Military Operations
Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War Gao ID: GAO-02-1003 September 30, 2002The utility of land mines on the modern battlefield has come into question in recent years, largely because of their potential for causing unintended casualties and affecting U.S. forces' maneuverability. These concerns were raised during the Persian Gulf War. U.S. land mines of all types--nonself-destructing and self-destructing, antipersonnel and antitank--were available for use if needed in the Gulf War from U.S. land mine stockpiles, which contained 19 million land mines. U.S. forces sent to the Gulf War theater of operations took with them for potential use over 2.2 million land mines. U.S. war plans included plans for the use of land mines if required by the tactical situation. According to Department of Defense (DOD) documents, no nonself-destructing or "dumb," land mines were used; and the reported number of self-destructing, or "smart," land mines used by the services totaled approximately 118,000. DOD did not provide information on the effect of U.S. land mine use against the enemy. According to U.S. service records, of the 1,364 total U.S. casualties in the Gulf War, 81, or 6 percent, were killed or injured by land mines. Concerns about land mines raised in DOD lessons-learned and other reports included the fear of fratricide and loss of battlefield mobility. These concerns led to the reluctance of some U.S. commanders to use land mines in areas that U.S. and allied forces might have to traverse.
GAO-02-1003, Military Operations: Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War
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United States General Accounting Office:
GAO:
Report to the Honorable Lane Evans, House of Representatives:
September 2002:
Military Operations:
Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War:
GAO-02-1003:
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Effect of the Use of Self-Destruct U.S. Land Mines in the Gulf War
Is Unknown:
Extent of U.S. Casualties from Land Mines and Unexploded Ordnance:
DOD Reports Express Fratricide and Mobility Concerns Relating to the
Safety of, and Lack of Knowledge about, Land Mines and Dudfields:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendix I: Current U.S. Land Mine Inventory:
Appendix II: U.S. Land Mines Available for Use in the Gulf War:
Appendix III: U.S. Gulf War Casualties by Service:
Appendix IV: DOD-Reported Actions That Relate to Land Mine and UXO
Concerns:
Developing Antipersonnel Land-Mine Alternatives and More Capable and
Safer Self-Destruct Land Mines:
Revising Doctrine and Procedures to Better Address Hazardous
Submunition Dudfields:
Increasing Ammunition Reliability and Reducing Dud Rates:
Appendix V: Scope and Methodology:
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Tables:
Table 1: U.S. Land Mines Reportedly Used in the Gulf War:
Table 2: Total U.S. Gulf War Casualties:
Table 3: Descriptions of Casualty Categories:
Table 4: U.S. Gulf War Casualties from Explosions and All Other Causes:
Table 5: U.S. Gulf War Explosion Casualties by Category:
Table 6: U.S. Scatterable Mines and UXO Reported by CMS, Inc., as Found
on One Kuwaiti Battlefield Sector:
Table 7: DOD Land Mine Stockpile Totals as of 2002:
Table 8: Land Mines in Mixed Dispensers as of 2002:
Table 9: Total U.S. Worldwide Inventory of Land Mines as of 2002:
Table 10: Types and Numbers of Certain U.S. Land Mines Stockpiled
Worldwide in 1990, Available in the Southwest Asian Theater, and Used
during the Gulf War:
Figures:
Figure 1: Causes of U.S. Casualties during the Gulf War:
Figure 2: Types of Munitions Causing 177 Explosion Casualties:
Figure 3: Circumstances Causing 177 U.S. Casualties from Land Mines,
Cluster Munition UXO, and Other UXO:
Figure 4: Map of Kuwait Showing the CMS Explosive Ordnance Disposal
Sector Surrounding Al Jaber Airbase:
Figure 5: U.S. Land Mines Available and Used in the Gulf War:
Figure 6: U.S. Land Mines Available but Not Used in the Gulf War:
Figure 7: M-18 Claymore Nonself-Destruct Command-Detonated
Antipersonnel Land Mine:
Abbreviations:
ADAM: Area Denial Artillery Munition:
AP: antipersonnel:
APL: antipersonnel land mine:
ASD/SOLIC: Assistant Secretary of Defense (Special Operations and
Low-Intensity Conflict):
AT: antitank:
ATACMS: Army Tactical Missile System:
CBU: cluster bomb unit:
CINC: commander-in-chief:
CMS: Conventional Munitions Systems, Inc.
DAM: Demolition Attack Munition:
DOD: Department of Defense:
DPICM: dual-purpose improved conventional munition:
FASCAM: family of scatterable mines:
EOD: explosive ordnance disposal:
GEMSS: Ground-Emplaced Mine Scattering System:
JCS: Joint Chiefs of Staff:
LM: land mine:
MLRS: Multiple Launch Rocket System:
MOPMS: Modular Pack Mine System:
NSD-A: Non-Self-Destruct Alternative:
ODS: Operation Desert Storm:
OSD: Office of the Secretary of Defense:
PDD: Presidential Decision Directive:
PDM: Pursuit Denial Munition:
RAAM: Remote Anti-Armor Mine:
RADAM: Remote Area Denial Artillery Munition:
SCATMINE: scatterable mine:
SD: self-destruct:
SLAM: Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition:
SWA: Southwest Asia:
UXO: unexploded ordnance:
WAM: Wide Area Munition:
[End of section]
United States General Accounting Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
September 30, 2002:
The Honorable Lane Evans:
House of Representatives:
Dear Mr. Evans:
The utility of land mines on the modern battlefield has come into
question in recent years, largely because of their potential for
causing unintended casualties and affecting U.S. forces‘
maneuverability. [Footnote 1] These concerns were raised during the
Persian Gulf War (August 1990 to April 1991). In the Gulf War, the
Department of Defense (DOD) deployed over 580,000 military personnel
and a wide array of conventional weapons and munitions that it had
designed and acquired primarily to fight the Soviet Union. The
munitions used by these forces included several types of land mines and
represented the largest U.S. combat use of its newer aircraft-and
artillery-delivered scatterable self-destructing land mines. Since the
United States was attacked on September 11, 2001, DOD has been
reviewing war plans to ensure that the military services are ready to
meet future U.S. national security needs. This effort includes plans
for the use of land mines. U.S. Gulf War experience documented in DOD
after-action and lessons-learned reports provides insights concerning
land mines.
As you requested, this report focuses on U.S. land mine use during the
Gulf War. Our objective was to answer the following questions: (1) To
what extent were U.S. land mines available, planned for use, and used in
the Gulf War; and what enemy losses resulted from U.S. land mine use?
(2) To what extent did land mines cause U.S. casualties? (3) What
concerns and related actions were identified in lessons-learned and
other reports about the use of land mines? In addition, you asked us to
provide information on the quantity of land mines in the current U.S.
stockpile and the planned U.S. use of land mines for the defense of the
Republic of South Korea. We are providing information on the current
U.S. land mine stockpile in appendix I. We will later provide
information on the U.S. use of land mines for the defense of South
Korea. Because land mine issues are in some ways related to issues
regarding unexploded ordnance (UXO) on the battlefield, we also discuss
unexploded ordnance as it relates to U.S. casualties and troop
mobility. This report does not assess the military utility or
effectiveness of land mine warfare, the use of land mines by U.S.
allies or the enemy in the Gulf War, the utility of nonland-mine
’submunition“ [Footnote 2] weapons, the services‘ casualty-reporting
systems, postconflict humanitarian issues, or DOD‘s current actions to
address land mine and unexploded ordnance issues. (See app. IV.)
Because many records on the use of land mines and U.S. casualties during
the Gulf War had been destroyed or lost, were incomplete or
contradictory, or were archived and not easily accessible, we compiled
records and documents from various sources and different DOD locations
and interviewed a wide range of cognizant officials. Military service
officials believe that service-provided data regarding U.S. land-mine,
casualty, and unexploded ordnance issues are as accurate as available
DOD records permit and that our coverage of U.S. casualties is based on
the most complete analysis by service casualty officials to date. (See
app. V for a detailed discussion of this report‘s scope and
methodology.)
Results in Brief:
U.S. land mines of all types”nonself-destructing and self-destructing,
antipersonnel and antitank”were available for use if needed in the Gulf
War from U.S. land mine stockpiles, which contained about 19 million
land mines. U.S. forces sent to the Gulf War theater of operations took
with them for potential use over 2.2 million land mines. U.S. war plans
included plans for the use of land mines if required by the tactical
situation. According to DOD documents, no nonself-destructing, or
’dumb,“ land mines were used; and the reported number of self-
destructing, or ’smart,“ land mines used by the services totaled
approximately 118,000. DOD did not provide us information on the effect
of U.S. land mine use against the enemy. Consequently, we are unable to
report this effect. Although U.S. surface-laid scatterable land mines
were employed by Marine Corps artillery to supplement a defensive
position and by Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft to attack
suspected Iraqi Scud missile transporters and other locations, no
military service report attributed enemy losses to the U.S. use of land
mines. Similarly, neither DOD, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, nor the U.S.
Central Command provided us with any reports or other evidence clearly
indicating that U.S. land mines used during the Gulf War had been the
direct or indirect cause of enemy casualties, equipment losses, or
maneuver limitations.
According to U.S. service records, of the 1,364 total U.S. casualties
in the Gulf War, 81, or 6 percent, were killed or injured by land
mines. Of these casualties, none was attributed to U.S. land mines, but
rather, they were attributed to Iraqi or unknown types of land mines.
Some portion of the 142 casualties caused by an unknown type of land
mine or unknown or misidentified type of unexploded ordnance might have
been caused by U.S. or other land mines, but there is no way of
knowing. Similarly, it is possible that some U.S. casualties in the
’unknown causes“ and ’other causes“ categories might have resulted from
land mines or unexploded ordnance. Because of service data limitations,
it is not possible to determine the exact cause of all these
casualties.
Concerns about land mines raised in DOD lessons-learned and other
reports included the fear of fratricide and loss of battlefield
mobility. These concerns led to the reluctance of some U.S. commanders
to use land mines in areas that U.S. and allied forces might have to
traverse. According to DOD reports, commanders gave two basic reasons
for these concerns: The first entailed the obsolescence of
conventional, nonself-destructing U.S. land mines as well as safety
issues involving the use of land mines in general and other scatterable
munitions. The safety issues during the Gulf War were heightened by
malfunctioning, or dud, rates for land mines and other submunitions
that were higher than anticipated. Furthermore, malfunctioning
submunitions, when present on the battlefield in large numbers, can
result in de facto minefields, or ’dudfields,“ thus creating fratricide
hazards and mobility limitations similar to minefields. The second
reason for the concerns was that reporting, recording, and when
appropriate, marking [Footnote 3] the location of minefields or
hazardous dudfields were not always accomplished when needed. According
to DOD reports, even when self-destructing land mines are appropriately
reported and marked, malfunctioning self-destruct mechanisms can still
cause concerns about potential hazards similar to nonland-mine
dudfields. DOD and service reports resulting from the Gulf War
recognized that concerns about land mines and other unexploded
submunitions on the battlefield needed to be addressed. In various
after-action reports, DOD identified a variety of corrective actions to
address fratricide and mobility concerns and to improve the
effectiveness and utility of land mine and nonland-mine submunitions.
These actions included that DOD (1) replace older model nonself-
destruct land mines with modern, safer ones or alternative systems; (2)
emphasize procedures to reduce fratricide and battlefield mobility
concerns associated with dudfields; and (3) include self-destruct
mechanisms in nonland-mine submunitions. (Appendix IV identifies DOD-
reported actions related to these concerns. However, because it was
outside the scope of this report, we did not evaluate DOD‘s progress in
these areas.)
In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD stated that the report is
flawed because it makes assertions that are not based on fact and uses
unreliable data (see app. VI for DOD‘s comments in their entirety).
Though we have made some changes to clarify issues DOD raises, we do
not agree that our report is flawed or contains unsupported facts or
unreliable data. Almost all data in this report for U.S. land mine use,
U.S. casualties, and DOD lessons learned were provided to us by service
officials or were taken from DOD documents. The data‘s accuracy was not
challenged by DOD, and DOD provided no alternative data. Much of DOD‘s
concern about ’unreliable data“ stems from our use of the report by an
Army contractor on unexploded ordnance cleanup of the battlefield.
While DOD claims that the contractor‘s report contained inaccuracies,
DOD did not provide any data to challenge the main message of the
contractor‘s report, which was that a very large number of U.S. land
mine and cluster munition duds were found on the Kuwaiti battlefield.
See the ’Agency Comments and Our Evaluation“ section for our detailed
response to DOD‘s comments.
Background:
Land mines in the U.S. inventory are of two distinct types: The first
consists of conventional land mines that are hand-emplaced and are
termed nonself-destruct, or sometimes ’dumb,“ because they remain
active for years unless disarmed or detonated. They can therefore cause
unintended post-conflict and civilian casualties. The second type
consists of land mines that are generally, but not always, surface-laid
’scatterable“ land mines that are dropped by aircraft, fired by
artillery, or dispersed by another dispenser system. They are
conversely called ’smart“ because they remain active for preset periods
of time after which they are designed to self-destruct or deactivate,
rendering themselves nonhazardous.
According to DOD, smart land mines have a 99.99-percent self-destruct
reliability rate. Most self-destruct land mine systems are set at one
of three self-destruct periods: 4 hours, 48 hours, or 15 days. In
addition, should the self-destruct mechanism fail, self-destruct land
mines are designed to self-deactivate, meaning that they are to be
rendered inoperable by means of the ’irreversible exhaustion of their
batteries“ within 120 days after employment. This feature, according to
DOD, operates with a reliability rate of 99.999(+) percent. [Footnote
4] At the time of the Gulf War, U.S. forces were armed with both
nonself-destruct and self-destruct land mines, and U.S. policy allowed
them to use both types. Today, however, U.S. presidential policy limits
the U.S. forces‘ use of nonself-destruct M-14 and M-16 antipersonnel
land mines (see fig. 6 in app. II) to Korea.
Antitank mines, as the name implies, are designed to immobilize or
destroy tracked and wheeled vehicles and the vehicles‘ crews and
passengers. The fuzes that activate antitank mines are of various types.
For example, they can be activated by pressure, which requires contact
with the wheels or tracks of a vehicle, or by acoustics, magnetic
influence, radio frequencies, infrared-sensor, command, disturbance, or
vibration, which do not require contact. Antitank mines have three
types of warheads. Blast mines derive their effectiveness from the
force generated by high-explosive detonation. Shaped-charged mines use
a directed-energy warhead. Explosive-formed penetrating mines have an
explosive charge with a metal plate in front, which forms into an
inverted disk, a slug, or a long rod.
