TABLE OF CONTENTS
 

Landmines and UXO Endanger Iraqi Population

Rachel Stohl, Senior Analyst, rstohl@cdi.org

Iraq’s population has suffered immensely from decades of war. Iraqi civilians feel not only the effects of years of sanctions, malnutrition, and disease, but are plagued by hidden, deadly killers throughout the country: landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO). These landmines and UXO date from the Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War, and years of internal conflict.

Iraq is known to have the capacity to produce anti-personnel landmines, but the level of production and the status of mine exports are unknown. However, experts believe Iraq has a significant stockpile of landmines in the country, although due to a lack of information available the condition and locations of these stockpiles are unknown. Mine awareness programs in Iraq exist on a very limited basis and the status of mine clearance is unknown. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) reports that Iraq refused to grant visas to workers hired to address mine clearance projects in northern Iraq in 2001.

No area of Iraq is immune to the dangers of landmines. Experts believe that Iraq has significant mine problems in the northern region, southern region, and along the border with Iran. Iraqi citizens are being killed and injured in Iraq throughout the country. The number of landmine casualties in Iraq is unclear, but at least 21 people were killed by mines and UXO in 2001. The UN Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM) has reported landmine casualties in southern Iraq, including the deaths of three children. Survivor assistance programs are offered through the government and NGOs. The International Committee of the Red Cross has been instrumental in providing support to prosthetic/orthotic centers throughout Iraq.

Internationally, Iraq has done little to address the landmine problem in its country and around the world. It is not a state party to the Ottawa Mine-Ban Treaty, has not attended international meetings on landmines in the last two years, is not a state party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons, and has only minimally cooperated with outside agencies and organizations to address the landmine situation within its borders.

The autonomous northern region of Iraq has addressed the landmine situation in greater depth than the rest of the country. In September 2002, the two main Kurdish factions in Northern Iraq, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), pledged not to use anti-personnel landmines.

Beyond avoiding future use of mines in northern Iraq, the region has also begun to address the impact of the thousands of mines already in the territory. Mine impact surveys have been completed in northern Iraq by the Mines Advisory Group (MAG) and 2,241 minefields and 760 mined villages have been identified in northern Iraq. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) manages the northern Iraq Mine Action Program, which has initiated mine clearance, mine risk and awareness programs. MAG coordinates the mine clearance programs and in the first six months of 2002 has reportedly cleared 140,458 square meters of land (adding to the 515,616 square meters cleared in 2001). MAG destroyed 2,548 mines and 921 UXO in 2001. Thus far in 2002, MAG has destroyed 699 mines and 194 UXO.

Although many important strides have been made, northern Iraq continues to face mine casualties. According to a PUK official, 2,500 people have died and 3,200 have been injured in northern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War. In 2001, casualties from UXO and landmines were approximately 30 per month. So far in 2002, the monthly casualty levels are believed to be decreasing, and are down to 27 per month. Survivor assistance to northern Iraq is also well established as prosthetics and rehabilitation centers are provided through the UNOPS victim assistance program and through the generosity of European non-governmental organizations, including the Norwegian Red Cross and Handicap International Belgium.

Any U.S. operation in Iraq will have to contend with landmines, both those already in the ground and any new mines that are laid. Moreover, from an operational standpoint, the United States will have to determine if landmines will be used as part of the military operations in Iraq, since the last time the United States used landmines was against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Even without the danger of new mines, however, Iraq remains a country fraught with peril due to landmines and UXO from decades of war. This threat will exist for many years to come.

Agreement Reached on Creation of Homeland Security Department

Colin Robinson, Research Analyst, crobinson@cdi.org

Eight days after the mid-term elections, the increased hold of the Republican Party over the federal government has shaken lose the months-old stalemate over the creation of a new Department of Homeland Security, the largest and most far-reaching government reorganization, arguably, since the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.

Legislation creating the new department has been stalled in Congress, not due to any fundamental disagreement over whether such an approach is the best way to provide security at home for the American people, but rather over what level of management flexibility is appropriate for an agency that will be faced with that quasi-military task.

