The Clinton Adminstration's actions with respect to banning antipersonnel mines have failed to meet its rhetoric. The U.S. has steadfastly refused to ban or formally suspend antipersonnel mine production even though President Clinton in 1994 was the first world leader to call for the "eventual elimination" of antipersonnel landmines. In a major landmines policy statement on May 16, 1996, President Clinton said the U.S. would "lead a global effort" to ban antipersonnel mines, but his announcement amounted to little more than a restatement of existing plans and policies. The U.S. would no longer produce and would destroy most of its stockpile of older "dumb" mines, while keeping all existing stocks and maintaining the right to produce "smart" mines. Dumb mines can remain deadly for decades, while smart mines are supposed to "self-destruct" (automatically blow up) after a pre-set period of time.

2. U.N. General Assembly resolution 51/149.

In November 1996 the U.S. introduced a United Nations General Assembly resolution urging nations "to pursue vigorously" an international ban treaty "with a view to completing the negotiation as soon as possible." The resolution also called on governments unilaterally to implement "bans, moratoria or other restrictions" on production, stockpiling, export and use of antipersonnel mines "at the earliest date possible."2 The U.N. General Assembly passed the resolution on December 10 by a vote of 156-0, with ten abstentions. Yet the U.S. has not heeded its own call by putting in place a moratorium or ban on mine production.

3. Letter from George R. Schneiter, Acting Director, Tactical Warfare Programs, Acquisition and Technology, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense, to Representative Lane Evans, October 27, 1994.

It is a step the U.S. could easily take: several large contracts for antipersonnel mines were completed in late 1996, and it does not appear that there is any production of antipersonnel mines currently underway in the U.S. Moreover, according to a Pentagon document, there are no plans for antipersonnel mine procurement at least through Fiscal Year 2004.3

Many of the U.S.'s close allies, including key NATO partners such as France, Germany, and Italy, have already banned or suspended production of antipersonnel mines. Some of the other nations that have halted production are Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland. On January 17, 1997, the Clinton Administration announced that the U.S. will seek negotiations on a worldwide treaty banning production, use, stockpiling and transfer of mines in the U.N. Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, Switzerland. The decision was criticized by the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines as an effort to avoid rapid progress toward a ban, given the notoriously slow pace of the CD. The USCBL has been urging the Clinton Administration to support the diplomatic initiative sponsored by Canada, Austria, Belgium and Norway aimed at the signing of a comprehensive ban treaty in December 1997. The Administration also announced that it would turn its moratorium on mine exports into a permanent ban—a step warmly welcomed by the USCBL—and that it would cap the U.S. antipersonnel mine stockpile at the current level of inventory. Strangely, however, the Administration refused to reveal the current stockpile figure, saying only "several million." Finally, in April, DoD pegged the total stockpile at fourteen million, including ten million smart mines and four million dumb mines. Not included in that total are nearly one million Claymore mines, which the Pentagon now prefers to call command-detonated munitions, rather than landmines. (See Appendix D). Since three million dumb mines are slated for destruction, the official inventory cap number is eleven million. The other one million (non-Claymore) dumb mines are to be used only in Korea.