President WILLIAM CLINTON (26 Sept. '94, at United Nations):

"Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General..."

NARRATOR: In 1994, President Clinton was the first world leader to call for an international agreement to eliminate anti-personnel landmines.

President CLINTON: "I ask all nations to join with us and conclude an agreement to reduce the number and availability of those mines."

President CLINTON (17 Sept. '97): "Last month I instructed a US team to join negotiations then underway in Oslo to ban all anti-personnel landmines. Our negotiators worked tirelessly to reach an agreement we could sign. Unfortunately, as it is now drafted, I cannot in good conscience add America's name to that treaty."

NARRATOR: In December 1997, as 121 countries met in Ottawa, Canada to sign the world's first treaty outlawing anti-personnel landmines, the United States was conspicuously absent from the list of signers. How did America start out as a leader in the effort to rid the world of landmines and end up refusing to sign the treaty?

NARRATOR: Called "hidden killers," landmines are deployed to restrict enemy troop movement, but often they are left behind when the friendly troops depart. Lying hidden on or under the ground, landmines maim or kill more than 26,000 people a year, most of them civilians. There are an estimated 100 million anti-personnel landmines buried around the world.

Every 22 minutes someone falls victim to a landmine. Caring for landmine victims saps the economies and health care resources of communities already burdened by the hardships of war. Landmines impede reconstruction of wartorn communities, remove people from the work force, render agricultural land unusable, terrorize and confine civilian populations.

De-mining experts believe it will take 50 to 100 years to clear landmines from each of the more than 64 countries around the world that suffer the enduring effects of these weapons. The financial burden of de-mining is staggering. It costs from $300 to a $1000 to remove each mine. Largely due to the effort of more than 1000 organizations that form the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Ottawa Treaty was a response to the humanitarian crisis caused by the indiscriminate nature of anti-personnel landmines.

In recognition of its work, the campaign and its coordinator, Jody Williams, were awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. No other issue in recent times has sparked such a broad and rapid response.

While in the past countries have agreed to ban certain indiscriminate weapons -- poison gas, blinding lasers, chemical and biological weapons -- the Ottawa Treaty featured an unprecedented degree of cooperation between governments, international institutions and private, nongovernmental organizations.

Eric Newsome is a State Department spokesperson on the landmine issue.

ERIC NEWSOME: There are those who think that this may represent a new phenomenon in international relations, a level of participation by citizens organizations that we've never seen before, certainly not at this intensity.

President CLINTON: "Since 1993, we have devoted $153 million to this cause. Our experts have helped remove mines from the ground in 50 nations."

NARRATOR: Even though the United States is committed to ending the humanitarian crisis caused by anti-personnel landmines, President Clinton declined to sign the Ottawa Treaty citing military considerations.

Dana Priest has covered this issue for The Washington Post from the beginning.

DANA PRIEST: What they were being asked to do by the NGOs was to take a leadership role beyond their self-interest, beyond -- and to recognize that, yeah, they aren't the problem, technically they are not the problem, but that they could lead the world in a certain direction. And they didn't actually see it that way. They saw it in the more traditional way, which is what am I giving up and what am I getting.

NARRATOR: A top funder of worldwide de-mining efforts, the United States has spent more than $150 million on de-mining since 1993, and the administration has pledged to double its annual funding this year for humanitarian de-mining to $80 million with the aim of increasing support to over a $100 million in 1999.

The administration plans to do even more to advance worldwide de-mining with the President's De-Mining 2010 Initiative.

Mr. NEWSOME: Going back several years, we have been carrying out a national program aimed at assisting countries around the world to clear anti-personnel landmines from their territories. And we are the acknowledged world leader in this area and we are presently operating in approximately 15 countries and we intend to expand that significantly over the next two years.

NARRATOR: The United States still remains outside the Ottawa Treaty with some of the world's largest landmine manufacturers and users: Russia and China, two of the biggest landmine producers in the world. Iraq, which imports and copies Italian, Russian, and Yugoslavian mines; and Singapore, reported to have exported anti-personnel landmines to Iraq. Like the US, these countries also cite a military need for anti-personnel landmines.

While 33 former landmine-producing countries, including Italy, once one of the world's largest landmine producers, were able to overcome military considerations and sign the Ottawa Treaty, the Clinton administration gave two reasons why the United States would not. Number one, Korea. And, number two, something called the "Mixed System."

President CLINTON: "These two requests are not abstract considerations. They reflect the very dangerous reality we face on the ground as a result of our global responsibilities."