Antipersonnel land mines are designed to kill or wound soldiers. Their
fuzes can be activated, for example, by pressure, trip wires,
disturbance, antihandling mechanisms, or command detonation.
Antipersonnel land mine warhead types include blast, directed
fragmentation, and bounding fragmentation. The blast mine is designed
to injure the lower extremities of the individual who steps on it. The
directed fragmentation mine propels fragments in the general direction
it is pointed, and the bounding fragmentation mine throws a canister
into the air, which bursts and scatters shrapnel throughout the
immediate area to kill or wound the enemy.
Antitank and antipersonnel land mines are often employed together, as
’mixed“ systems. In a mixed system, the antipersonnel land mines are
intermingled with antitank land mines to discourage enemy personnel
from attempting to disarm them. Antitank land mines may also be
equipped with explosive antidisturbance devices designed to protect them
from being moved by enemy personnel, thus increasing the difficulty and
challenge of breaching a minefield. [Footnote 5]
Effect of the Use of Self-Destruct U.S. Land Mines in the Gulf War Is
Unknown:
According to DOD, all the types of land mines in DOD‘s arsenal were
available and included in U.S. war plans for use if needed in the Gulf
War. DOD reported that during the war, U.S. forces used no nonself-
destruct land mines. The services reported using a total of about
118,000 artillery-delivered or aircraft-delivered surface-laid
scatterable self-destruct land mines. DOD provided few records showing
why land mines were used and no evidence of specific military effects
on the enemy”such as enemy killed or equipment destroyed”from the U.S.
use of land mines during the Gulf War. We therefore could not determine
the effect of U.S. land-mine use during the Gulf War. See appendix II
for pictures, types, and numbers of land mines available for use and
numbers used in the Gulf War.
U.S. Nonself-Destruct and Self-Destruct Land Mines Were Available in
Theater:
U.S. forces deployed to the Gulf War with over 2.2 million of the DOD-
estimated 19 million land mines available in U.S. worldwide stockpiles
in 1990. [Footnote 6] These consisted of both the conventional nonself-
destruct land mines and scatterable surface-laid, self-destruct land
mines. Nonself-destruct, hand-emplaced land mines available but not
used included the M-14 (’Toe Popper“) and the M-16 (’Bouncing Betty“)
antipersonnel land mines and the M-15, M-19, and M-21 antitank land
mines. [Footnote 7] Self-destruct, scatterable land mines included air-
delivered cluster bomb unit (CBU) 78/89 Gator, which dispensed mixed
scatterable antipersonnel and antitank land mines, and artillery-fired
M-692/731 Area Denial Artillery Munition (ADAM) antipersonnel land
mines and M-718/741 Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) antitank land mines.
[Footnote 8] (See app. II, figs. 5, 6, and 7 and table 10.)
The services reported that all standard types of U.S. land mines in
their inventories were available from unit and theater supplies or U.S.
stockpiles.
Planned Use of U.S. Land Mines:
During the Gulf War, U.S. forces were permitted by doctrine, war plans,
and command authority to employ both nonself-destruct and self-destruct
land mines whenever an appropriate commander determined that U.S. use
of land mines would provide a tactical advantage. U.S. land mines of all
types were available and planned for use by U.S. forces.
U.S. land mine warfare [Footnote 9] doctrine for the services during
the Gulf War indicated that land mines could be used both offensively,
for example, to deny the enemy use of key terrain, and defensively, for
instance, to protect U.S. forces from attack. U.S. doctrine states that
the primary uses of land mines are to provide force protection, shape
the battlefield, and reduce the number of forces needed.
At the time of the Gulf War, U.S. land mine doctrine included the
following four types of minefields:
1. protective minefields, whose purpose is to add temporary strength to
weapons, positions, or other obstacles;
2. tactical minefields, which are emplaced as part of an overall
obstacle plan to stop, delay, and disrupt enemy attacks; reduce enemy
mobility; channelize enemy formations; block enemy penetrations; and
protect friendly flanks;
3. point minefields, which are emplaced in friendly or uncontested areas
and are intended to disorganize enemy forces or block an enemy
counterattack; and;
4. interdiction minefields, which are emplaced in enemy-held areas to
disrupt lines of communication and separate enemy forces. [Footnote 10]
U.S. plans for the execution of the Gulf War included the use of hand-
emplaced antipersonnel and antitank land mines (e.g., M-14/16/21),
artillery-delivered land mines (ADAM/RAAM), air-delivered land mines
(Gator), and others for these purposes when U.S. commanders determined
their use was needed. Military units‘ on-hand ammunition supplies, as
well as ammunition resupply stockpiles located within the combat
theater, included millions of U.S. land mines. Ammunition resupply
plans included planned rates for the daily resupply of land mines
consumed in combat.
Services Reported that the United States Used about 118,000 Land Mines:
The services reported that during the Gulf War, they used about 118,000
land mines from the approximately 2.2 million U.S. land mines that were
taken to the Gulf War theater of operations and the millions of land
mines available for use from U.S. worldwide stockpiles, which in total
contained about 19 million land mines. All of the land mines used were
the self-destructing, scatterable, surface-laid types. However, the
services also indicated that, because Gulf War records related to land
mines might be incomplete, information made available to us may be
inexact. For example, the Army indicated that, while its record
searches show that the Army used no land mines, it is unsure whether
archived Gulf War records include evidence of Army land mine use that
it has not uncovered.
The services reported no confirmed use of any nonself-destruct land
mines during the Gulf War. In other words, U.S. forces reported no use
of antipersonnel land mines such as the over 6 million available (over
200,000 in theater) M-14 ’Toe Popper“ or M-16 ’Bouncing Betty“ and no M-
15, M-19, or M-21 antitank land mines, which numbered over 2 million in
U.S. stockpiles (over 40,000 in theater). (See fig. 6 and table 10 in
app. II.) The Army reported no confirmed use of any land mines, with
the qualification that it is unsure whether it had emplaced two
minefields of an unknown type. The other military services reported
that they used a total of 117,634 U.S. self-destruct land mines, whose
destruction time-delay periods were set at 4 hours, 48 hours, or 15
days. The type of land mine used in the largest quantity was the
aircraft-delivered surface-laid Gator land mines, which were dispersed
from cluster bomb units containing both antitank and antipersonnel
mines. Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft employed a total of 116,770
Gator land mines. Table 1 and appendix II provide additional details on
the numbers and types of land mines available for use and used by the
U.S. military services during the Gulf War.
Table 1: U.S. Land Mines Reportedly Used in the Gulf War:
Land mine type: Gator CBU bombs;
Service: Army: 0;
Service: Air Force: 1,105;
Service: Navy and Marine Corps combined[A]: 215;
Total land mines: [Empty].
Land mine type: Gator CBU bombs containing antitank mines;
Service: Army: 0;
Service: Air Force: 79,560;
Service: Navy and Marine Corps combined[A]: 9,675;
Total land mines: 89,235.
Land mine type: Gator CBU bombs containing antipersonnel mines:
Service: Army: 0;
Service: Air Force: 24,310;
Service: Navy and Marine Corps combined[A]: 3,225;
Total land mines: 27,535.
Land mine type: RAAM artillery rounds;
Service: Army: 0;
Service: Air Force: 0;
Service: Navy and Marine Corps combined[A]: 48[B];
Total land mines: [Empty].
Land mine type: RAAM artillery rounds containing antitank mines;
Service: Army: 0;
Service: Air Force: 0;
Service: Navy and Marine Corps combined[A]: 432[B];
Total land mines: 432.
Land mine type: ADAM artillery rounds;
Service: Army: 0;
Service: Air Force: 0;
Service: Navy and Marine Corps combined[A]: 12[B];
Total land mines: [Empty].
Land mine type: ADAM artillery rounds containing antipersonnel mines;
Service: Army: 0;
Service: Air Force: 0;
Service: Navy and Marine Corps combined[A]: 432[B];
Total land mines: 432.
Land mine type: Total land mines;
Service: Army: 0[C];
Service: Air Force: 103,870;
Service: Navy and Marine Corps combined[A]: 13,764;
Total land mines: 117,634.
[A] The service-reported data combined Navy and Marine Corps usage of
Gator land mines and are included here in that format.
[B] All ADAM and RAAM numbers indicate use by only the Marine Corps.
[C] The Army stated that it is unsure whether it had emplaced two
minefields of unknown type.
Note: DOD and the services reported that no U.S. land mines of any type
were employed except those shown in this table. DOD said that available
Gulf War records do not permit estimating the number of land mines used
by calculating the difference between the number brought to the war and
the number returned unused.
Source: DOD and service documents.
[End of table]
DOD Records Contain Little Information on Why Land Mines Were Used:
DOD records on the Gulf War provided us include little detail on why
land mines were used. Available records indicate that U.S. forces
employed land mines both offensively and defensively when fighting in
Iraqi-controlled Kuwait. For example, U.S. aircraft offensively employed
concentrations of surface-laid Gator land mines to deny Iraqi use of Al
Jaber airbase in Kuwait and to hamper the movement of Iraqi forces. In
addition, Gator land mines were used extensively with the intent to
inhibit free movement in and around possible staging and launch areas
for enemy Scud missiles. [Footnote 11] Possible Scud missile
transporter ’hide sites“ included culverts, overpasses, and bridges in
Iraq. In a defensive mode, Gator land mines were employed along the
flanks of U.S. forces. In addition, U.S. Marines defensively employed
concentrations of artillery-fired ADAM and RAAM land mines to
supplement defenses against potential attacks by enemy forces north of
Al Jaber airbase in southern Kuwait.
Procedures for commanders to approve land mine use were established,
disseminated, and included in all major unit war plans. A senior U.S.
force commander who participated in the Gulf War told us that:
* U.S. forces had no restrictive theaterwide or forcewide prohibitions
on the employment of land mines;
* U.S. commanders understood their authority to use mines whenever their
use would provide a tactical advantage, and;
* U.S. commanders decided to use land mine or nonland-mine munitions
based on their determinations as to which were best suited to accomplish
assigned missions.
Effects of U.S. Land-Mine Use on the Enemy Are Unknown:
The services reported no evidence of enemy casualties, either killed or
injured; enemy equipment losses, either destroyed or damaged; or enemy
maneuver limitations resulting, directly or indirectly, from its
employment of surface-laid scatterable Gator, ADAM, and RAAM land mines
during the Gulf War. (See app. II, fig. 5.) U.S. forces intended to
adversely affect the enemy by using 116,770 Gator land mines, but no
service has provided specific evidence that these land mines or the 864
ADAM and RAAM land mines reported as employed actually caused or
contributed to enemy losses. Because neither DOD nor the services
provided us evidence or estimates of actual effects and losses
inflicted on the enemy by these U.S. land mines, we were unable to
determine the actual effect of U.S. land mine use during the Gulf War.
DOD and service documents detailing when land mines were used did not
provide evidence of the effects of that use. For example, in one case,
the Marine Corps reported that it had fired artillery-delivered ADAM and
RAAM land mines to supplement a defensive position. However, the enemy
was not reported to have been aware of or have actually encountered
these land mines. Similarly, air Gator drops on possible Scud missile
sites were not reported to have destroyed any Scud missiles or
transporters. The services provided no evidence indicating whether the
enemy had ever encountered the Gator land mines dropped on possible
enemy maneuver routes or whether Gator employments had resulted in
enemy destruction.
Extent of U.S. Casualties from Land Mines and Unexploded Ordnance:
Service reports indicate that 81 of the 1,364 U.S. casualties
attributed to the Gulf War [Footnote 12] were caused by land mines.
None of these were attributed specifically to U.S. land mines, but
rather to an Iraqi or an ’unknown“ type of land mine. Because of
service data limitations, the possibility cannot be ruled out that some
of the casualties now attributed to explosions of unknown or
ambiguously reported unexploded ordnance were actually caused by land
mines. Service casualty reporting indicates that at least 142
additional casualties resulted from such unexplained explosions.
However, there is no way to determine whether some portion of these
might have been caused by U.S. or other land mines or by unexploded
ordnance. Of all casualties reported to have been caused by explosions,
a relatively small percentage were reported to have been caused by the
unauthorized handling of unexploded ordnance.
Numbers of Service Members Reported Killed and Injured during the Gulf
War:
The services reported that there were 1,364 U.S. casualties associated
with the Gulf War. Of these, 385 were killed, and 979 were injured. Army
personnel suffered 1,032 casualties, or 76 percent, of all U.S. deaths
and injuries. Table 2 shows the numbers of U.S. casualties by military
service.
Table 2: Total U.S. Gulf War Casualties:
Service: Army;
Killed: 226;
Injured: 806;
Total: 1,032;
Percentage of total: 76.
Service: Marines;
Killed: 69;
Injured: 153;
Total: 222;
Percentage of total: 16.
Service: Air Force;
Killed: 35;
Injured: 9;
Total: 44;
Percentage of total: 3.
Service: Navy;
Killed: 55;
Injured: 11;
Total: 66;
Percentage of total: 5.
Service: Total;
Killed: 385;
Injured: 979;
Total: 1,364;
Percentage of total: 100.
Source: Service casualty data.
[End of table]
Causes of U.S. Casualties:
To determine what number of these casualties could have been caused by
U.S. or other land mines, we obtained information from the services on
the causes of all Gulf War deaths and injuries. Service officials
attributed casualties to causes and categories based on battlefield
casualty, accident, after-action, and other reports. As shown in figure
1, enemy ground and Scud missile fire caused the largest number of
identifiable casualties to Gulf War service members. The services
assigned 287, or 21 percent, of all casualties during the Gulf War to
the ’enemy ground/Scud fire“ category. In particular, the Army
attributed 128 of the 287 in this category to an Iraqi Scud missile
attack. In addition, enemy fire caused some ’aircraft incident“
casualties. The second and third largest categories of identifiable
causes of casualties were vehicle accidents and aircraft incidents.
Available data indicate that explosions from some type of ordnance
caused 177 casualties: land mines caused 81; cluster munition unexploded
ordnance (UXO) caused 80; and other UXO caused 16.
Figure 1: Causes of U.S. Casualties during the Gulf War:
[See PDF for image]
This figure is a pie-chart, depicting the following data:
Causes of U.S. Casualties during the Gulf War:
Cause: Enemy Ground/Scud fire:
Casualties: 287;
Percentage of casualties: 21%.