President George W. Bush insisted that in creating and operating the new agency, he needed the ability to lift labor rights in a national emergency as well as gain exemptions from a number of civil service rules covering labor issues for federal employees. Initially the president wanted to be able to remove some critical employees from unions without interference, a right exercised by all presidents since Jimmy Carter. Bush wanted to avoid having to submit removals to the Federal Labor Relations Authority. The administration also wanted to bypass hiring rules in order to cut the time it takes to hire a federal employee, which in September was said to take an average of five months, and introduce performance-related incentives into pay. The ability to transfer workers between different parts of the department to meet changing needs was also sought, as well as the ability to dismiss unsatisfactory workers without excessive appeals.

After the elections attempts to reach a resolution on the issue were resumed, and reached fruition when three centrist lawmakers, Sens. John Breaux (D-La.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), and Lincoln D. Chafee (R-R.I.), gave way on an amended Administration plan. Their news stance on the issue may well have been significantly influenced by the fate of some of their colleagues who had opposed the legislation on labor grounds prior to the Nov. 5 election. Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), for example, a Vietnam veteran, triple amputee, and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was ousted despite his record, after Republicans hammered home this point. The three senators continued voicing their objections even as they fell in with the President’s wishes. (They had earlier failed in an attempt to have compromise bill with stronger worker protections adopted.)

The final version of the bill gives Bush most of the authority he was seeking but did make some concessions to opponents. The president will be able to waive collective bargaining rights where the security of the nation is seen as threatened, but any workplace changes involving the expected workforce of 170,000 from 22 different agencies will have to be negotiated with unions. Workers’ unions will have 30 days to contest proposed changes, and if no agreement is reached Congress will have to be informed, which will allow protests from members. However, if mediation efforts have not reached success after another 30 days, the new department will be able to implement changes as it sees fit. The decision to ban bargaining rights will have to be formalized in writing, and will be limited to four years. The agreement drew an expected protest from the union most involved, the American Federation of Government Employees, which said that the compromise "[had] nothing to do with improving security."

The compromise bill leaves the number of agencies that are to be incorporated into the new department unchanged from the president’s first proposal, despite some earlier disagreement about the incorporation of several agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Coast Guard. It will allow commercial pilots to carry guns in cockpits, endorsing earlier legislation passed separately by the House and the Senate. It also pushes back by one year the previous Jan. 1, 2003, deadline for airports to screen all passenger luggage for explosives, which has increasingly appeared logistically impossible due to the demands of implementing such arrangements at all airfields in the entire country.

The agreement sets the stage for final approval of the legislation by both houses of Congress and for the initial establishment of the department. Navy Secretary Gordon England is widely expected to head the new department, as he is reported to be frustrated with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s approach to defense management. However, the standing-up process will have to be carefully managed if it is not to degrade the ability of the department’s constituent agencies to carry out their security functions as the new department finds its feet.

Déjà vu? A Sino-American Rapprochement via High-level Military Contacts

Noriyuki Katagiri, Research Assistant, nkatagiri@cdi.org

As the war on terrorism continues and the possibility of another against Iraq looms, the United States and China have recently agreed to resume high-level military contacts. International events in 2001 have necessitated the resumption of a "strategic dialogue" between the two major powers. According to U.S. Navy Lt. Cdr. Jeff Davis, a Defense Department spokesperson, the year 2001 witnessed an "emergence of serious challenges to global peace and stability." It is in this context that cultivating military contacts with China is viewed as one good way for the United States to promote its national interests.

Generally speaking, military contacts are designed to achieve both symbolic and qualitative goals. They normally include confidence-building measures, information exchange, and commercial engagement via dialogue and mutual understanding. While most bilateral benefits are the result of diplomacy and negotiations, strategic gains of this sort generally come from increased transparency between the respective militaries. China, however, has been accused of not disclosing as much military information as its counterpart does. Washington has therefore traditionally insisted on Beijing's being more forthcoming during such military exchanges, and the Bush administration has emphasized this policy.

The decision to resume the strategic dialogue was made on October 25, 2002, when President Bush met with his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin in Crawford, Texas, before they headed to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for the annual Asian Pacific Economic Council (APEC) meeting. It was this meeting where a senior-level defense meeting called defense-consultative talk (DCT) was agreed upon.