NARRATOR: The Korean Peninsula has long been divided by internal strife. Separating communist North Korea from South Korea is a 152-mile long, two-mile wide strip of no man's land -- Korea's demilitarized zone, or DMZ.

Since the end of the Korean War in 1954, American troops have been stationed in South Korea to discourage an attack by North Korea, a totalitarian dictatorship with a large army. North Korea's economy is weak and its military forces are equipped with antiquated weapons. South Korea, which has modern, high-tech forces, is one of the largest economies in the world. The US military maintains that anti-personnel landmines employed along the DMZ are a critical part of defending this border.

Dr. William Taylor, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, served on the DMZ and has made 70 trips to Korea.

Dr. WILLIAM TAYLOR: We have 37,000 US troops in South Korea, most of them near the DMZ. They are terribly vulnerable to a surprise attack by 1.1 million North Korean soldiers, tanks, armored personnel carriers, surface-to-surface missiles. The biggest protective device that we have along the 152-mile DMZ, two miles wide, are landmines.

NARRATOR: President Clinton directed the Pentagon to develop alternatives to enable to US to stop using anti-personnel landmines everywhere but Korea by the year 2003. In Korea, the president said the US military would reserve the right to use anti-personnel landmines until a suitable alternative can be developed. The target date to remove landmines in Korea is the year 2006, but only if the Pentagon finds alternatives.

The US strategy for using landmines in Korea is to slow and channel a massive North Korean frontal attack on the South. General Robert Gard, a combat veteran of both the Korean and Vietnam wars says landmines are not only unnecessary, but also likely to be ineffective.

GEN. ROBERT GARD: The fact of the matter is there are literally hundreds of barriers, tank trenches and other obstacles that can assist in stopping any sort of attack. All of these are under direct observation. We can bring massive firepower to bear. And, in fact, it's doubtful that anti-personnel landmines would inhibit the North Koreans from simply moving right through them, as the Chinese did during the Korean War.

NARRATOR: A 1996 study done for the International Committee of the Red Cross by retired British Brigadier Patrick Blagden looked at landmine use in 26 conflicts since 1940. The study found that even when used on a mass scale, landmines have little or no effect on the outcome of hostilities.

Senator Patrick Leahy helped enact legislation to stop US exports of anti-personnel landmines, the first law of its kind anywhere in the world. He points out that anti-personnel landmines can be a threat to our own troops.

Sen. PATRICK LEAHY (D-VT): One of the reasons why every senator who was in combat in Vietnam joined in my legislation is because most of them realized that these landmines are a double-edged sword. Our own landmines could hurt us as much as help us. And usually, when the United States goes in, the best-equipped, best-trained, strongest military force in an area, the thing that we have to fear the most is somebody's $5 landmine.

NARRATOR: More than 64,000 US casualties in Vietnam resulted from anti-personnel landmines, 90 percent of which were US-made or contained US components. Every American casualty in Bosnia has been from landmines. In the Persian Gulf, mines hampered the mobility of our own troops as they did in Vietnam and Korea.

GEN. GARD: I would not allow my troops in Vietnam to use anti-personnel landmines because it kills innocent civilians and our own troops. Because people simply forget where they are or in the mobile battlefield, the unit that emplaced them moves, another unit comes into the area and then enters the minefield and experiences casualties from friendly minefields.

NARRATOR: Dr. Taylor says that US minefields south of the DMZ are clearly marked and pose no threat to civilians or American troops.

Dr. TAYLOR: The biggest protective device that we have along a 152-mile DMZ, two miles wide, are landmines. And they're the old, dumb, dangerous landmines, but they're marked and nobody ever gets killed.

GEN. GARD: This is a common myth that one hears, yet the Korean Ministry of Defense issued a statistic of 78 casualties caused by mines in the military control zone between 1992 and 1997. One-third of those were civilian.

NARRATOR: A study prepared for the Defense Department found that if the United States is the attacker, minefields impede troop mobility.

GEN. GARD: They're indiscriminate, they're deadly they're not necessary, and they're harmful to our own troops and they inhibit our own maneuvers. If you deny the enemy access to an area, you deny your own troops immediate access to that area.

NARRATOR: The study found that the more offensive the campaign, the more harmful anti-personnel landmines are to our own troops. And strategists say the US military will employ an offensive strategy in response to a North Korean assault.

The second reason President Clinton said the US would not sign the international landmine ban is the "mixed system," so-called because it is a combination of anti-personnel landmines and anti-tank mines. The anti-personnel mines in this system are there to keep the enemy from tampering with the larger mine that is designed to stop tanks.