Cause: Other causes;
Casualties: 281;
Percentage of casualties: 21%.
Cause: Other accidents;
Casualties: 176;
Percentage of casualties: 13%.
Cause: Vehicle accidents;
Casualties: 168;
Percentage of casualties: 12%.
Cause: Aircraft accidents;
Casualties: 138;
Percentage of casualties: 10%.
Cause: Cluster munition UXO;
Casualties: 80;
Percentage of casualties: 6%.
Cause: Land mines;
Casualties: 81;
Percentage of casualties: 6%.
Cause: Friendly fire;
Casualties: 59;
Percentage of casualties: 4%.
Cause: Natural causes;
Casualties: 34;
Percentage of casualties: 3%.
Cause: Unknown causes;
Casualties: 44;
Percentage of casualties: 3%.
Cause: Other UXO;
Casualties: 16;
Percentage of casualties: 1%.
Source: Service casualty data.
[End of figure]
The casualty categories depicted in figure 1 are defined in table 3.
Table 3: Descriptions of Casualty Categories:
Casualty category: Land mines;
Number of casualties: 81;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and injuries
attributed by the services to Iraqi or unidentified land mines. The
services attributed no U.S. Gulf War casualties to U.S. land mines.[A]
Casualty category: Cluster munition UXO;
Number of casualties: 80;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and injuries
attributed by the services to a type of U.S. submunition unexploded
ordnance categorized as cluster bomb units and dual-purpose improved
conventional munitions.[A]
Casualty category: Other UXO;
Number of casualties: 16;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and injuries
attributed by the services to explosions of unexploded ordnance of an
unidentified type.[A]
Casualty category: Unknown causes;
Number of casualties: 44;
Description of category: This category includes only Army casualties
attributed by the Army to unknown causes.[A]
Casualty category: Enemy ground/Scud fire;
Number of casualties: 287;
Description of category: This category includes deaths and injuries
attributed by the services to enemy ground weapons and Scud missile
fire against U.S. forces. This category does not include aircraft
incidents.
Casualty category: Aircraft incidents;
Number of casualties: 138;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and injuries
attributed by the services to airplane and helicopter incidents due to
enemy fire, weather conditions, pilot error, or mechanical failure.
Casualty category: Friendly fire;
Number of casualties: 59;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and injuries
attributed by the services to friendly fire.
Casualty category: Vehicle accidents;
Number of casualties: 168;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and injuries
attributed by the services to accidents involving vehicles other than
aircraft.
Casualty category: Other accidents;
Number of casualties: 176;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and injuries
attributed by the services to accidents other than vehicle or aircraft
accidents. It includes noncombat-related incidents, such as accidental
grenade explosions, drownings, and training accidents.
Casualty category: Other causes;
Number of casualties: 281;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and injuries
not attributed by the services to the other categories.[A]
Casualty category: Natural causes;
Number of casualties: 34;
Description of category: This category includes all deaths and
illnesses attributed by the services to natural physical causes, such
as heart attack.
Casualty category: Total casualties;
Number of casualties: 1,364.
[A] Service casualty reporting does not rule out the possibility that
this category may include mine, cluster munition, and other UXO
casualties.
Source: Service-reported casualty data.
[End of table]
As would be expected, the various services experienced different types
and numbers of casualties. For the Marine Corps, ’enemy ground fire“
caused the largest number of casualties”84; for the Air Force, ’aircraft
incidents“ was the largest cause”39; and for the Navy, ’other accidents“
caused the largest number”33. For the Army, ’other causes“ was the
largest category”267. Our comparison of casualty-related documentation,
however, indicates that at least some of these casualties should have
been categorized elsewhere. For example, documentation shows that one
casualty placed in ’other causes“ might have been a land mine casualty.
In a second case, documentation indicates that one of these casualties
suffered a heart attack and should have been placed in the ’natural
causes“ category. In other documentation, we found indications that
five casualties placed in this ’other causes“ category suffered what
were ’other accidents.“ For these reasons, it is unclear whether all
267 of these Army-reported casualties should have been placed in the
’other causes“ category. However, Army officials indicated that
available data limited the Army‘s ability to identify more specifically
the causes of these casualties. See appendix III for the reported
numbers of casualties by service and cause.
Explosion Casualties Caused by Land Mines, Cluster Munition UXO, and
Other UXO:
Service data show that 34 persons were killed and 143 were injured
during the Gulf War by the explosion of some type of ordnance other
than enemy fire. These 177 casualties”caused by land mines, cluster
munition UXO, or other UXO”represent 13 percent of all casualties
suffered by service members. (See table 4.)
Table 4: U.S. Gulf War Casualties from Explosions and All Other Causes:
Category: Explosion casualties[A]:
Army, killed: 32;
Army, injured: 132;
Army, total: 164;
Marines, killed: 2;
Marines, injured: 10;
Marines, total: 12;
Air Force, killed: 0;
Air Force, injured: 1;
Air Force, total: 1;
Navy, killed: 0;
Navy, injured: 0;
Navy, total: 0;
DOD, killed: 34;
DOD, injured: 143;
DOD, total: 177.
Category: All other casualties;
Army, killed: 194;
Army, injured: 674;
Army, total: 871;
Marines, killed: 67;
Marines, injured: 143;
Marines, total: 210;
Air Force, killed: 35;
Air Force, injured: 8;
Air Force, total: 43;
Navy, killed: 55;
Navy, injured: 11;
Navy, total: 66;
DOD, killed: 351;
DOD, injured: 836;
DOD, total: 1,187.
Category: Total;
Army, killed: 226;
Army, injured: 805;
Army, total: 1,032;
Marines, killed: 69;
Marines, injured: 153;
Marines, total: 222;
Air Force, killed: 35;
Air Force, injured: 9;
Air Force, total: 44;
Navy, killed: 55;
Navy, injured: 11;
Navy, total: 66;
DOD, killed: 385;
DOD, injured: 979;
DOD, total: 1,364.
[A] Explosion casualty totals are comprised of three categories - land
mines, cluster munition UXO, and other UXO.
Source: Service casualty data.
[End of table]
Of the 177 Gulf War casualties that DOD reported were caused by an
explosion from some type of land mine, cluster munition, or unidentified
type of UXO, the services reported no U.S. casualties were caused by
U.S. land mines. However, as shown in table 5, U.S. cluster munition UXO
(CBU or dual-purpose improved conventional munitions) or other UXO
(unidentified) caused more U.S. casualties”96”than Iraqi and
unidentified land mines”81.
Table 5: U.S. Gulf War Explosion Casualties by Category:
Category: Land mines:
Army, killed: 10;
Army, injured: 61;
Army, total: 71;
Marines, killed: 2;
Marines, injured: 7;
Marines, total: 9;
Air Force, killed: 0;
Air Force, injured: 1;
Air Force, total: 1;
Navy, killed: 0;
Navy, injured: 0;
Navy, total: 0;
DOD, killed: 12;
DOD, injured: 69;
DOD, total: 87
Category: Cluster munition UXO;
Army, killed: 22;
Army, injured: 58;
Army, total: 80;
Marines, killed: 0;
Marines, injured: 0;
Marines, total: 0;
Air Force, killed: 0;
Air Force, injured: 0;
Air Force, total: 0;
Navy, killed: 0;
Navy, injured: 0;
Navy, total: 0;
DOD, killed: 22;
DOD, injured: 58;
DOD, total: 80.
Category: Other UXO;
Army, killed: 0;
Army, injured: 13;
Army, total: 13;
Marines, killed: 0;
Marines, injured: 3;
Marines, total: 3;
Air Force, killed: 0;
Air Force, injured: 0;
Air Force, total: 0;
Navy, killed: 0;
Navy, injured: 0;
Navy, total: 0;
DOD, killed: 0;
DOD, injured: 16;
DOD, total: 16.
Category: Total;
Army, killed: 32;
Army, injured: 132;
Army, total: 164;
Marines, killed: 2;
Marines, injured: 10;
Marines, total: 12;
Air Force, killed: 0;
Air Force, injured: 1;
Air Force, total: 1;
Navy, killed: 0;
Navy, injured: 0;
Navy, total: 0;
DOD, killed: 34;
DOD, injured: 143;
DOD, total: 177.
Note: U.S. combat explosion casualties from enemy fire and accidental
U.S. or allied fratricidal fire are not included in the land mine,
cluster munition UXO, and other UXO explosion casualty totals shown in
table 5.
Source: Service casualty data.
[End of table]
Of all persons killed or injured by explosions from land mines (either
Iraqi or unidentified), cluster munition UXO (either CBUs or dual-
purpose improved conventional munitions), and other unidentified UXO,
Army personnel represented 164, or 93 percent. In addition, 12 Marine
Corps personnel were killed or injured, and 1 Air Force service member
was injured by these explosions.
Figure 2: Types of Munitions Causing 177 Explosion Casualties:
[See PDF for image]
This figure is a pie-chart depicting the following data:
Types of Munitions Causing 177 Explosion Casualties:
Munition type: Cluster munition UXO-CBU;
Number of casualties: 64;
Percentage of casualties: 36%.
Munition type: Unidentified land mines;
Number of casualties: 46;
Percentage of casualties: 26%.
Munition type: Iraqi land mines;
Number of casualties: 35;
Percentage of casualties: 20%.
Munition type: Cluster munition UXO-DPICM;
Number of casualties: 16;
Percentage of casualties: 9%.
Munition type: Other UXO;
Number of casualties: 16;
Percentage of casualties: 9%.
DPICM = dual-purpose improved conventional munition.
Source: Service casualty data.
[End of figure]
While the UXO causing a casualty might have been reported as a cluster
munition CBU, it could have been misidentified and actually have been a
U.S. land mine cluster munition from Gator, ADAM, RAAM, or some other
munition. Casualty records show numerous cases in which all these terms
are used interchangeably. For example, in one reported case, a casualty
is first attributed to a mine and next to a dual-purpose improved
conventional munition. In a second case, the service member was said to
have driven over a cluster munition, which was later called a ’mine.“
In a third case, the soldier is reported in one document to have ’hit a
trip wire causing mine to explode“ but in another document to have
’stepped on an Iraqi cluster bomb.“ In other words, the terminologies
used in these casualty reports are inconsistent and imprecise, thus
preventing a definitive analysis by the services of the causes of some
casualties. DOD indicated that it is possible also that some of the
casualties attributed to land mines were actually caused by unexploded
ordnance.
Percentage of Soldiers Injured or Killed by Unauthorized Handling of
UXO Is Relatively Small:
DOD data did not always allow it to identify how service members had
triggered the UXO that caused each casualty. Because of the many ways
that ordnance and UXO can be triggered and because some ordnance can
be triggered from a distance, DOD was unable to always determine the
circumstances causing an explosion and the type of ordnance that
exploded. DOD-reported data, however, indicate that relatively few
persons who became casualties of unexploded ordnance were handling it
without authorization.
In attempting to determine what percentage of service members were
injured or killed while handling ordnance in an unauthorized manner, we
consulted all available descriptions of these incidents. We grouped
these casualties into three categories based on service-reported
information concerning how the explosion was triggered: (1) in
performance of duty, (2) unauthorized handling of UXO, and (3) unknown
circumstance. As shown by figure 3, DOD data indicate that more than
half of the explosion casualties resulted from unknown circumstances.
Figure 3: Circumstances Causing 177 U.S. Casualties from Land Mines,
Cluster Munition UXO, and Other UXO:
[See PDF for image]
This figure is a pie-chart depicting the following data:
Circumstances Causing 177 U.S. Casualties from Land Mines, Cluster
Munition UXO, and Other UXO:
Circumstance: Unknown circumstance;
Number of casualties: 97;
Percentage of casualties: 55%.
Circumstance: Performance of assigned duty;
Number of casualties: 64;
Percentage of casualties: 36%.
Circumstance: Unauthorized handling of UXO;
Number of casualties: 16;
Percentage of casualties: 9%.
Source: Service casualty data.
[End of figure]
Of the 177 explosion casualties, DOD records indicated that 64
casualties (36 percent) resulted from explosions that were triggered in
the performance of assigned duties. For example, one Army ground unit
reported that when it began its ground attack, its first casualty
resulted from a soldier encountering an artillery submunition dud that
exploded.
In another incident, seven Army engineers were killed while clearing
unexploded BLU-97 (nonland-mine) duds at an Iraqi airfield. DOD
attributed these casualties to ’incorrect or incomplete training in mine
neutralization techniques and the handling of UXOs.“ An expert in
explosive ordnance demolition who was advising the engineers on how to
clear safely Gator land mine duds and other submunitions reported, ’I
feel worse because the guys who died probably died of ignorance. This
is a[n] EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] related problem which was ill
handled by others who thought they could handle the job.“ This
situation illustrates that UXO can be so dangerous that even engineers
with some training in handling UXO were thought by an explosive
ordnance disposal expert to be inadequately prepared to deal with UXO
on the battlefield.
Soldiers who represent the 16 casualties (9 percent) attributed by DOD
to unauthorized handling of UXO were generally performing their military
duties but for some unknown reason touched or otherwise triggered UXO.
These soldiers were typically on duty in or traversing U.S. dudfields
on the battlefield while performing such actions as pursuing the enemy.
DOD reported that some soldiers were casualties as a result of
disturbing battlefield objects that they thought were not hazardous,
while others might have known they were handling a piece of some sort
of ordnance. For example, a DOD document cited a case in which soldiers
handled UXO that they thought was harmless. This report stated that two
persons were killed and seven injured when soldiers ’collected what
they thought were parachute flares.“ Furthermore, soldiers might not
have recognized that a battlefield object was hazardous because UXO
comes in many shapes, sizes, and designs, much of which inexperienced
soldiers have never seen before. Some common U.S. submunitions appear
to be harmless while actually being armed and dangerous. Moreover, many
soldiers are not aware that some UXO can cause injuries at distances of
100 meters.
A small number of DOD casualty reports describing unauthorized handling
of UXO attribute soldier casualties to souvenir hunting. For example,
one incident resulted when a soldier who was examining an object was
told by fellow soldiers to get rid of it. When the soldier threw the
object away from him, it exploded. In other cases, soldiers might have
known that handling UXO was unauthorized and handled it anyway. Gulf War
documents indicate that DOD and the services called for soldiers on a
battlefield to be warned not to handle UXO unless directed to do so.
