[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 4302-4304]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 A SQUANDERED OPPORTUNITY ON LANDMINES

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, on February 27, I spoke on the floor 
about the administration's new policy on landmines. It is a policy that 
some in the administration had leaked to the press the day before it 
was to be announced. And many believed it was being done to give it the 
most positive spin possible.
  The reason I want to take some time to discuss it just prior to this 
recess is some Senator may be asked about it. I want them to know what 
the policy does and what it does not do.
  The centerpiece of the policy is the administration's announcement 
that they will eliminate, in 6 years, all persistent or ``dumb'' 
landmines that remain lethal indefinitely.
  First, let me say that any decision by this or any other 
administration to

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eliminate any type of landmine is a positive step. I concur with the 
administration on this. These indiscriminate weapons do not belong in 
the arsenal of the world's only superpower. Actually, they do not 
belong in the arsenal of any civilized nation. They do not 
differentiate between a child and a soldier. They are inhumane. They 
should be banned.
  I have traveled to many parts of the world, sometimes in places where 
we use the Leahy War Victims Fund. I have seen those who have been 
crippled and disfigured by landmines.
  My wife is a nurse. Before she retired, she was on a medical surgical 
unit. She has gone into some of the surgery wards in these countries 
where a child had a limb blown off, and it had to be reamputated to fit 
a prosthesis. It is terrible. And while there are military people on 
either side who are injured or killed, it is usually civilians. The 
vast number are civilians.
  So the fact that the administration is pledging to get rid of these 
so-called dumb mines, including anti-vehicle dumb mines--albeit not 
until 2010--that is constructive. It sets a good example.
  But what was not said in the press release, of course, is that the 
United States has not used this type of landmine for decades. We have 
not even used them in Korea along the demilitarized zone.
  We have stockpiles of these mines around the world, but they are 
widely recognized by our military as posing not only an unacceptable 
danger to civilians, but also to our own troops. Once these mines are 
in the ground, they impede the mobility of our own forces. I cannot 
imagine any combat officer--certainly none trained by the United 
States--who would support using these indiscriminate weapons in this 
day and age.
  So the bottom line is that the administration is saying: Since we do 
not use these mines, have not used these mines for decades, we will get 
rid of them, and we want the world to credit us for that.
  Well, that is sort of like saying we are going to stop using leaded 
gasoline in the United States to reduce air pollution. Of course, we 
have not used leaded gasoline for years, so it really is not an issue.
  What the administration says is that its new policy will ``help 
reduce humanitarian risk and save the lives of U.S. military personnel 
and civilians.'' But insofar as we do not use these mines, and have not 
used them for years, the claim is meaningful only to the extent that we 
can convince other nations to stop using them.
  Now, to do that, the administration says it will seek a worldwide ban 
on the sale or export of dumb landmines. That is a positive 
announcement. But is it realistic?
  We tried this back in 1994. We got nowhere because other nations 
refused to even discuss giving up their mines if we refused to give up 
ours. I have yet to hear anybody say why they believe the reaction of 
other nations, such as China, Russia, Pakistan, and India, is going to 
be any different this time.
  After 2 years of reviewing the landmine policy, we say we are going 
to eliminate the mines we no longer use. But what the administration 
glosses over is that it has abandoned the key pledges the Pentagon made 
6 years ago to phase out all antipersonnel mines outside of Korea by 
2003, and in Korea by 2006. That would mean all the mines would be gone 
now, outside of Korea; and in Korea, the year after next. That used to 
be U.S. policy, until February 27.
  That commitment included not only dumb mines but also self-
destructing mines. And the commitment to find suitable alternatives to 
replace these self-destructing mines was painstakingly negotiated in 
1998 between myself and the White House and the Pentagon.
  The administration now defends its decision to abandon the pledge to 
phase out these weapons on the grounds that ``after they are no longer 
needed on the battle field, [these mines] detonate or turn themselves 
off, eliminating the threat to civilians.'' They say ``self-destructing 
landmines have been rigorously tested and have never failed to destroy 
themselves or become inert within a set time.''
  Now, these self-destructing mines, these mines with timers, do pose 
less of a danger to civilians. If the world only used this type of 
mine, we would still have casualties of civilians, but there would be 
far fewer.
  But it is not that simple. For one thing, the mines are also dumb. 
Once activated, they cannot distinguish between an enemy soldier and a 
fleeing refugee or a child trying to get out of harm's way any better 
than any other dumb mine.
  If they are touched, they will explode. You could be the farmer 
trying to get his animals out of harm's way because a war is going on. 
These mines cannot distinguish between the farmer and an enemy gunner.
  Secondly, we have only used this type of mine once and that was in 
the first Gulf War. We used them there because we had assurances from 
the Pentagon that they had been well tested and they would self-
destruct so we did not have to worry about them.
  Guess what. After that war, U.S. and British deminers discovered 
thousands of these mines that had not self-destructed as designed. They 
still needed to be disarmed. In fact, I had one leader in combat in the 
first gulf war who said: We did use them.
  I said: Did you trust them to self-destruct?
  He said: Heck no. Neither I nor anybody under my command would dare 
send our troops across a field where we have been told all these mines 
had self-destructed because we knew that a certain number of them would 
not.
  Most importantly, Mr. President, by insisting we will continue to use 
our more expensive self-destructing mines, which the administration 
does, we give other nations an excuse to continue to use their cheap 
dumb mines. I don't know how many times I have talked to officials of 
other nations. I have said: Why don't you stop using land mines?
  They have asked me: How can you, the most powerful nation history has 
ever known, tell us we should give up our land mines when you say you 
can't give up yours?
  There is no answer to that.
  There was strong opposition in the Pentagon when we passed my 
amendment--finally, in the end, every single Senator voted for it--
which banned the export of anti-personnel land mines. Now the Pentagon 
and everybody else brags about the step forward we took in banning the 
export of land mines. It was a good step. But when we had a chance to 
join the Ottawa process to ban these mines once and for all, we stepped 
back from it. And because of that, we made it easy for Russia and 
China, other countries, to do so.
  In fact, I believe in our hemisphere there are only two countries 
that don't ban land mines--the United States and Cuba. Everybody else 
has. In fact, 150 nations, including every member of NATO except the 
United States, has joined the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel 
mines.
  It is arrogance for our country to take such a unilateral attitude, 
for us to say: We know it is for your own good, get rid of land mines, 
but we won't.
  Many times on this floor I have talked about flying in a helicopter 
along the Honduras-Nicaragua border at the height of the contra war. I 
stopped at a hospital on the Honduras side, an area carved out of the 
jungle. It was a very rudimentary hospital, with a small, separate unit 
for an operating room that was air-conditioned and sterile. The 
hospital part had a dirt floor, barracks, row after row of cots, in the 
corner, just some blankets.
  A young boy stayed there, 12 years old or so. He had been living 
there for years since he lost his leg. He hobbled around on a homemade 
crutch. He was a peasant child who could not go to work in the jungle 
and help his family to get food because he was not up to it. He 
couldn't climb the steep trails. He had been out looking for food when 
he stepped on a land mine.
  I asked him whether it was put there by the Sandinistas or the 
contras. He didn't know who they were. He didn't even know there was 
another country just over the mountains called Nicaragua. But he did 
know his life was changed. Unlike those of us who are

