ending use of this barbaric weapon is important. 
     Leahy scoffs at the notion that the most powerful nation in 
     the world requires this primitive weapon to protect itself. 
     The message to policymakers in Washington must be that it is 
     shameful the United States has failed to join a worldwide 
     effort to make the world a safer and more civilized place.

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I see my distinguished friend from Georgia 
back on the floor. So I yield the floor.
  Mr. COVERDELL addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. COVERDELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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