The remaining 97 (55 percent) of the 177 explosion casualties fell into
the unknown circumstances category. Because battlefield casualty
reports did not identify the circumstance or activity of these
soldiers, it is unknown whether or not these soldiers became casualties
while performing assigned duties.
The Army‘s Safety Center provided us data on 21 Gulf War U.S. explosion
casualties that occurred in Kuwait, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia (5 deaths and
16 injured). The Center attributed 7 of these casualties to land mines
of unknown type and 14 to U.S. dual-purpose improved conventional
munitions and CBU submunitions. These casualties were associated with
unintentional entry into minefields or dudfields or disturbance of UXO.
These casualties are included in the Gulf War casualty totals presented
in this report. [Footnote 13]
DOD Reports Express Fratricide and Mobility Concerns Relating to the
Safety of, and Lack of Knowledge about, Land Mines and Dudfields:
Numerous issues included in service and DOD Gulf War lessons-learned,
after-action, and other reports concerned the safety and utility of
conventional and submunition U.S. land mines. Fratricide and battlefield
mobility were cited often as important overall concerns associated with
both available and used U.S. land mines and nonland-mine submunitions.
These concerns led to the reluctance of some U.S. commanders to use
land mines in areas that U.S. and allied forces might have to traverse.
[Footnote 14] Commanders‘ fears arose because of two basic reasons: The
first reason involved both the obsolescence of conventional U.S. mines
and safety issues with both conventional and scatterable land mines. A
higher-than-anticipated dud rate for land mines and other submunitions
during the Gulf War was one safety issue. Reflective of the safety
issues, DOD reports recognized that de facto minefields created by all
unexploded submunitions”land mine and nonland-mine alike”threatened
fratricide and affected maneuvers by U.S. forces. The second reason
involved concern that reporting, recording, and, when appropriate,
marking the hazard areas created by the placement of self-destruct land
mines or dudfields were not always accomplished when needed. On the
basis of its Gulf War experience, DOD recognized the importance of
commanders‘ taking into consideration the possible effects of
unexploded munitions when making and executing their plans and
identified a variety of corrective actions. (App. IV cites DOD-reported
actions related to landmine and UXO concerns. Because it was beyond the
scope of this report, we did not evaluate DOD‘s progress in these
areas.)
Conventional U.S. Land Mines Were Considered Obsolete and Unsafe:
In Gulf War lessons-learned and other documents, DOD and the services
reported that U.S. conventional nonself-destructing land mines were
obsolete and dangerous to use and that the newer self-destructing land
mines also posed safety concerns to users. For example, one Army after-
action report recommended that U.S. conventional antitank and
antipersonnel land mines be replaced because of safety concerns. Army
officials stated that U.S. conventional mines needed better fuzing and
the capability of being remotely turned on or off or destroyed. In a
joint service lessons-learned report, officials stated, ’Commanders
were afraid to use conventional and scatterable mines because of their
potential for fratricide.“ The report said that this fear could also be
attributed to the lack of training that service members had received in
how to employ land mines. In particular, prior to the Gulf War, the
Army restricted live-mine training with conventional antipersonnel land
mines (M-14s and M-16s) because they were considered dangerous. The
joint lessons-learned report argued, ’If the system is unreliable or
unsafe during training, it will be unreliable and unsafe to use during
war.“
Since before the Gulf War, the Army has known about safety issues with
its conventional nonself-destruct M-14 and M-16 antipersonnel land
mines. For example, because of malfunctions that can occur with the
M605 fuze of the ’Bouncing Betty“ M-16 antipersonnel land mine, the
Army has restricted the use of the pre-1957 fuzes that are thought to
be dangerous. However, the concern extends beyond the fuze issue to
include also the land mines themselves. A DOD reliability testing
document states that the M-16 mines ’are subject to duds; the mine
ejects but fails to detonate. [The] mine is then unexploded ordnance
and still presents a danger.“ A DOD 2001 report on dud rates for land
mines and other munitions states that the dud rate identified by
stockpile reliability testing for M-16 land mines is over 6 percent.
[Footnote 15] In a specific case, a currently serving senior
Army officer told us that he had trained his unit with these
antipersonnel land mines in Germany in 1990 to get ready for the Gulf
War. According to the officer, during the training, his unit suffered
10 casualties from the M-16 land mine. This officer said that U.S.
’Bouncing Betty“ M-16 and ’Toe Popper“ M-14 antipersonnel land mines
should be eliminated from Army stockpiles because they are too
dangerous to use. [Footnote 16]
Due to safety concerns, the Army placed prohibitions on live-fire
training with these land mines before and after the Gulf War, with
restrictions being lifted during the Gulf War. But DOD reporting does
not indicate that any U.S. unit chose to conduct live-mine training in
the theater with any type of mines. According to an Army engineer after-
action report, ’Some troops even reported that they were prohibited
from training on live mines after their arrival in Saudi Arabia.“
Moreover, DOD reporting states that U.S. forces employed no M-14 or M-
16 mines in combat. Because of renewed restrictions following the Gulf
War, [Footnote 17] service members still are prohibited from live-fire
training [Footnote 18] on M-14 antipersonnel land mines, and training
on live M-16 mines is restricted to soldiers in units assigned or
attached to the Eighth U.S. Army in Korea. [Footnote 19]
Land Mines and Other Scatterable Munitions Had Higher-Than-Expected Dud
Rates During the Gulf War:
Another safety concern expressed in lessons-learned reports was that
higher-than-expected dud, or malfunction, rates occurred for the
approximately 118,000 U.S. self-destruct land mines and the millions of
other U.S. scatterable submunitions employed in the Gulf War. These
included duds found by a U.S. contractor while clearing a portion of the
Kuwaiti battlefield. These duds created concerns about potentially
hazardous areas for U.S. troops.
Expected Dud Rates for U.S. Self-Destruct Land Mines:
According to briefing documents provided by DOD‘s Office of the Project
Manager for Mines, Countermine and Demolitions, [Footnote 20] testing
over the past 14 years of almost 67,000 self-destructing antitank and
antipersonnel land mines at a proving ground has resulted in no live
mines being left after the tests. The office also reports that all U.S.
self-destruct mines self-deactivate, that is, their batteries die
within 90 to 120 days. The office stated that the reliability rate for
the self-destruct feature is 99.99 percent and that the reliability
rate for the self-deactivation feature is 99.999(+). According to the
program office, these features mean that self-destruct land mines leave
no hazardous mines on the battlefield.
According to the Army‘s 1998 Field Manual 20-32, all scatterable mines
have similar life cycles, though the times they are set for and the
dispensing systems can vary. The self-destruct mechanism for scatterable
mines operates as follows:
’For safety reasons, SCATMINEs [scatterable mines] must receive two
arming signals at launch. One signal is usually physical (spin,
acceleration, or unstacking), and the other is electronic. This same
electronic signal activates the mine‘s SD [self-destruct] time.
’Mines start their safe-separation countdown (arming time) when they
receive arming signals. This allows the mines to come to rest after
dispensing and allows the mine dispenser to exit the area safely....
’Mines are armed after the arming time expires. The first step in
arming is a self-test to ensure proper circuitry. Approximately 0.5
percent of mines fail the self-test and self-destruct immediately.
’After the self-test, mines remain active until their SD time expires
or until they are encountered. Mines actually self-destruct at 80 to
100 percent of their SD time....
No mines should remain after the SD time has been reached. Two to five
percent of US SCATMINES fail to self-destruct as intended. Any mines
found after the SD time must be treated as unexploded ordnance. For
example, mines with a 4-hour SD time will actually start self-
destructing at 3 hours and 12 minutes. When the 4-hour SD time is
reached, no unexploded mines should exist.“
Conventional Munitions Systems, Inc., Found Thousands of Duds on the
Kuwaiti Battlefield:
Conventional Munitions Systems (CMS), Inc., a U.S. contractor that
specialized in explosive ordnance disposal, was paid by the government
of Kuwait to clear unexploded ordnance from one of seven sectors of the
battlefield in Kuwait, which included Al Jaber Airbase (see fig. 4). CMS
reported finding substantially more U.S. land mine duds than would be
expected if dud rates were as low as DOD documents and briefings stated
they are. DOD indicated that it cannot confirm the accuracy of the
CMS-reported data.
Figure 4: Map of Kuwait Showing the CMS Explosive Ordnance Disposal
Sector Surrounding Al Jaber Airbase:
[See PDF for image]
The shaded area surrounding Al Jaber Airbase represents the CMS
explosive ordnance sector. The CMS sector equals about one-seventh of
Kuwait, which is about the size of New Jersey.
Source: GAO.
[End of figure]
After the Gulf War, CMS employed more than 500 certified, experienced,
and trained personnel to eliminate the unexploded ordnance in its sector
of Kuwait. About 150 CMS employees were retired U.S. military explosive
ordnance disposal experts. In a report for the U.S. Army, CMS recorded
the types and numbers of U.S. submunition duds it found in its
explosive ordnance disposal sector of the Kuwaiti battlefield.
[Footnote 21] The report illustrates how the dangers of the battlefield
during the Gulf War were compounded by the large numbers of unexploded
U.S. submunitions, including land mines.
According to the CMS report, it found 1,977 U.S. scatterable land mine
duds and about 118,000 U.S. nonland-mine submunition duds in its
disposal sector. CMS‘s report stated that ’many tons of modern bombs
called Cluster Bomb Unit[s] were dropped,“ each of which ’would deploy
as many as 250 small submunitions.“ The report states, ’A significant
number of the bombs and more importantly the submunitions, did not
detonate upon striking the ground resulting in hundreds of thousands of
…dud‘ explosive devices laying [sic] on the ground in Kuwait.“ While the
vast majority of these duds were from nonland mine submunitions, they
included the more modern self-destructing RAAM, ADAM, and Gator land
mines. [Footnote 22] Table 6 lists the types and amounts of U.S. dud
submunitions CMS reported finding in its disposal sector of the Kuwaiti
battlefield.
Table 6: U.S. Scatterable Mines and UXO Reported by CMS, Inc., as Found
on One Kuwaiti Battlefield Sector:
Type of dud: Land mines: RAAM (antitank);
Number of duds: 746[A];
Type of dud: Land mines: ADAM (antipersonnel);
Number of duds: 185;
Type of dud: Land mines: Gator BLU-91 (antitank);
Number of duds: 205;
Type of dud: Land mines: Gator BLU-92 (antipersonnel);
Number of duds: 841;
Total land mine duds: 1,977.
Type of dud: Nonland-mine submunitions: BLU 61;
Number of duds: 2,621;
Type of dud: Nonland-mine submunitions: BLU 63/86;
Number of duds: 6,639;
Type of dud: Nonland-mine submunitions: BLU 97;
Number of duds: 2,102;
Type of dud: Nonland-mine submunitions: BLU 73;
Number of duds: 396;
Type of dud: Nonland-mine submunitions: MK 118;
Number of duds: 95,799;
Type of dud: Nonland-mine submunitions: M 42/46/77;
Number of duds: 10,288;
Total nonland-mine submunition duds: 117,845;
Total land mine and nonland-mine submunition duds: 119,822.
Note: In addition to the U.S. submunition duds that CMS destroyed, it
disposed of non-U.S. ordnance duds and Iraqi ordnance found on both the
battlefield and in Iraqi ammunition stockpiles. CMS reported destroying
a total of over 1 million pieces of ordnance, including 350,000 land
mines, that it found in its disposal sector of Kuwait. CMS was
contracted by the government of Kuwait to clear battlefield debris and
unexploded ordnance from about 3,100 square kilometers. CMS personnel
stated that its contract performance was based on Kuwait‘s acceptance
of UXO-cleared areas rather than on quantity of UXO cleared. The fact
that CMS was paid by cleared area rather than by piece of ordnance
found is described by the then-DOD Project Manager for Mines,
Countermine, and Demolitions in his trip report of November 9, 1992, to
Kuwait to examine the cleanup operation being performed by CMS. The
government of Kuwait also hired contractors from other countries to
clear the rest of the Kuwaiti battlefield. Similarly, large amounts of
UXO were cleared from these sectors, but information on the types and
quantities of UXO destroyed was not available to us. In addition, the
types and quantities of UXO found on the Iraqi battlefield are unknown.
[A] CMS reported finding 746 M75 RAAM duds in its disposal sector,
though DOD reports firing only 432 RAAM and no M75 mines during the
war, a data inconsistency that remains unresolved. The CMS report
includes photographs of ADAM and RAAM land mine duds found. DOD
questioned the reliability of CMS data, indicating it might include
misidentified ordnance and confused nomenclatures of land mine systems.
However, DOD did not provide alternative data.
Source: U.S. Army Armament, Munitions, and Chemical Command, Contract
DAAA21-92-M-0300 report by CMS, Inc.
[End of table]
Dud Rates for Self-Destruct Land Mines Appear to Be Higher Than
Expected:
DOD reports that it employed in the Gulf War a total of about 118,000
self-destruct land mines (see table 1) and that their self-destruct
failure, or dud, rate is 0.01 percent (1 in 10,000). However, if, as
DOD reported, about 118,000 of these self-destruct land mines were
employed and they produced duds at the DOD-claimed rate of 0.01
percent, there should have been about 12 duds produced, not 1,977 as
CMS reported finding in one of seven Kuwaiti battlefield sectors. Thus,
a substantial inconsistency exists between the DOD-reported reliability
rate and the dud rate implied by the number of mines that CMS reported
finding from actual battlefield use. At the time CMS was completing
this UXO disposal work in Kuwait, the DOD program manager for Mines,
Countermine and Demolitions visited the CMS cleanup operation. His
report of that trip indicates that he thought CMS‘s techniques,
training of personnel, and recording of ordnance recovered were
thorough and accurate. The project manager said in his report that he
had personally seen unexploded U.S. ordnance on the battlefield. The
mine database developed by CMS to record the location of land mines,
the project manager believed, was ’extremely useful“ to the U.S.
soldiers working in that area.
We interviewed several former employees of CMS to obtain their views on
these issues. All of those we interviewed were retired senior U.S.
officers and noncommissioned officers whose rank ranged from major
general to sergeant first class. All but one were experienced in
military ordnance and explosive ordnance disposal. They included the
then-CMS president, the Kuwaiti on-site manager, and leaders of ground
UXO disposal teams. They made two major points: (1) U.S. submunition
UXO found in their sector was tactically employed, unexploded ordnance
duds that had failed to explode as designed and could have been
hazardous, meaning that if disturbed, the ordnance might have exploded,
and (2) U.S. Gator, ADAM, and RAAM land-mine duds had not self-
destructed as designed and were treated as hazardous. CMS explosives
disposal personnel stated that they had personally experienced what
they thought were Gator duds exploding on the battlefield in Kuwait,
caused by no apparent triggering event, over a year after the Gulf War
ended. CMS experts speculated that these detonations might have been
caused by the extreme heat in a desert environment.
