Question: Can you tell me why you're seeking a waiver to delay the moratorium on antipersonnel mines? Go a little bit beyond the text of the letter...

Answer: The issue is a moratorium on the use of antipersonnel landmines that is supposed to take place on February 12, 1999 and last for one year. This was included in a piece of legislation that was passed several years ago. The Administration is asking Congress to be relieved of this moratorium, and what the Administration has said -- and the military feels very strongly that this is the case -- that this moratorium will damage the ability of the military to carry out operations and to protect troops.

As you know, last year when the President decided not to sign the Ottawa Agreement, he based this decision on the need to protect the safety of American troops. It was really a force protection decision. And, also, to allow our troops to carry out their military operations in the most efficient way. We now use self-destructing antipersonnel landmines that do not pose a lingering threat years after the battle is over. These mines explode in a matter of hours or days after the battle is over so they don't remain hidden in the ground.

At the time the President announced his decision last year, he said that we needed an adequate transition period to seek out alternatives to antipersonnel landmines. He promised that we would stop using antipersonnel landmines by 2003 in everywhere but Korea, and in 2006 in Korea. Obviously, a moratorium that takes place for one year beginning on February 12, 1999 runs contrary to the idea of giving the military time to transition away from antipersonnel landmines to some alternative.

It's the military's feeling, and they expressed this in the letter that you referred to -- the letter from Secretary Cohen and General Shelton to the Senate Armed Services Committee -- that the moratorium would dramatically limit our ability to fight and win battles in places such as Korea.

As you know, there is an exception in this moratorium for international borders and in clearly identified demilitarized zones such as the DMZ between North and South Korea. But that DMZ is only four kilometers wide. This policy, if it were to take effect on February 12th, would make it impossible for the American military to use antipersonnel landmines between the DMZ and Seoul, for instance, if Seoul were under attack.

Now there's an alternative to antipersonnel landmines, and that is to use greater forces, to deploy more forces very quickly in the early stages of battle. If we were to do that in Korea, we would have to deploy 17,000 additional troops, 350 additional tanks, 410 additional Bradley Fighting Vehicles, 24 additional helicopters, and 144 other aircraft. So it would mean a very substantial increase in our forces in a very short period of time because we assume that in Korea our warning would be very, very short. When you look at specific examples like that, and the military has analyzed many of them, it's concluded that at a time when our forces are being drawn down -- our forces are now 36 percent smaller than they were at the end of the Cold War -- at a time when our forces are operating in a more expeditionary manner, deploying from the United States to places like the Gulf or Bosnia and continuing our deployments to Korea, that it is an unacceptable risk to endure this moratorium next year. So they're asking Congress not to require them to move forward with the moratorium.

Q: Talking about a transition period and looking for alternatives, can you say what sort of movement you're making in the search for alternatives?

A: There's a program under way, but it's based on the President's determination that we have until 2003 to eliminate APLs everywhere but Korea; and 2006 in Korea. So it's a program that is a five to eight year program. But some of the things we're looking at are barrier devices of certain sorts; we're looking at certain monitoring arrangements that might substitute along with artillery or other means for antipersonnel landmines. But we do not have a firm substitute at this stage, and our program is based on the idea that we have several years to develop one.

...The main concern here is that if there were an attack in a place like Korea, or if Iraq were again to attack Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or one of its neighbors and we went in to defend, that the type of mines that we have to deploy with artillery or through aircraft to channel the battle, particularly in the early stages of battle, or to protect our own troops, that would be forbidden to us. And at a time when our forces are getting smaller, the Joint Chiefs have decided that this is just an unacceptable risk.

So we are talking to Congress, writing to members of Congress and appealing to them in other ways to give us relief from this moratorium.

Q: If Congress doesn't go along, are you saying then that that list of people and material that you just read off is then going to be shipped to Korea?

A: No, I didn't say that. What I'm saying is to illustrate what would be required to replace the use of antipersonnel landmines in our war plans. It's that level of commitment of additional people and equipment. But I'm not prepared to say right now that we would immediately have to increase our troop levels in Korea by 50 percent. That 17,000 would be approximately a 50 percent increase in our troop level there.