As a result, an American Navy ship will visit Shanghai this month. Both sides also agreed that U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith will host General Xiong Guang Kai in Washington on Dec. 9. The United States will then host a group of nerly two dozen Chinese generals later in December, while Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Thomas Fargo, will visit the PRC in the same month. All these events signify an emerging rapprochement between the two countries that were often depicted as major strategic rivals throughout the 1990s.

While the Sino-American diplomatic relationship began in 1972, the high-level military contacts date back to 1997, when former President Bill Clinton visited his then-counterpart Jiang and agreed to start annual military meetings. The United States has since made similar agreements with the governments of Pakistan and India. In 1998, when Islamabad and New Delhi conducted nuclear tests, Washington temporarily suspended the talks, have since been resumed.

Continued bilateral military contacts were jeopardized in 1999 when Chinese-American scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested on suspicion of espionage at the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab. In April, 1999, the bilateral relationship suffered further when a U.S. aircraft dropped satellite-guided bombs on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, prompting Beijing to suspend the talks and consultations on arms control and human rights. Because of its bid to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO), however, China agreed in December to restart the DCT.

But in April 2001, the bilateral relationship was seriously damaged when a U.S. Navy EP-3 surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea, forcing it to land on Hainan island and killing the Chinese pilot. The 24-member crew of the aircraft, which reportedly carried highly sensitive intelligence gathering equipment, was detained in China for 11 days, with Chinese officials insisting in vain that the the United States apologize for violating the country's sovereignty. Tensions rose as Beijing refused to allow Washington to repair and fly the plane off the airfield. A diplomatic solution was eventually reached and the crew returned home, although it was several months later before the aircraft was returned, having been disassembled for inspection by the Chinese.

In response, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered that all DoD contacts with China be reviewed and approved by the Secretary himself on a case-by-case basis. This had an effect of limiting them to low-level activities, such as talks on military maritime safety. Chinese officials in turn lobbied to lift the restrictions.

The Sept. 11 attacks have had a significant effect on the bilateral relationship. China has since supported the United States in the war on terror, providing access to its airspace and intelligence. The FBI, furthermore, has recently been allowed to open a branch office in Beijing as part of the U.S.-led effort to fight terrorism. All these forms of cooperation have overshadowed the significance of such controversial bilateral subjects as China's human rights abuses and relations with Taiwan.

On economic matters, the United States and China have likewise gotten closer in recent months. For example, on Oct. 21, 2002, in New York, Chinese and American businesses signed a series of commercial deals valued at $4.7 billion. The deals cover energy, petrochemicals, telecommunications, alcohol, and manufacturing, and included such U.S. companies as Exxon-Mobil and Motorola.

These agreements came despite Washington's years of running a trade deficit with China, which reached $83 billion in 2001. Following China's entry into the WTO in 2001, the American business community has continuously lobbied Washington to grant Beijing a Permanent Normal Trade Relations status, formerly known as Most Favored Nation status.

The two countries are, nevertheless, likely to go through a trial period on diplomatic and military cooperation. The DCTs have been shaky at best and there are issues that could stifle future talks. For instance, Bush and Jiang disagreed on Iraq policy at the APEC summit. Although China voted for the latest UN Security Council resolution on Iraq, it has a permanet seat at the Security Council and can threaten a veto in the future. Moreover, China underwent a change in leadership at the week-long meeting of the 16th Communist Party Congress which ended on Nov. 14. Hu Jintao, known for his lack of foreign experience and military affairs, has taken over the presidency of China.

The extent to which both sides are able and willing to manage the DCT remains to be tested -- can military contacts be sustained, or is this simply a case of déjà vu? Sino-American relations as a whole hinge increasingly on security and military aspects of issues, particularly in light of the war on terror and the situation in Iraq.

CDI’s "Briefing Room"

Brazilian President Calls for Revived Nuclear Program —Newly elected Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has promised to beef up his country's military and develop a nuclear weapon, reports the National Post (Nov. 13). Lula said he would ignore the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Brazil joined in 1998, and resume his country’s efforts to build a nuclear weapon. Brazil sought to develop nuclear weapons from 1965 to 1994 and reportedly designed two atomic bombs before canceling the program.