DOD has been unable to explain the circumstances that caused the nearly
2,000 U.S. self-destruct land mine duds found in the CMS disposal
sector of the Kuwaiti battlefield not to self-destruct. Several DOD
land mine and explosive ordnance disposal experts speculated that these
dud land mines could have resulted from (1) mines that had
malfunctioned or had been misemployed; (2) greater-than-expected and
reported dud rates; or (3) the use by U.S. forces of many thousands
more scatterable land mines than DOD has reported having used. Some
Army land mine-related officials discounted the accuracy of some data
included in the CMS report. However, these officials did not provide us
with any factual evidence supporting these views.
Other DOD experts in explosive ordnance disposal confirmed in
interviews that scatterable mine duds can exist after their self-
destruct times have elapsed and that these duds may be hazardous. A DOD
explosive ordnance disposal expert said that procedures for eliminating
Gator duds specify that explosive ordnance disposal should be postponed
for 22 days, and then the duds should normally be destroyed remotely by
blowing them up in place. The 22-day period is calculated by adding a
50-percent safety factor to the maximum possible self-destruct period of
15 days. Explosive ordnance disposal personnel thus attempt to reduce
the possibility of a munition detonating or self-destructing while they
are near it.
DOD did not provide us with records to show the results of reliability
testing for ADAM, RAAM, or Gator land mines done prior to the Gulf War
or any safety-of-use messages that might have been in effect for these
or other U.S. land mines that were in U.S. stockpiles at that time.
However, DOD did provide some post-Gulf War test records that document
reliability problems with eight of its self-destruct land mine systems.
[Footnote 23] Specifically, testing showed that some land mines did not
self-destruct at the selected times. For example, a July 2000 Army
study of dud rates for ammunition reports that the submunition dud rate
for RAAM land mines with short duration fuzes is over 7 percent, and
the dud rate for RAAM land mines with long duration fuzes is over 10
percent. [Footnote 24] In an Ammunition Stockpile Reliability Program
test for the ADAM, the Army suspended one lot because it failed. In a
test for the Volcano system, 66 out of 564 land mines failed the test.
Among the failures were 1 hazardous dud (meaning that it could
explode), 24 nonhazardous duds (meaning that they had not armed), 6
mines that detonated early, and 1 mine that detonated late. In another
case, DOD testing of the Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition (SLAM)
land mine showed that it also did not destruct at the selected time.
While this problem was investigated, SLAM use was suspended and a
safety-of-use message was put into effect advising personnel ’never to
approach an M2 SLAM that has been armed“ and, in training, ’to assure
that it can be detonated if it fails to go off as intended.“ According
to DOD, the same self-destruct and self-deactivation design has been
used in all U.S. mines since 1970. Because of this design similarity,
it is possible that U.S. self-destruct land mines could be subject to
similar failures.
Failures of self-destruct land mines that are induced by extremes in
temperature and other variations in environmental conditions are well-
documented in service field manuals and after-action reports. Field
manuals state that the reliability of self-destruct land mines degrades
when they are employed on sand, vegetation, hillsides, snow, or hard
surfaces. Also, self-destruct land mines have reportedly ’reduced
effectiveness“ on hard surfaces such as concrete and asphalt. They
break apart and can easily be seen. Also, the high detectability of
scatterable mines on bare and lightly covered surfaces permits the
enemy to seek out unmined passageways or pick a way through lightly
seeded areas. An Army document states that ’FASCAM [family of
scatterable mines] must be covered by either observation or fire, since
FASCAM minefields are surface laid and an undisturbed enemy could
breach those obstacles quickly....FASCAM is not suitable for use in
road interdiction due to its tendency to malfunction on hard surfaces.“
In snow, self-destruct land mines may settle into the snow at
unintended angles, causing their antihandling devices to prematurely
detonate them. In deep snow, self-destruct land mines are considered
’ineffective,“ and at least 40 percent of their blast is smothered.
Soft sand, mud, or surface water can have similar effects. During the
Gulf War in particular, Marines found that in the constantly blowing
and shifting sand, surface mines became buried, and buried mines came
to the surface. Slope or unevenness of the terrain may also have an
adverse impact on self-destruct land mines. Specifically, between 5 and
15 percent of scatterable mines come to rest on their edges when
deployed. RAAM and ADAM land mines must come to rest and stabilize
within 30 seconds of impact, or the submunitions will not arm. Very
uneven terrain such as ground covered by vegetation or rocks also may
prevent the ADAM or Gator trip wires from deploying properly. [Footnote
25]
Gator testing indicates that various reliability problems can increase
dud rates. For example, in 58 tests, seven submunition land mine
dispenser failures were observed, reducing the reliability rate of the
dispensers to 88 percent. Of the submunition mines delivered, 99
percent survived ground impact. Of those, 97 percent of the antitank
mines armed, and 95 percent of the antipersonnel mines armed. Various
other problems can affect a mine‘s explosion. For example, one antitank
mine did not explode when triggered, but it did activate when it was
picked up and shaken.
Nonland-Mine Submunitions Also Had Higher Dud Rates Than Expected:
During the Gulf War, accumulations of thousands of U.S. nonland-mine
submunition duds on the battlefield created unintended de facto
minefields. This problem was exacerbated by dud rates for these
submunitions that appear to have been higher than the 2- to 4-percent
submunition dud rate that DOD had previously reported. In a study of
UXO issues, the Army identified an estimated 8-percent overall dud rate
for submunitions. Another Army document said that an explosive ordnance
disposal (EOD) commander estimated that an area occupied by the 24th
Infantry Division during the war experienced at least a 15- to 20-
percent dud rate for some Army submunitions. The document stated that
’An unknown amount was covered by sand suggesting an even higher rate.“
EOD personnel estimated that the dud rate for Air Force submunitions
was 40 percent for one area. They commented that these submunitions
’did not function well in soft sand.“ In addition, DOD reported that at
the time of the Gulf War, over half of the 133 Multiple Launch Rocket
System (MLRS) submunition lots in inventory exceeded the Army‘s 5-
percent dud-rate goal. [Footnote 26] Each Multiple Launch Rocket System
contains 644 M77 submunitions. One DOD document stated that the dud
rate for the M77 for the Gulf War ranged from 10 to 20 percent. U.S.
ammunition stockpile sample testing also indicated that DOD has
experienced past problems with submunition reliability rates. For
example, in 1990, testing of artillery-delivered nonland-mine
submunitions identified two lots that had duds in excess of 40 percent.
According to a testing document, one way to compensate for this high
dud rate is to increase the quantity fired. Instructions contained in
the testing document were to ’Notify the user of the increase in
submissile defect rate so that he can make adjustments in the tactical
employment plans.“ The July 2000
Army study of dud rates for ammunition reports that the dud rate for
artillery-fired M42/46 submunitions is over 14 percent.
Like land mines, nonland-mine submunitions experience higher failure
rates in various environmental conditions. According to an Army field
manual, about 50 percent of the submunitions that fail to detonate are
armed and hazardous. Firing them into mountainous areas or uneven
terrain further increases the dud rate. The effectiveness of these
rounds also decreases in snow, water, marshy areas, mud, vegetation, and
soft sand.
According to one DOD document, the improved conventional munitions
used, including dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, and CBUs,
experienced a high dud rate and caused obstacles for maneuvering forces.
Units perceived the dud rates as ’considerably greater than the 2-4
percent anticipated,“ creating a dud minefield. The document continued
that because the dud rates were ’too high,“ some maneuver commanders
hesitated to use submunition weapons, especially if they believed that
their units would move through the area later. Hazardous dudfields
caused delays in movement on the battlefield, and high winds and
shifting sands often covered many duds. According to this report, ’This
became especially dangerous for high hazard missions such as refueling
operations.“
According to an Army after-action report written in 1991, ’The large
number of dud U.S. submunitions — significantly impeded operations“
during the Gulf War. In one case, the XVIIIth Airborne Corps attempted
to position a combat command post, but because of U.S. dud
submunitions, it had to relocate. According to the XVIIIth Airborne
Corps report, ’The assault CP‘s [command post‘s] position was untenable
due to the presence of numerous USAF CBU duds.“ A second Army document
cited a case in which previously dropped U.S. munitions caused maneuver
problems and a significant delay in operations:
’In one case, the 1st Cavalry Division moved into Kuwait along the Wadi
al Batin. Twenty miles of this route was saturated with both USAF
submunitions (BLU97 and Rockeye) and Army M77 submunitions....
Maneuvering through this area was no problem for the tracked vehicles
of the division. However, the 1st Cav selected the same route for its
main supply route (MSR). Because the division‘s CSS [combat service
support] consisted of mainly wheeled vehicles, EOD [explosive ordnance
disposal] support was required. It took the 64th EOD and a British unit
about five days to clear a two lane path through the area. In this
case, the unit‘s progress was clearly slowed by the duds.“
Because Gulf War records are not always specific, it is not clear how
frequently U.S. forces experienced problems in maneuvering through
areas previously attacked by U.S. ordnance. However, available records
indicate that such problems did occur to some degree and were an
operational concern. In fact, DOD reported that in some instances
’ground movement came to a halt“ because units were afraid of
encountering unexploded ordnance. Moreover, Army officials reported
that, in the case of the M77 submunitions, the Army believed that the
weapon would most likely be used against the Soviet threat in Europe,
where U.S. troops would probably be in a defensive position. Therefore,
U.S. soldiers were not expected to occupy submunition-contaminated
areas.
Land Mine and Dudfield Reporting, Recording, and Marking Problems
Created Fratricide and Mobility Concerns:
During the Gulf War, the placement of self-destruct land mines was not
always reported, recorded, or marked when appropriate. This situation
was exacerbated by the possibility that self-destruct land mines did not
always self-destruct as designed after their preset periods of time.
Consequently, safety issues involving Gulf War self-destruct land
mines, as well as other submunitions, focused on the potential for
fratricide resulting from U.S. forces‘ unknowingly maneuvering into
areas where scatterable land mines had been employed but had not yet
self-destructed.
Shortly after the Gulf War, one DOD fact sheet reported that DOD‘s
joint procedures for coordinating the use of air-delivered mines had
not been widely disseminated. Further, according to the fact sheet, the
procedures were outdated with respect to the rapid mobility of the
modern Army. Thus, the warning information”such as the locations and
self-destruct timing durations”’was next to impossible to obtain and
pass to ground component commanders.“ According to the document, this
situation dramatically increased the probability of friendly fire
casualties. The Army‘s Field Manual on Mine/Countermine Operations
states the importance of such coordination: ’Because SCATMINEs
[scatterable mines] are a very dynamic weapon system, great care must
be taken to ensure that proper coordination is made with higher,
adjacent, and subordinate units. To prevent friendly casualties, all
affected units must be notified of the location and duration of
scatterable minefields.“
Gulf War records include numerous reports indicating that scatterable
minefields were employed in locations that were not reported to maneuver
commanders. For example, one DOD report stated that neither the Air
Force nor the Navy could accurately track the location or duration of
Gator minefields. An Army after-action report stated that the Air Force
’flew over 35 GATOR missions (the exact number is not known) without
reporting or recording the missions.“ According to this report, the
result was that ’[d]uring the ground offensive, units found themselves
maneuvering in GATOR minefields without any knowledge of their
existence.“ Another Army after-action report stated, ’Some friendly
Gator-scatterable Air Force-delivered scatterable minefields were
encountered in Iraq.“ The report highlighted the lack of a scatterable
minefield self-extraction capability for units to avoid fratricide. A
DOD fratricide lessons-learned document noted that casualties from
friendly minefields were a ’major problem“ due to the lack of
coordination, failure to disseminate obstacle plans, and failure to
report the location of mines throughout the chain of command.
Another Army after-action report attributed fatalities to the failure
to mark hazardous areas. According to this report, ’In many cases GATOR
minefields and large areas which contained DPICM [dual-purpose
improved conventional munitions] and CBU duds were left unmarked due
to the lack of a fast and simple method for marking hazardous areas.“
After-action reports also cited planners‘ ignorance of ’the
capabilities, limitations and reporting, recording, and marking
requirements of our scatterable mine systems,“ as well as a lack of
training regarding unexploded ordnance, as the causes of fatalities.
[Footnote 27]
Tracking nonland-mine dudfields presented similar concerns. A case in
which one U.S. unit had moved through an area where another U.S. unit
had earlier dropped cluster munitions is presented in an historical
account of the Gulf War written by a retired Army lieutenant general.
According to this account, a U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division aviation
battalion traversed an area that had previously been seized by the U.S.
Army VIIth Corps, which had fired cluster munitions. The battalion‘s
commander cited a case in which one of his soldiers was injured when he
stepped on a cluster munition. ’Keeping track of DPICM-dudded areas,“
said the commander, ’was complicated by the fact that one Corps moved
into another Corps area.“
Senior U.S. Gulf War commanders were aware of the incidence of
fratricide from unexploded CBU, dual-purpose improved conventional
munitions, and other ordnance. For example, one U.S. Army artillery
general sent a safety message that read, ’In recent days I have received
numerous reports of soldiers being injured and killed by duds.... I am
firmly convinced that each case could have been averted. Every soldier
must be warned....“
According to one DOD official, the main reason hazardous dudfields were
not always reported or marked was that doctrine did not require
commanders to always report or mark nonland-mine hazard areas, as is
required for minefields. However, DOD has noted, ’Although UXO is not
a mine, UXO hazards pose problems similar to mines concerning both
personnel safety and the movement and maneuver of forces on the
battlefield.“
DOD Has Recognized the Need for Action Related to Land Mine and UXO
Concerns:
According to after-action, lessons-learned, and other reports, DOD and
the services recognize the nature, extent, and implications for
fratricide and battlefield maneuver of reported concerns, as well as
the need to act upon their concerns about land mines and other
submunition UXO. According to an Army after-action report, ’The large
amount of UXO found in Iraq and Kuwait caught Allied forces by
surprise. Lessons learned from past conflicts were not learned, leading
to unacceptable casualties among our soldiers, allies, and civilians.“
These reports suggested that changes to address these concerns would
increase submunition battlefield utility and effectiveness while
simultaneously reducing casualties and increasing freedom of maneuver.
