LAND MINES. Over 100 million uncleared land mines exist in the world today. Five million more land mines are produced each year. Land mines claim over 500 victims every week. There are millions of American-manufactured land mines in the ground worldwide. Over 26,000 people have been killed or maimed by land mines every year. More civilians die from landmine injuries after a war than soldiers during a war. Land mines are usually used to terrorize, kill, and maim civilian populations.

Most of the world's 100 million land mines were planted in such places as Afghanistan, Angola, and Cambodia. For example between 1975 and 1979 Cambodia's Khmer Rouge, a nation of 9 million people, buried 6 million land mines.

The United States Campaign to Ban Land Mines, a coalition of over 175 American organization across the country, expressed its disappointment at the Clinton Administration's statement that it will turn to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD) to negotiate an antipersonnel land mines. Supporters of the land mine ban included 15 retired American generals, including commanders from Korea, Vietnam, NATO, and the Persian Gulf, and Senator James McGovern of Massachusetts who nominated the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines for the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. Others included Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, who, while pleased that the government is pursuing a ban, believed the Canadian Initiative "establishes a moral and tactical imperative for bringing holdout nations aboard." Leahy created the Leahy War Victims Fund to provide artificial limbs to landmine victims after meeting landmine victims in Central America. He wrote the legislation that stopped American exports of antipersonnel mines and the legislation that stopped the United States use of antipersonnel mines for at least a year.

In December 1997 in Ottawa, Clinton took the lead in refusing to sign an international agreement which banned all land mines. But Clinton did promise to begin to phase out land mines by 2004. In opposing the treaty, he pointed to the heavily mined areas between North and South Korea and stated that this was the most effective way to stop Chinese aggression.

One hundred and forty nations signed the land mine ban treaty, and it was ratified by 117 of them. However, the largest manufacturers of land mines -- the United States, Canada, India, and Pakistan -- refused to sign the pact.

The Bush administration backed away from a promise made by the Clinton White House that the United States would eventually comply with an international treaty banning land mines. The White House maintained that American forces may need to use land mines. Secretary of State Powell insisted that the Bush administration was not turning its back on international cooperation, although it had serious objections to some treaties. He said, "Just because they are multilateral, that doesn't mean they are good."

In a letter to Democratic Congressman James McGovern , a leading congressional critic of land mines, the State Department's chief lobbyist said that the administration was reviewing "the need for land mines on the modern battlefields of the future." Paul Kelly, head of the State Department's legislative affairs bureau, added that the department believes that land mine policy should be left "to our colleagues in the Department of Defense for their determination and judgment." (Los Angeles Times, August 3, 2001)

2. CLUSTER BOMBS. In February 2007, the Bush administration rejected an international call to abandon the use of cluster bombs. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, “We ... take the position that these munitions do have a place and a use in military inventories, given the right technology as well as the proper rules of engagement.” (Agence de France, February 24, 2007)

At the same time, 46 countries meeting in Oslo pledged to seek a treaty banning cluster bombs by next year. The 46 countries agreed to “commit themselves to conclude by 2008 a legally binding international instrument that will prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.” Agence de France, February 24, 2007)