Although the Ottawa Treaty allows countries to use anti-tank mines, America's anti-tank mines would be outlawed under the treaty because the US anti-tank system contains anti-personnel landmines that surround the anti-tank mine with a web of trip wires that can be easily detonated by anyone, soldier or civilian. The treaty does allow these anti-handling devices, but only if they are directly on, in or under the anti-tank mine.

During treaty negotiations, the administration argued that if other countries could have anti-handling devices, the US version should be exempt also. They even went so far as to change the name of the anti-personnel mines in the system to anti-handling devices in an effort to bypass treaty specifications.

Ms. PRIEST: An anti-personnel landmine no longer was an anti-personnel landmine when the president of the United States stood up there and said, "We want to rid the US arsenal of landmines." And when you looked behind those words and you saw what the policy was going to do, they had taken and redefined one million anti-personnel landmines and now are calling them "devices." And they did that because they're not willing to give up those devices. And they still want to stand up there and say they're the leader on the issue.

NARRATOR: Treaty negotiators refused to accept the administration's semantics and the US was not granted an exception for its mixed system. The military, however, claims the mixed system is needed to protect American troops in places like Korea from an attack by tanks. Those in favor of mixed mine systems say they pose no threat to civilians because they use so-called "smart" landmine technology. They are called "smart" landmines because they can be preset to self-destruct, unlike the conventional mines that stay hidden and active for years after a conflict ends.

Dr. TAYLOR: These high-tech mines are dial-a-time. Anybody who knows how to use them just sets the time on that mine, and it will self-destruct in hours, and with special permission granted by a commander-in-chief of a theater, a military four-star, you can go up to 15 days. But the mines self-destruct. Now if one of the mines happens to fail, the self-destruct mechanism doesn't go off, then the battery goes inert and they explode.

NARRATOR: Critics of self-destructing mines point out that as long as they are active, they too pose a grave danger to civilians, and to our own troops, as well. In Desert Storm, 34 percent of all US casualties were caused by landmines, many of them the result of the US entering its own "smart" minefields.

GEN. GARD: The concept of the use of the smart mines is principally to protect your anti-tank minefields. And the concept is to scatter them behind the enemy's line on the flanks of your own operation, which are precisely the areas in which you're likely to find large numbers of civilians. So, even though they do deactivate, or self-destruct, during the time that they are active, they are no more discriminate than the so-called "dumb" mine. And ours can remain active for a matter of days. And then if the self-destruct mechanism doesn't work, the deactivation of the battery takes 90 days.

NARRATOR: The Pentagon claims there are no suitable alternatives currently available to replace the mixed mine systems.

Dr. TAYLOR: We do not have, according to the statement of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, every four-star general and admiral serving -- we do not have the technology to replace those landmines yet.

NARRATOR: President Clinton's decision against signing the treaty was based on advice from an inner circle of high-ranking generals and admirals at the Pentagon.

Congressman Jack Quinn is a leader in US efforts to ban landmines.

Rep. JACK QUINN (R-NY): I think the key there is that they're sitting members. They're actively involved. And in my perspective, that makes them part of that mindset going on over there at the Pentagon.

Sen. LEAHY: General after general, upon retiring, has said we ought to ban landmines. That they look at it, they don't have to follow the official line and they say let's get rid of the landmines. A dozen or more of the key generals in our country, now retired, signed an open letter to the president asking him to ban landmines.

NARRATOR: Critics say the Defense Department has the technology and know-how to completely eliminate all anti-personnel landmines from the US arsenal and that it has failed to follow the president's order to find alternatives.

GEN. GARD: We have multiple launch rocket systems. We have aerial-delivered bomb systems. We have a fighter aircraft can deliver 12 canisters of these bomblets, each with 650 bomblets in it, which is 7,800 bomblets on top of your anti-tank minefield, which ought to discourage any personnel that are attempting to tamper with them. And I think it would be much more effective than having anti-personnel mines.

NARRATOR: The military claims mixed mine systems are needed to protect American troops from an armored assault. The Pentagon says any alternative to the mixed mine system must meet two conditions: It must be easily employed and be able to hit a tank on the run. Many believe the United States military has more than enough weapons or combinations of weapons systems to meet the Pentagon's requirements.

GEN. GARD: We even have systems now that can attack effectively armored vehicles while they are moving. Which means you not only won't need the anti-personnel mines anymore, you won't even need the anti-tank mines.

NARRATOR: These technologies go by obscure acronyms, such as SADARM, Search and Destroy Armor Munition, BAT, Brilliant Anti-Armor Submunition, and WAM for Wide Area Munition. But all have one thing in common: Many experts believe they would allow the US to get rid of all its anti-personnel landmines.