In after-action reports, a number of actions were identified to improve
the safety of troops and their mobility through land mines and other
employed submunitions. These included, among others, that DOD:
* replace the current conventional land mines with modern, safer ones;
* add a feature to scatterable land mines that would allow them to be
turned on and off, giving the land mines a long-term static capability
and providing U.S. commanders with the ability to create cleared lanes
for friendly passage when and where needed;
* develop submunitions with lower dud rates and develop self-destruct
mechanisms for nonland-mine submunitions;
* consider the magnitude and location of UXO likely to be on the
battlefield when deciding the number and mix of submunitions, precision-
guided munitions, or other munitions to use and, when planning maneuver
operations, avoid dudfield hazard areas or breach them with troops
inside armored vehicles;
* develop training aids”such as manuals and working models of U.S.
scatterable mines”to provide service members with the ability to
recognize U.S. scatterable mines and other unexploded ordnance and the
knowledge of the proper actions to take to safely avoid and/or
deactivate/detonate explosive submunitions and to safely extract
themselves from minefields or dudfields; and;
* establish and standardize procedures for the reporting, recording,
and, when appropriate, marking of concentrations of submunition
bomblets as hazard areas.
DOD has reported a number of actions that relate to these land mine and
UXO concerns. These actions are summarized in appendix IV. Because it
was beyond the scope of this report, we did not evaluate DOD‘s progress
in these areas.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
In its comments on a draft of this report, DOD stated that it believes
the report is flawed because it ’makes assertions and speculations that
are not based on fact“ and because we used ’unreliable or unrelated
data.“ In particular, DOD made the following main points:
* Our report implies that U.S. casualties caused by land mines were
higher than DOD records show.
* Our report relied heavily on the report by CMS, Inc., even though
there are weaknesses and mistakes in the CMS report. [Footnote 28]
* Our report confuses issues dealing with unexploded ordnance and land
mines.
* By focusing on the Gulf War experience as one ’case study,“ our
report is not a credible analysis of land-mine utility and employment.
We have made some changes to the report to clarify and elaborate on the
issues DOD has raised, but we do not agree that the report is flawed or
makes unsubstantiated assertions. In regard to each of DOD‘s comments,
we offer the following response:
* Our report states that DOD records show no U.S. casualties attributed
to U.S. land mines and that 81 casualties were attributed to Iraqi or
other land mines. In addition, we point out that it is possible that
some portion of the casualties in the ’other“ or ’unknown“ categories
reported by DOD could have been caused by land mines”there is simply no
way of knowing. This is a statement of fact, not an assertion that
casualties were greater than reported. As we gathered data on Gulf War
casualties, our service points of contact worked with us to ensure that
we had the most complete information on this issue that was available.
Some records were ambiguous and/or incomplete. However, DOD officials
who provided us with this data agreed that our interpretation of the
records was accurate.
* Much of DOD‘s concern about ’unreliable data“ stems from our use of
the report by CMS, Inc., on UXO cleanup of the battlefield. Most of our
discussion of the CMS report is in the section addressing DOD‘s lessons
learned from the Gulf War. Our use of CMS data in that section
corroborates in most cases the lessons learned contained in DOD after-
action reports. While DOD claims that the CMS report contained
inaccuracies, DOD did not provide any data to challenge the main message
of the CMS report, which was that a very large number of U.S. land mine
and cluster munition duds were found on the Kuwaiti battlefield. In
fact, a DOD study that discusses the magnitude of the unexploded
ordnance problem and that calculates the relative cost of cleaning up
the battlefield compared to retrofitting or reprocuring U.S.
submunitions with self-destruct fuzes in order to lower dud rates uses
the same CMS data we cite in our report. [Footnote 29] In its 2000
report to Congress, DOD uses the results of these calculations to
discuss the cost and feasibility of retrofitting the Army‘s ammunition
stockpile. [Footnote 30]
* UXO is discussed in our report from two standpoints. First, casualty
data presenting the causes of casualties cannot always distinguish
between a land mine and other types of UXO, so we believed it was
important to discuss both to provide a proper context. Secondly, DOD‘s
own after-action reports on lessons learned discuss the problems of
unexploded ordnance in terms of both land mines and cluster munitions,
so our discussion of land mines needs to be in this overall UXO
context. We have tried throughout the report to make clear distinctions
between land mines and other ordnance, and we have made further
clarifications as a result of DOD‘s comments.
* Lastly, we recognize that this report focuses exclusively on the Gulf
War; this was the agreed-upon scope of our work as discussed with our
congressional requester, and this is stated in the objectives and scope
and methodology sections of our report. As such, we agree that it is
not a comprehensive analysis of the utility of land mines in modern
warfare; it was never intended to be. As our report makes clear, we do
not make any conclusions or recommendations in this report.
Nevertheless, we believe the report provides important historical
context”the Gulf War was the largest U.S. conflict since Vietnam, and
both sides in the battle made use of land mines.
Unless you publicly announce the contents of this report earlier, we
plan no further distribution of this report until 30 days from its
issue date. At that time, we will send copies of this report to the
Chairmen of the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services; the
Chairmen of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations,
Subcommittees on Defense; the Secretaries of Defense, the Air Force,
the Army, and the Navy; and the Commandant of the Marine Corps. We will
also make copies available to other congressional committees and
interested parties on request. In addition, the report will be
available at no cost on the GAO Web site at [hyperlink,
http://www.gao.gov].
If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please call
me at (757) 552-8100 or e-mail me at CurtinN@GAO.GOV. Key staff who
contributed to this report were Mike Avenick, William Cawood, Herbert
Dunn, M. Jane Hunt, Jim McGaughey, and Bev Schladt.
Sincerely yours,
Signed by:
Neal P. Curtin:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
[End of section]
Appendix I: Current U.S. Land Mine Inventory:
According to DOD and service data, the current DOD land-mine stockpile
contains about 18 million land mines”over 2.9 million nonself-destruct
land mines and over 15 million self-destruct land mines. The Army owns
the vast majority of the nonself-destruct land mines, including over
1.1 million M-14 and M-16 mines (see fig. 6 in app. II). The Marine
Corps has a relatively small number of these mines and has no M-14 land
mines. The Air Force and the Navy stock no nonself-destruct land mines.
Of the over 15 million self-destruct land mines in the U.S. stockpile,
over 8.8 million are antipersonnel, and about 6.2 million are antitank
land mines. Artillery-fired ADAM antipersonnel land mines (over 8
million) and RAAM antitank land mines (over 4 million) are stocked
mainly by the Army but also by the Marine Corps. (See table 7 and fig.
5 in app. II.)
Table 7: DOD Land Mine Stockpile Totals as of 2002:
Category: Nonself-destruct land mines: Antipersonnel;
Total: 1,565,226[A];
Category: Nonself-destruct land mines: Antitank;
Total: 1,349,767[B];
Category: Subtotal”nonself-destruct;
Total: 2,914,993.
Category: Self-destruct land mines: Antipersonnel;
Total: 8,838,922[C];
Category: Self-destruct land mines: Antitank;
Total: 6,177,996[D];
Category: Subtotal”self-destruct;
Total: 15,016,918;
Total land mines in stockpile: 17,931,911.
[A] This includes about 700,000 M-14 and about 465,000 M-16 nonself-
destruct antipersonnel land mines. This total also includes over
400,000 Claymore M-18 nonself-destruct command-detonated antipersonnel
land mines, which DOD reported are not approved for use with triggering
tripwires or other unattended fuzing devices outside Korea.
[B] The M2 Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition (SLAM), M3 Demolition
Attack Munition (DAM), and M4 SLAM munitions have selectable triggering
mechanisms including sensors and a timer. These munitions are used
against various targets, including vehicles.
[C] Of these, over 8 million are artillery-fired ADAM antipersonnel
land mines, contained in about 232,000 dispenser artillery rounds.
[D] Of these, over 4 million artillery-fired RAAM antitank land mines
are contained in about 462,000 dispenser rounds.
Source: The services reported that the stockpile data were complete and
current as of the following dates: Army 5/24/02, Marines 1/18/02, Air
Force 3/29/02, and Navy 3/27/02.
[End of table]
The DOD land mine stockpile includes over 150,000 mixed land-mine
dispensers, which contain a mixture of both antipersonnel and antitank
land mines. All together, these mixed land-mine dispensers contain over
2 million land mines, of which over 400,000 are antipersonnel land
mines and over 1.6 million are antitank land mines. (See table 8.) The
services report that land mine types are mixed in three dispenser
systems: the Gator, the Volcano, and the Modular Pack Mine System.
[Footnote 31] For example, the Air Force and the Navy stockpile the
Gator air-delivered CBU, which is one type of mixed land mine
dispenser. The two services together have almost 14,000 CBU dispensers,
which contain nearly 1.2 million land mines. The Army stocks over
134,000 Volcano mixed dispensers, which contain over 800,000
antipersonnel and antitank land mines.
Table 8: Land Mines in Mixed Dispensers as of 2002:
In 150,401 mixed land-mine dispensers[A]: Antipersonnel land mines in
all mixed dispensers;
Land mines: 424,846
In 150,401 mixed land-mine dispensers[A]: Antitank land mines in all
mixed dispensers;
Land mines: 1,615,594
Total land mines in all mixed dispensers: 2,040,440.
[A] Of the 150,401 total mixed land-mine dispensers, 13,995 are Gators;
134,200 are Volcanoes; and 2,206 are Modular Pack Mine Systems.
Source: The services reported that the stockpile data were complete and
current as of the following dates: Army 5/24/02, Marines 1/18/02, Air
Force 3/29/02, and Navy 3/27/02.
[End of table]
Table 9 contains the total current U.S. inventory of land mines by mine
type and common name; self-destruct capability; dispenser type, if any;
service that maintains them; and quantity.
Table 9: Total U.S. Worldwide Inventory of Land Mines as of 2002:
Service-managed inventories of unitary land mines & land-mine
dispensers:
Designation: Mine, antitank: M15, metallic, (M603 fuze);
Common name: M-15 (antitank)
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AT;
Army: 1,057,800;
Marines: 28,894;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 1,086,694;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
1,086,694.
Designation: Mine, antitank: M19, nonmetallic (M606 fuze);
Common name: M-19 (antitank)
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AT;
Army: 54,100;
Marines: 9,026;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 63,126;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
63,126.
Designation: Mine, antitank: M21, metallic (M607 fuze);
Common name: M-21 (antitank);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AT;
Army: 163,000;
Marines: 15,426;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 178,426;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
178,426.
Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M14, nonmetallic[A];
Common name: M-14 (antipersonnel);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AP
Army: 696,800;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 696,800;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
696,800.
Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M16A1 or M16A2, metallic (M605 fuze);
Common name: M-16 (antipersonnel);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AP;
Army: 441,700;
Marines: 23,630;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 465,330;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
465,330.
Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M18A1, nonmetallic[B];
Common name: M-18 (antipersonnel)- Claymore;
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AP;
Army: 368,100;
Marines: 34,996;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 403,096;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
403,096.
Designation: Projectile, 155 millimeter: M692;
Common name: ADAM long SD (antipersonnel);
Self-destruct, Yes/No:
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 36 AP;
Army: 36,700;
Marines: 23,920;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 60,620
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
2,182,320.
Designation: Projectile, 155 millimeter: M731;
Common name: ADAM Short SD (antipersonnel);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 36 AP;
Army: 125,000;
Marines: 46,771;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 171,771;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
6,183,756.
Designation: Projectile, 155 millimeter: M718, antitank;
Common name: Basic RAAM Long SD (antitank);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 9 AT;
Army: 68,200;
Marines: 24,517;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 92,717;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
834,453.
Designation: Projectile, 155 millimeter: M718 A1, antitank;
Common name: Improved RAAM Long SD (antitank);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 9 AT;
Army: 76,400;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 76,400
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
687,600.
Designation: Projectile, 155 millimeter: M741, antitank;
Common name: Basic RAAM Short SD (antitank);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 9 AT
Army: 207,700;
Marines: 53,717;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 261,417;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
2,352,753.
Designation: Projectile, 155 millimeter: M741A1, antitank;
Common name: Improved RAAM Short SD (antitank);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 9 AT;
Army: 31,500;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 31,500;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
283,500.
Designation: Dispenser and mine, aircraft: CBU-89/B;
Common name: Gator (antipersonnel/antitank) - Air Force version
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 72 AT, 22 AP;
Army: 544 (User is Air Force);
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 9,727;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 10,271;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
965,474.
Designation: Dispenser and mine, aircraft: CBU 78C/B;
Common name: Gator (antipersonnel/antitank) - Navy version;
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 45 AT, 15 AP
Army: 122 (User is Navy);
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 3,602;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 3,724;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
223,440.
Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M74, metallic;
Common name: GEMSS anti-personnel mine;
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AP;
Army: 32,900;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 32,900;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
32,900.
Designation: Mine, antitank: M75, metallic;
Common name: GEMSS antitank mine;
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AT;
Army: 195,800;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 195,800;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
195,800.
Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M86, metallic;
Common name: PDM;
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AP;
Army: 15,100;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 15,100;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
15,100.
Designation: Dispenser and mine, ground: M131 (with M71 remote control
unit);
Common name: MOPMS (antitank/antipersonnel)
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 17 AT, 4 AP;
Army: 2,206;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 2,206;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
2,206.
Designation: Canister, mine: M87A1;
Common name: Volcano (antitank);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 6 AT;
Army: 34,678;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 34,678;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
34,678.
Designation: Canister, mine: M87;
Common name: Volcano (antitank/antipersonnel)
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (D) 5 AT, 1 AP;
Army: 134,200;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 134,200;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
134,200.
Designation: Munition, wide area: M93;
Common name: Hornet/WAM (antitank);
Self-destruct, Yes/No: Yes;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AT;
Army: 228;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 228;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines: 228.
Designation: Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition M2;
Common name: SLAM[C];
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No (Timer);
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U);
Army: 12,900;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 12,900;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
12,900.
Designation: Demolition Attack Munition M3;
Common name: DAM[C];
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No Timer;
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U);
Army: 4,100;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 4,100;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
4,100.
Designation: Munition, Selectable Lightweight Attack: M4;
Common name: SLAM[C] (antitank)
Self-destruct, Yes/No: No (Timer);
LM type: unitary (U) or dispenser (D), and number & type of land mines
per dispenser: (U) 1 AT;
Army: 4,521;
Marines: 0;
Air Force: 0;
Navy: 0;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 4,521;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
4,521.