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privileged to serve in this body where, if we lost a leg we could 
continue to do our work, be paid the same, there would be some 
inconveniences, but we would make it. Not he. If he didn't have the 
floor of the hospital dormitory and if he didn't have the medics to 
give him some food, he had no place to go. There are thousands of 
people--thousands of children--like that.
  After that, we started the Leahy war veterans fund, which to the 
credit of our Nation, does use $12 million a year to buy artificial 
limbs, wheelchairs, and other assistance for war victims. We have 
passed a law to ban the export of land mines.
  But it is like trying to stop a flood. As long as people continue to 
make them, continue to use them, they are out there. We can't bring 
more pressure on China, one of the big makers and exporters of land 
mines, because they say, rightly so, the U.S. still uses them.
  It is so frustrating. I come from a beautiful State, as does the 
Presiding Officer. I have hundreds of acres of my tree farm, wonderful 
fields and hills and mountain trails on which I can walk. My children 
and grandchildren do. It is so much fun. All you worry about is that 
you might trip and skin your knee. You don't have to worry about a land 
mine.
  Somebody said to me in one of these countries, when they were asking 
about land mines and why we didn't do more in the United States to get 
rid of them: How long would it take you in the United States to ban 
them if your children had to go to schools where they were told, you 
walk exactly between these two lines because, if you step over it, you 
might have your legs blown off? Or if you are like the teenage girl in 
Bosnia whose family sent her away at the beginning of the war so she 
would be safe and finally got word to her that it is safe to come back 
and she was running to her family and stepped on a mine. Her legs were 
blown off. I saw that young woman and talked with her in a hospital 
where the Doctors Without Borders and the Leahy War Victims Fund were 
helping her and other mine victims.
  If this was happening in Washington down on The Mall, if this was 
happening on the playgrounds of America, we would be rising up and 
saying: Get rid of these things.
  I have talked about this so many times that I am like a broken 
record. But I will keep talking about it as long as I am in the Senate. 
I will keep pushing and I will keep traveling around the world working 
with people who want to get rid of landmines. I will keep raising money 
for landmine victims, and I will keep trying to get rid of landmines.
  I hope someday this wonderful country of ours, which I love and every 
one of us loves so much, will stand up and say: Enough. We will, by our 
own example--not by unilateral arrogance saying you get rid of them, 
but we won't--use the moral suasion of our Nation and get rid of 
landmines. Maybe then others will, too.
  Madam President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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