Bush Urged to Limit Weapons Use in War against Iraq

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Saturday, December 28, 2002

Bush Urged to Limit Weapons Use in War against Iraq

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Humanitarian organizations are petitioning US President George W. Bush not to use antipersonnel landmines or deadly cluster bombs in a military campaign against Iraq, The Washington Post reported Friday.

In a letter to Bush, Kenneth Bacon, president of Refugees International, said the use of landmines designed to kill individuals -- in contrast to mines intended to destroy vehicles --could endanger US soldiers and Iraqi citizens, as well as slow the rehabilitation of Iraq.

"Unexploded landmines are hidden killers that inflict damage long after the fighting stops," wrote Bacon and the organization'schairman, Virginia businessman James Kimsey.

They said US attempts to eliminate dangerous Iraqi weapons "will be undermined by the use of weapons of indiscriminate destruction."

The Bush administration's policy on the military's use of landmines is "under review," National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton said Thursday.

Pentagon officials offered no comment, but military planners have not publicly forsworn their use. They considered them effective in limiting enemy movements in the 1991 Gulf War.

Pentagon officials said they believe that modern landmines, known as "smart mines," are equipped with timing devices that defuse a mine at varied intervals from a few hours to 15 days.

Attempts to press the United States into avoiding the use of antipersonnel mines in Iraq are part of a wider effort to limit the possible war's destructiveness. Humanitarian groups have been meeting with the Pentagon and the United Nations to plan relief efforts, while the US military has been urging Iraqi officers not to fight back if war erupts.

The Pentagon maintains a stockpile of about 18 million landmines, including 15 million of the newer, self-destructing mines designed to kill individuals or destroy vehicles.

The US government has not endorsed a 1997 treaty that bans the production, use, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel mines.

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