Designation: Total;
Army: 3,764,299;
Marines: 260,897;
Air Force: 9,727;
Navy: 3,602;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and dispensers of submunition
land mines: 4,038,525;
DOD total number of unitary land mines and submunition land mines:
17,931,911.
Legend:
AP = antipersonnel land mine:
AT = antitank land mine:
LM = land mine:
SD = self-destruct:
[A] DOD reports that all M-14 land mines have been retrofitted with
metal and therefore are no longer nonmetallic.
[B] DOD reported that the nonself-destruct M-18 Claymore is authorized
to be detonated only by command and never by unattended triggering
devices, including tripwires, outside Korea.
[C] The M2 SLAM, M3 DAM, and M4 SLAM munitions have selectable
triggering mechanisms including sensors and a timer. These munitions
are used against various targets, including vehicles. The M2 SLAM is
self-neutralizing, and the M4 SLAM is self-destructing. They are both
multipurpose munitions with an anti-tamper feature.
Source: The services reported that the stockpile data shown were
complete and current as of the following dates: Army 5/24/02, Marines
1/18/02, Air Force 3/29/02, and Navy 3/27/02.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix II: U.S. Land Mines Available for Use in the Gulf War:
Figures 5 and 6 illustrate types of land mines that were in the U.S.
inventory and available for use during the Gulf War.
Figure 5: U.S. Land Mines Available and Used in the Gulf War:
[See PDF for image]
Photographs of:
Aircraft-delivered Gator self-destruct "smart" land mines used by the
Air Force, Navy, and Marines:
* Gator (CBU-78/89) antitank submunition (BLU-91) land mine;
* Gator (CBU-78/89) antipersonnel submunition (BLU-92) land mine;
* Navy/Marine Gator CBU-78 cluster bomb contains 15 antipersonnel and
45 antitank land mines. Air Force Gator CBU-98 bombs contain 72
antitank land mines.
Artillery-fired ADAM and RAAM self-destruct "smart" land mines used by
the Marines:
* ADAM (M-692/731) antipersonnel submunition land mine;
* RAAM (M-718/741) antitank submunition land mine;
* ADAM (M-692-731) artillery round contains 36 ADAM antipersonnel
submunition land mines;
* RAAM (M-718/741) artillery round contains 9 RAAM antitank submunition
land mines.
Source: DOD.
[End of figure]
Figure 6: U.S. Land Mines Available but Not Used in the Gulf War:
[See PDF for image]
Photographs of:
Nonself-destruct "dumb" land mines:
* "Toe Popper" M-14 antipersonnel land mine;
* "Bouncing Betty" M-16 antipersonnel land mine;
* M-15 antitank land mine;
* M-19 antitank land mine;
* M-21 antitank land mine.
Self-destruct "smart" land mines:
* GEMSS (M-128 Ground Emplaced Mine Scattering System) dispenses 800 M-
74 antipersonnel and M-75 antitank submunition land mines;
* M-74 antipersonnel land mine;
* M-75 antitank land mine.
Note: Mine dispensers available for use in the Gulf War in addition to
the GEMSS include the M131 Modular Pack Mine System (MOPMS), which
dispenses 17 antitank and 4 antipersonnel land mines, and the M138 Mine
Dispenser, or Flipper. The GEMSS, MOPMS, and Flipper dispenser systems
were available during the Gulf War but not used to actually deploy M74
antipersonnel, M75 antitank, or other scatterable surface-laid land
mines, according to DOD.
Source: DOD.
[End of figure]
Figure 7 shows the M-18 Claymore antipersonnel land mine. DOD has
stated that it is employed in only the command-detonation mode and
therefore is defined to be a nonland mine. Army Field Manual 20-32
alternately calls the M-18 Claymore a ’land mine“ and a ’munition.“ See
appendix IV for DOD‘s statements.
Figure 7: M-18 Claymore Nonself-Destruct Command-Detonated
Antipersonnel Land Mine:
[See PDF for image]
Photograph of Claymore M-18 command-detonated antipersonnel land mine.
Note: Nonself-destruct antipersonnel land mines available for use in
the Gulf War but not used, according to DOD, included the M-18
Claymore, which DOD states is not a land mine when employed in the
command-detonation mode. See appendix IV for DOD‘s statement. FM 20-32
indicates that it is current U.S. policy that the M-18 Claymore may be
used with trip-wire only in Korea.
Source: DOD.
[End of figure]
Table 10 cites the U.S. land mines”by mine type and common name and
by service”that were available and used during the Gulf War.
Table 10: Types and Numbers of Certain U.S. Land Mines Stockpiled
Worldwide in 1990, Available in the Southwest Asian Theater, and Used
during the Gulf War:
U.S. land mines available in 1990 for use in the Gulf War:
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Mine, antitank: M15, metallic;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: M-15 (antitank);
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 1,805,300;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 41,200;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 0.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Mine, antitank: M19, nonmetallic;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: M-19 (antitank);
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 74,200;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 100;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 0.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Mine, antitank: M21, metallic;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: M-21 (antitank);
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 219,700;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 300;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 0.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M14,
nonmetallic[A];
U.S. land mine types: Common name: M-14 (antipersonnel) Toe Popper;
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 3,909,500;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 55,600;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 0.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M16, metallic;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: M-16 (antipersonnel) Bouncing Betty;
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 2,332,700;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 149,000;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 0.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M18,
nonmetallic[B];
U.S. land mine types: Common name: M-18 (antipersonnel) Claymore
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 771,000;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 32,500;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 0.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Projectile, 155 millimeter:
M692/731, high explosive;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: ADAM long/short duration SD
(antipersonnel);
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: (124,600 rounds x
36 AP =) 4,485,600
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: (37,100
rounds x 36 AP =) 1,335,600;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: Marine-
employed:(12 rounds x 36AP =) 432.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Projectile, 155 millimeter: M718/741,
antitank;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: Basic RAAM, long/short duration SD
(anti-tank);
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: (279,200 rounds x
9 AT =) 2,512,800;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: (23,800
rounds x 9 AT =) 214,200;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: Marine-
employed: (48 rounds x 9 AT =) 432.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Dispenser and mine, aircraft: CBU89;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: Gator (antipersonnel/antitank) - Air
Force version;
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: (5,673 bombs x
72AT/22AP = 408,456/124,806 =) 533,262;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 3,165 bombs
x 72AT/22AP = 227,880/69,630 =) 297,510;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: Air Force-
employed: (1,105 Gator CBU bombs x 72AT/22AP = 79,560/24,310 =)
103,870.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Dispenser and mine, aircraft: CBU78;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: Gator (antipersonnel/antitank) -
Navy version;
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: (2,682 bombs x
45AT/15AP = 120,690/40,230=) 160,920;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: Navy/Marine
in-theater quantity unknown, but at least equal to the number used (215
Gator CBU bombs x 45AT/15AP = 9,675/3,225 =) 12,900;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: Navy/Marine-
employed: (215 Gator CBU bombs x 45AT/15AP = 9,675/3,225 =) 12,900.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Mine, antipersonnel: M74, metallic;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: GEMSS antipersonnel mine;
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 1,805,300;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 32,800;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 0.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Mine, antitank: M75, metallic;
U.S. land mine types: Common name: GEMSS antitank mine;
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 297,900;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 43,900;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 0.
U.S. land mine types: Designation: Total;
Number available in DOD worldwide stockpile in 1990: 18,908,182;
Number available in SWA theater for potential Gulf War Use: 2,215,610;
Number of U.S. land mines reported used in the Gulf War: 117,634.
Legend:
SD = self-destruct:
GEMSS = Ground-Emplaced Mine Scattering System:
AP = antipersonnel:
AT = antitank:
SWA = Southwest Asia:
Notes: DOD reports that all types of land mines available for U.S. use
from worldwide stockpiles and theater and unit supplies, and all land
mines used by the U.S. in the Gulf War are included in this table. The
services reported that all standard types of U.S. land mines in their
inventories, which DOD estimated to contain about 19 million land
mines, were available for use if needed by U.S. Gulf War units,
including over 2.2 million that were transported to the Gulf War
theater of operations. DOD and service officials reported no U.S.
theater command restrictions on the use of any type or quantity of U.S.
land mines, except that actual land mine use needed to be approved by
the appropriate U.S. commander. DOD reported that U.S. commanders
ordered employment of only those land mine quantities shown as used in
this table and that no U.S. land mines were known by DOD or the
services to have been employed except those shown in this table. The
service-provided numbers in this table represent actual and estimated
numbers. DOD indicated that, because of incomplete Gulf War data, the
numbers and types of land mines shown as part of the 1990 U.S.
stockpile, available in theater, and used might be inexact.
[A] DOD reports that all M-14 land mines have been retrofitted with
metal and therefore are no longer nonmetallic.
[B] DOD reported that the nonself-destruct M-18 Claymore is authorized
to be detonated only by command and never by unattended triggering
devices, including tripwires, outside Korea.
Source: Service reports.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix III: U.S. Gulf War Casualties by Service:
Category: Land mines;
Army, Killed: 10;
Army, Injured: 61;
Army, Total: 71;
Marines, Killed: 2;
Marines, Injured: 7;
Marines, Total: 9;
Air Force, Killed: 0;
Air Force, Injured: 1;
Air Force, Total: 1;
Navy, Killed: 0;
Navy, Injured: 0;
Navy, Total: 0;
DOD, Killed: 12;
DOD, Injured: 69;
DOD, Total: 81.
Category: Cluster munition UXO;
Army, Killed: 22;
Army, Injured: 58;
Army, Total: 80;
Marines, Killed: 0;
Marines, Injured: 0;
Marines, Total: 0;
Air Force, Killed: 0;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 0;
Navy, Killed: 0;
Navy, Injured: 0;
Navy, Total: 0;
DOD, Killed: 22;
DOD, Injured: 58;
DOD, Total: 80.
Category: Other UXO;
Army, Killed: 0;
Army, Injured: 13;
Army, Total: 13;
Marines, Killed: 0;
Marines, Injured: 3;
Marines, Total: 3;
Air Force, Killed: 0;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 0;
Navy, Killed: 0;
Navy, Injured: 0;
Navy, Total: 0;
DOD, Killed: 0;
DOD, Injured: 16;
DOD, Total: 16.
Category: Unknown causes;
Army, Killed: 1;
Army, Injured: 43;
Army, Total: 44;
Marines, Killed: 0;
Marines, Injured: 0;
Marines, Total: 0;
Air Force, Killed: 0;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 0;
Navy, Killed: 0;
Navy, Injured: 0;
Navy, Total: 0;
DOD, Killed: 1;
DOD, Injured: 43;
DOD, Total: 44.
Category: Enemy ground/scud fire;
Army, Killed: 39;
Army, Injured: 160;
Army, Total: 199;
Marines, Killed: 14;
Marines, Injured: 70;
Marines, Total: 84;
Air Force, Killed: 0;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 0;
Navy, Killed: 0;
Navy, Injured: 4;
Navy, Total: 4;
DOD, Killed: 53;
DOD, Injured: 234;
DOD, Total: 287.
Category: Aircraft incidents;
Army, Killed: 39;
Army, Injured: 26;
Army, Total: 65;
Marines, Killed: 18;
Marines, Injured: 0;
Marines, Total: 18;
Air Force, Killed: 31;
Air Force, Injured: 8;
Air Force, Total: 39;
Navy, Killed: 13;
Navy, Injured: 3;
Navy, Total: 16;
DOD, Killed: 101;
DOD, Injured: 37;
DOD, Total: 138.
Category: Friendly fire;
Army, Killed: 15;
Army, Injured: 38;
Army, Total: 53;
Marines, Killed: 3;
Marines, Injured: 2;
Marines, Total: 5;
Air Force, Killed: 0;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 0;
Navy, Killed: 0;
Navy, Injured: 1;
Navy, Total: 1;
DOD, Killed: 18;
DOD, Injured: 41;
DOD, Total: 59.
Category: Vehicle accidents;
Army, Killed: 48;
Army, Injured: 77;
Army, Total: 125;
Marines, Killed: 13;
Marines, Injured: 24;
Marines, Total: 37;
Air Force, Killed: 2;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 2;
Navy, Killed: 4;
Navy, Injured: 0;
Navy, Total: 4;
DOD, Killed: 67;
DOD, Injured: 101;
DOD, Total: 168.
Category: Other accidents;
Army, Killed: 9;
Army, Injured: 85;
Army, Total: 94;
Marines, Killed: 9;
Marines, Injured: 40;
Marines, Total: 49;
Air Force, Killed: 0;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 0;
Navy, Killed: 33;
Navy, Injured: 0;
Navy, Total: 33;
DOD, Killed: 51;
DOD, Injured: 125;
DOD, Total: 176.
Category: Other causes;
Army, Killed: 22;
Army, Injured: 245;
Army, Total: 267;
Marines, Killed: 4;
Marines, Injured: 5;
Marines, Total: 9;
Air Force, Killed: 2;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 2;
Navy, Killed: 0;
Navy, Injured: 3;
Navy, Total: 3;
DOD, Killed: 28;
DOD, Injured: 253;
DOD, Total: 281.
Category: Natural causes;
Army, Killed: 21;
Army, Injured: 0;
Army, Total: 21;
Marines, Killed: 6;
Marines, Injured: 2;
Marines, Total: 8;
Air Force, Killed: 0;
Air Force, Injured: 0;
Air Force, Total: 0;
Navy, Killed: 5;
Navy, Injured: 0;
Navy, Total: 5;
DOD, Killed: 32;
DOD, Injured: 2;
DOD, Total: 34.
Category: Total;
Army, Killed: 226;
Army, Injured: 806;
Army, Total: 1,032;
Marines, Killed: 69;
Marines, Injured: 153;
Marines, Total: 222;
Air Force, Killed: 35;
Air Force, Injured: 9;
Air Force, Total: 44;
Navy, Killed: 55;
Navy, Injured: 11;
Navy, Total: 66;
DOD, Killed: 385;
DOD, Injured: 979;
DOD, Total: 1,364.
Source: Service casualty data.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix IV: DOD-Reported Actions That Relate to Land Mine and UXO
Concerns:
DOD has reported a number of actions that are related to the land-mine
and unexploded ordnance concerns raised in Gulf War after-action and
lessons-learned reports. These actions fall into three areas: (1)
developing antipersonnel land-mine alternatives and more capable and
safer self-destruct land mines, (2) revising doctrine and procedures to
better address hazardous submunition dudfields, and (3) increasing
ammunition reliability and reducing dud rates. DOD-reported actions in
these areas are described below. However, because it was beyond the
scope of this report, we did not independently assess DOD‘s progress in
these areas.