GEN. GARD: Those are alternatives that enable you to accomplish the military mission without having to use anti-personnel landmines or, in the latter case, even anti-tank mines. The argument that you have to somehow develop some new weapon that replicates the same effects of an anti-personnel mine in order to give it up are simply fallacious.

After all, what you're after is the military effect, how can you accomplish that mission. And if you can do it through other weapons and different tactics instead of using landmines, you have an alternative, and we have them now.

Ms. PRIEST: The significance to the end goal, which is to rid the world of landmine, the significance of the US not signing on is that it does make it a lot harder to get the real offenders to join on -- which is India, Pakistan, China, Russia, countries like that who are not going to be naturally disposed to this -- have went kicking and screaming into the forums that the US wanted to follow up on and try to get a sort of ban. Without the US, there's virtually no hope, I don't think, of getting these countries to sign-on by themselves.

NARRATOR: Experts skeptical of the ban doubt that the United States involvement would change the behavior of countries who mine their borders or stop warring factions within countries that use landmines to intimidate civilian populations.

Dr. TAYLOR: The problem is that the landmine mine, which is a great idea -- and I always have applauded Senator Pat Leahy for all that he's done to try to get it -- unfortunately, doesn't have a lot of members who use, manufacture, and sell dumb landmines -- Russia, China, North Korea, Afghanistan. Now the argument goes that if we were to sign-up now that they would follow suit. I rather doubt that and I think the critics need to be able to prove that.

Rep. QUINN: America's a leader. People follow our example. We do things in this country, whether it's in the area of defense, whether it's economics, whether it's all kinds of things where what we do is as important as why we do it, and this is one of those cases.

NARRATOR: Supporters of the landmine ban, such as Senator Leahy, believe America is compromising its position as a world leader and that the Pentagon's insistence is keeping anti-personnel landmines in the US arsenal.

Sen. LEAHY: They've fought this landmine treaty straight through. They missed the boat in Geneva. They missed the boat in Oslo. They've fought it until the United States in sheer embarrassment is the one country not signing-on. And then in Ottawa, the US had to sit on the sidelines and watch as country after country lined up to sign the treaty -- 120 of them signed it, the United States behind. And the policy's been set by the Pentagon, not by the White House, not by the Department of State.

NARRATOR: Some say the Pentagon's arguments about the military utility of landmines masks the real issue: The Pentagon's refusal to give up any weapon, especially under pressure from nongovernmental organizations and private citizens.

Ms. PRIEST: One of the reasons that the military at the Pentagon does not approve of this doesn't have only to do with the landmine device itself. It has to do with the sort of slippery slope argument that if we give in when we don't want to on anti-personnel landmines, the next step may be that they will ask us to give up other munitions.

Dr. TAYLOR: I always ask the critics, how many children do you have serving in the military in Korea, because I'll guarantee you, I don't want my son south of the DMZ without that protective minefield barrier there or a high-tech substitute.

Sen. LEAHY: Back at the time of the Geneva Convention in the early part of this century, the Pentagon didn't want to give up poison gas because they said, well, there are some instances where we might use it. And they say today we don't want to give up landmines because there are some instances where we can use them. Well, of course, there are. There are instances where we can use chemical weapons. There are instances where we can use tactical nuclear weapons. But we have certain types of weapons that we agree we ought to give up.

Rep. QUINN: I said once that if we ever had a landmine explode in this country, in a congressional district anywhere in the United States, the politicians would trip over themselves to run back to Washington to pass a law and sign a treaty.

NARRATOR: The Ottawa Treaty will go into effect after it is ratified by 40 countries. As even more nations continue to add their signatures to the treaty, the United States will soon be in violation of international humanitarian standards.

Do we want the US to stand outside the Ottawa Treaty with the world's biggest landmine manufacturers and users? It is up to the American public and our elected leaders to insist on an alternative.

ADM EUGENE CARROLL (USN Ret.): Three South Korean soldiers were killed recently by a landmine explosion in the very minefields that the US military says are needed to protect friendly troops. Events like this make it clear that landmines are double-edged swords. The majority of the world's nations have already recognized this fact and banned these indiscriminate killers. As the landmine issue is passed to the Congress for action, we can hope that they will act to protect American lives, as well.

Until the next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Eugene Carroll.

[Over credits]

Sen. LEAHY: We could run a little rover on Mars with a toggle switch from here. If we can do that, we could certainly build defensive mechanisms, anti-tank mines and other things that we need that do not endanger civilian populations. And we could be back being the leaders of this instead of the followers.