F/A-22 May Experience Further Cost Overruns —Already plagued by numerous delays and cost overruns, the F/A-22 "Raptor" may be a further $690 million over budget for the engineering, manufacturing and development phase of the program, according to the U.S. Air Force. The cost growth is not the result of technological or performance problems, according to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper, but are due to the fact that the aircraft’s components are costing more than expected. The Air Force plans to appoint a team to examine the situation, determine its severity, and make recommendations about how to avoid similar problems in the future. Funding to design, development and testing of the F/A-22 is currently budgeted at $20 billion.

Air Force May Consider Laser For Ground Attack — The U.S. Air Force should consider using the Airborne Laser (ABL) to attack mobile ground targets, according to a recent study by the service’s Scientific Advisory Board. The ABL system, which mounts a laser on a modified Boeing 747 aircraft, is being developed to shoot down ballistic missiles during their boost phase. The study, entitled "Attacking Mobile and Time Critical Targets Deep in Enemy Territory," indicated that while significant technological challenges, the system’s intended capabilities -- being able to kill targets quickly at significant distances -- make it ideal for attacking ground targets hundreds of miles behind enemy lines.

U.S. Sub Collides with Merchant Ship —The nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Oklahoma City collided with a merchant ship in the western Mediterranean on Nov. 13. The incident occurred as the submerged submarine was rising to periscope depth near the Strait of Gibraltar, damaging the sail and periscope, although no injuries were reported. The other ship, which was not identified in a statement released by Sixth Fleet headquarters in Italy, was apparently not seriously damaged. According to the Navy, the Oklahoma City surfaced after the collision, located the merchant ship and attempted to make radio contact. The ship, the release stated, “did not respond, did not appear to need assistance and departed the area." Subsequently, the Norwegian shipping company Leif Hoegh & Co. identified the vessel as its liquid natural gas tanker Norman Lady.

Quotation of the Week — "History’s most fundamental lesson is that military force usually spawns opposition, not compliance. [President George W.] Bush imagines that by smashing Iraq the USA will coerce other aspirants to regional power to abandon their ambitions. Rome had similar visions, as has every momentary hegemony. Nearly all undermined their power by abusing it in that manner," Alan J. Kuperman, assistant professor of international relations at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, op-ed in USA Today, November 12, 2002.
 

This Week on SUPERPOWER: Global Affairs TV —
"The Bush Roadmap to Mid-East Peace"

SUPERPOWER examines the timely issues that affect the United States together with foreign experts from around the world.

The collapse last week of the Israeli government threatens to derail the latest Mid-East peace deal offered by the Bush administration with the backing of the EU, the UN, and Russia. The Palestinian Authority fears a pitched battle between Israel's right-wing factions for control will lead to increased military operations in its territories. On the other side, the Israelis argue that the Palestinians still have not brought the terrorists among them under control. And some say the peace plan is irrelevant anyway as long as U.S. military action in Iraq is pending. How will the Israeli elections affect the prospects for peace in the region? What, if any, leverage does the U.S. have to get both sides to the table?

Joining Superpower moderator Mark Thompson of Time Magazine to discuss the issue this week will be Ori Nir, Washington Bureau Chief for The Forward; and Khalil E. Jahshan, Executive Vice President at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

WHERE TO SEE SUPERPOWER:

SUPERPOWER is aired in the Washington, DC area on Wednesday at 8:30pm on MHz, and again on Sunday at 12:30pm on MHz2 (check local listings at: http://www.mhznetworks.org/cable/listings.html).

Superpower is broadcast nationwide:

WorldLinkTV, Channel 9410 on Echostar Communications Corporation's DISH® Network direct broadcast satellite system. Superpower and WorldLinkTV are available on Channel 375 on DIRECTV® satellite TV service.

Broadcast times for Superpower: Global Affairs TV on WorldLinkTV
Saturdays: 6:30 p.m. EDT
Sundays: 2:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. EDT

To see when Superpower broadcasts on WorldlinkTV and your DISH® Network direct broadcast satellite system or your DIRECTV® satellite TV service, please visit: http://www.worldlinktv.com/cgi-bin/displayProgram.cgi?code=superpower

For more information, please send an e-mail to: info@superpowertv.org. For free transcripts of past shows, go to www.superpowertv.org