*EPF211 12/14/2004
State Dept. Official Defends U.S. Policy on Landmines
(Richard Kidd says U.S. leads world in solving landmine problem) (570)

By Eric Green
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The United States leads the world in helping to solve the global landmine problem, says a U.S. State Department official, rejecting a recent editorial in an American newspaper that suggested otherwise.

In his rebuttal letter published December 13 in The Post-Gazette of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the State Department's Richard Kidd said the newspaper's assertion that the U.S. government is contributing to the global landmine problem is patently false.

In fact, said Kidd, "no country does more to reduce the harmful effects of landmines than the United States."

Kidd, who is director of the State Department's Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, said the United States has provided over $900 million to demining programs in 46 countries, close to half the worldwide total.

In its December 2 editorial entitled "Lurking Danger/American Support is Needed to Ban Landmines," The Post-Gazette argued that the United States is "pinching pennies" when it should be "doing everything possible to solve a problem it helped create."

But Kidd said the United States is phasing out all landmines in its inventory that are "persistent" (meaning "long-lasting") and non-detectable. The United States is the only major military power to make such sweeping commitments, Kidd said.

Kidd said the United States has not signed the Ottawa Convention curbing anti-personnel mines and did not participate in the November 29-December 3, 2004, review conference of that treaty in Nairobi, Kenya, for several "good reasons."

First and foremost, Kidd said, the United States has an obligation to protect its Armed Forces as they carry out U.S. global defense commitments. The Ottawa Convention, Kidd said, would prohibit U.S. forces from employing munitions that those forces might need for carrying out their defense commitments.

In addition, Kidd said the Ottawa Convention addresses only anti-personnel mines and permits equally damaging anti-vehicle mines. U.S. policy, however, addresses all types of persistent and non-detectable landmines, "and we are pushing for global restrictions on all such mines in two separate international conventions," said Kidd.

The Post-Gazette said the United States did not attend the Nairobi conference because it apparently cost too much.

But Kidd said that even though the United States is not a party to the Ottawa Convention, organizers of the Nairobi event expected the United States to pay 22 percent of the conference costs, meaning the United States would have had to pay well over an estimated $100,000.

"We believe this money is better spent on clearing mines and saving lives," said Kidd.

Meanwhile, Harry McCloy, senior advisor to the State Department Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, says that relatively few Americans and "even fewer folks overseas" know that the United States operates the world's "oldest and largest -- by far -- inter-agency program to support mine clearance, mine risk education, mine survivors assistance, and research and development to come up with even better ways to detect and clear mines for humanitarian purposes."

In November 16, 2004, remarks at a conference in Arlington, Virginia, McCloy said that at some point in 2005 the United States will reach the $1 billion mark in investing in humanitarian mine action around the world.

More information about U.S. policy on landmines is available online at: www.state.gov/t/pm/wra.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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