Developing Antipersonnel Land-Mine Alternatives and More Capable and
Safer Self-Destruct Land Mines:
Presidential directives establish and direct the implementation of U.S.
policy on antipersonnel land mines. [Footnote 32] Presidential Decision
Directive 48 states that the United States will unilaterally undertake
not to use and to place in inactive stockpile status with intent to
demilitarize by the end of 1999, all nonself-destructing antipersonnel
land mines not needed for (a) training personnel engaged in demining
and countermining operations and (b) defending the United States and
its allies from armed aggression across the Korean demilitarized zone.
[Footnote 33] The Directive also directs the Secretary of Defense to,
among other things, undertake a program of research, procurement, and
other measures needed to eliminate the requirement for nonself-
destructing antipersonnel land mines for training personnel engaged in
demining and countermining operations and to defend the United States
and its allies from armed aggression across the Korean demilitarized
zone. It further directs that this program have as an objective
permitting both the United States and its allies to end reliance on
antipersonnel land mines as soon as possible. Presidential Decision
Directive 64 directs the Department of Defense to, among other things,
(1) develop antipersonnel land mine alternatives to end the use of all
antipersonnel land mines outside Korea, including those that self-
destruct, by the year 2003; (2) pursue aggressively the objective of
having alternatives to antipersonnel land mines ready for Korea by
2006, including those that self-destruct; (3) search aggressively for
alternatives to our mixed antitank land mine systems; (4) aggressively
seek to develop and field alternatives to replace nonself-destructing
antipersonnel land mines in Korea with the objective of doing so by
2006; and (5) actively investigate the use of alternatives to existing
antipersonnel land mines, as they are developed, in place of the self-
destructing/self-deactivating antipersonnel submunitions currently used
in mixed antitank mine systems. [Footnote 34]
In April 2001, DOD reported to the Congress [Footnote 35] on its
progress in meeting the objectives of Presidential Decision Directives
48 and 64. Although DOD has pursued programs to develop and field
systems to replace land mines and has plans to spend over $900 million
to do so, it reported to us in May 2002 that it will not be able to
meet the dates established in Presidential Decision Directives 48 and
64. [Footnote 36]
Begun in 1997 and led by the Army, DOD‘s ’Antipersonnel Landmines
Alternative“ program is aimed toward producing what DOD calls a Non
Self-Destruct Alternative (NSD-A). According to the program office,
however, DOD does not now anticipate that it will be able to field this
alternative system by the presidential goal of 2006. The alternative
system, which DOD expects to cost over $507 million, is now on hold
pending a decision on whether to include a mechanism that would allow a
command-controlled ’man-in-the-loop“ feature to be turned off so that
unattended mines could remain armed and detonate on contact. Footnote
37]
In response to the June 1998 Presidential Decision Directive 64, DOD has
also been pursuing alternatives to pure antipersonnel land mine systems
[Footnote 38] to end the use of all antipersonnel land mines outside of
Korea by 2003 and in Korea by 2006. [Footnote 39] These efforts are
being led by the Army, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition,
Technology, and Logistics). The program office indicated that the Army-
led project to end the use of all pure antipersonnel systems outside
Korea by 2003 by fielding artillery-fired mixed land mine ammunition,
budgeted at about $145 million, might now be discontinued. A second
effort, budgeted at $24 million and led by the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency, is to seek long-term alternatives for mixed
land mine systems. One concept under development is the self-healing
minefield, which does not require antipersonnel land mines to protect
antitank land mines because the antitank mines in the system are able
to independently hop around the battlefield to intelligently
redistribute themselves in response to breaching attempts. This system
is not expected to be fielded before 2015. A third effort, budgeted at
about $230 million and led by the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense (Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics), is aimed at replacing
all U.S. mixed land mine systems by removing the antipersonnel land
mines in them. These mixed systems include the Modular Pack Mine
System, the Volcano, and the Gator. At present, DOD does not expect any
of these alternatives to be fielded by 2006. Although DOD has numerous
land-mine-related program activities underway, it has not reported to
us that it has identified the land mine alternative concepts or systems
or the specific land-mine programs that it plans to develop or procure
and field as its next generation of land mines or land mine
alternatives, which would comply with presidential directives and meet
DOD‘s military requirements. Because it was beyond the scope of this
report, we did not assess DOD‘s progress in these areas.
Revising Doctrine and Procedures to Better Address Hazardous Submunition
Dudfields:
Since the Gulf War, DOD and the services have updated their manuals and
procedures dealing with unexploded ordnance to increase the attention
paid to reporting and tracking possibly hazardous areas. These revisions
are intended to improve the integration of UXO-related planning into
military operations and provide improved procedures for the services to
use when operating in a UXO environment. However, DOD has provided to
us no manuals that require combat commanders to always report and track
all potential hazardous submunition dudfields. Instead, commanders are
allowed to determine when reporting, tracking, and marking of
potentially hazardous submunition dudfields are required.
DOD‘s post-Gulf War UXO manuals [Footnote 40] increase attention to
procedures for operations in a UXO environment. DOD‘s guidance is based
on Gulf War lessons learned: ’Experience from Operation Desert Storm
revealed that a battlefield strewn with unexploded ordnance (UXO) poses
a twofold challenge for commanders at all levels: one, to reduce the
potential for fratricide from UXO hazards and two, to minimize the
impact that UXO may have on the conduct of combat operations.
Commanders must consider risks to joint force personnel from all
sources of UXO and integrate UXO into operational planning and
execution.“ DOD‘s manuals conclude that ’Although UXO is not a mine,
UXO hazards pose problems similar to mines concerning both personnel
safety and the movement and maneuver of forces on the battlefield.“
DOD‘s manuals describe the UXO problem as having increased in recent
years: ’Saturation of unexploded submunitions has become a
characteristic of the modern battlefield. The potential for fratricide
from UXO is increasing.“ According to DOD, ’The probability of
encounter is roughly equal for a minefield and a UXO hazard area of
equal density [though] the lethality of the UXO hazard area is lower.“
DOD lists three Army and Marine Corps systems as causes of UXO: the
Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS), the Army Tactical Missile System
(ATACMS), and the cannon artillery-fired dual-purpose improved
conventional munition (DPICM). The manuals warn that, based on the
types of ammunition available for these weapons in 1996, ’every MLRS
and ATACMS fire mission and over half of the fire missions executed by
cannon artillery produce UXO hazard areas.“ With a 95-percent
submunition reliability rate, a typical fire mission of 36 MLRS rockets
could produce an average of 1,368 unexploded submunitions. Air Force
and Navy cluster bomb units (CBUs) contain submunitions that produce
UXO hazard areas similar to MLRS, ATACMS, and cannon artillery-fired
DPICM submunitions.
In its post-Gulf War manuals, DOD‘s guidance includes ’recommended
methodologies for use by the services for planning, reporting, and
tracking to enhance operations in an UXO contaminated environment.“ Of
primary concern to DOD is the prevention of fratricide and the
retention of freedom of maneuver. DOD‘s manuals state that U.S or
allied casualties produced by friendly unexploded submunitions may be
classified as fratricide. In planning wartime operations, the guidance
suggests that commanders be aware of hazardous areas and assess the
risk to their operations if their troops must transit these areas. Such
planning is necessary for any type of mission, regardless of the unit.
Without careful planning, according to the manuals, commanders‘ ability
to maintain the required operational tempo could be difficult. Planners
should allocate additional time for the operation if a deliberate
breach or a bypass of a UXO hazard area is required. When encountering
locations where unexploded submunitions have been or may be
encountered, commanders should immediately report these areas.
According to the manuals, ’Immediate reporting is essential. UXO hazard
areas are lethal and unable to distinguish between friend and foe.“
After reporting hazardous areas, commanders should carefully coordinate
with other units to prevent the UXO from restricting or impeding
maneuver space while at the same time decreasing fratricide. Such areas
should be accurately tracked and marked.
When describing the need for improved procedures, DOD‘s UXO manuals
state, ’Currently no system exists to accurately track unexploded
submunitions to facilitate surface movement and maneuver.“ DOD now
highlights staff responsibilities for joint force planning, reporting,
tracking, and disseminating UXO hazard area information and tactics,
techniques, and procedures for units transiting or operating within a
UXO hazard area. For example, the joint force engineer is responsible
for maintaining the consolidated mine field records and historical
files of UXOs, minefields, and other obstacles. The manuals conclude
that ’Properly integrated, these procedures will save lives and reduce
the impact of UXO on operations.“ Some of the suggested procedures are
as follows:
* Coordination between component commanders and the joint force
commander may be required before the use of submunitions by any
delivery means.
* Units should bypass UXO hazard areas if possible. When bypassing is
not feasible, units must try to neutralize the submunitions and
scatterable mines.
* Combat units that have the assets to conduct an in-stride breach can
do so. Extraction procedures resemble in-stride breach or clearing
procedures.
* Dismounted forces face the greatest danger of death or injury from
UXO. Unexploded ordnance is a significant obstacle to dismounted forces.
Dismounted forces require detailed knowledge of the types and locations
of submunitions employed.
* The chance of significant damage to armored, light armored vehicles,
and other wheeled armored vehicles is relatively low. Personnel being
transported by unarmored wheeled vehicles face nearly the same risk to
UXO as dismounted forces. The protection afforded by unarmored wheeled
vehicles is negligible.
* Air assault and aviation forces are also at risk from UXO. Aircraft in
defilade, flying nap-of-the-earth or in ground effect (hovering) are
vulnerable to submunitions. Certain submunitions are sensitive enough to
function as a result of rotor wash.
DOD has issued manuals that alert U.S. forces to the threat of UXO and
identify procedures to mitigate risks. For example, Field Manual 20-32
states that ’Mine awareness should actually be entitled mine/UXO
awareness. If only mines are emphasized, ordnance (bomblets,
submunitions) may be overlooked, and it has equal if not greater killing
potential.“ Despite this recognition, DOD officials have not indicated
to us that they plan to require commanders to report and track all
potential hazardous nonland-mine submunition dudfields and to mark them
when appropriate, as is now required for scatterable submunition
minefields. Because it was beyond the scope of this report, we did not
assess DOD‘s post-Gulf War implementation of doctrinal and procedural
measures to minimize UXO-caused fratricide, maneuver limitations, and
other effects.
Increasing Ammunition Reliability and Reducing Dud Rates:
In 1994, the Army formed an Unexploded Ordnance Committee after the
commanding general of the Army‘s Training and Doctrine Command
expressed concern about the large number of submunition duds remaining
on the battlefield after the Gulf War. The commanding general sent a
message to the Army‘s leadership that stated, ’This is a force
protection issue. Based on number of submunitions employed during ODS
[Operation Desert Storm], dud rate of only two percent would leave
about 170K-plus unexploded Army submunitions restricting ground forces
maneuver. Add in other services‘ submunitions and scope of problem
mushrooms—. Need to reduce hazards for soldiers on future battlefields
from own ordnance.“ As one of the Army‘s efforts to reduce the dud
rates of these submunitions, the commander stated that all future
requirements documents for submunitions should state that the hazardous
dud rate should be less than 1 percent.
The committee‘s work also resulted in calculations of the cost of
retrofitting or replacing the Army‘s submunition stockpile to lower
hazardous dud rates and the relative costs of cleaning UXO from a
battlefield. The Army estimated in 1994 that the cost would be about $29
billion to increase submunition reliability by retrofitting or replacing
submunitions to add self-destruct fuzing for the nearly 1 billion
submunitions in the Army stockpile. In a different estimate in 1996, the
Army estimated the cost to retrofit the stockpile to be $11-12 billion.
The Army also estimated lesser costs to retrofit or procure
submunitions with self-destruct fuzing for only those munitions most
likely to be used, including those in unit basic ammunition loads and
pre-positioned ships. These Army cost estimates to equip Army
submunitions with self-destruct fuzing do not indicate that they
include costs to similarly equip Air Force, Marine, and Navy
submunitions. Using actual CMS, Inc., costs to clean up UXO from the
CMS sector of the Kuwaiti Gulf War battlefield, the Army also estimated
that the cost to reduce the dud rate by adding self-destruct fuzes for
the submunitions actually used on a battlefield was comparable to the
cost to clean up duds left by unimproved submunitions. The Army further
recognized that, while the costs of reducing and cleaning up duds may
be similar, the detrimental battlefield fratricide and countermobility
effects of duds also need to be considered, as well as humanitarian
concerns. [Footnote 41]
In 1995, DOD reported that its long-term solution to reduce UXO ’is the
ongoing efforts to incorporate self-destruct mechanisms in the DoD‘s
high density munitions which would limit further proliferation of
unexploded ordnance on the battlefield.“ DOD called the UXO detection
and clearance problem ’of enormous magnitude.“ [Footnote 42]
DOD has reported that it is taking actions to increase land mine and
submunition reliability rates and reduce dud rates. In a 2000 report to
Congress, [Footnote 43] DOD summarized its overall approach to
addressing UXO concerns. DOD stated in that report, ’An analysis of the
UXO problem concluded that UXO concerns are viable and, using existing
weapons, the potential exists for millions of UXO.“ The report further
stated that the majority of battlefield UXO will result from
submunitions that ’are not equipped with self-destruct features, [and
thus] pose the greatest potential for UXO hazards.“
Importantly, DOD‘s approach to ammunition reliability improvement is to
emphasize adding reliability to future procurements rather than fixing
the existing stockpile. According to DOD‘s 2000 report to Congress, ’The
Department does not plan to retrofit or accelerate the demilitarization
of its current inventory of weapons containing submunitions that pose
UXO hazards. Notwithstanding, the Department will monitor the Service
submunition development programs to make sure that every effort is taken
to develop a mechanism within the submunition that will increase its
overall reliability, thus reducing the potential for UXO.“ The report
went on to state that DOD will also monitor future procurement programs
to ensure that reprocured weapons that contain submunitions were
improved to increase their overall reliability.
In addition to DOD actions aimed at controlling the UXO problem, there
are a number of procurement-related efforts in place by the services to
reduce and/or eliminate potential UXO from new purchases of ammunition.
For example, in its 2000 report to Congress, DOD states, ’The Army is
in the process of producing new weapons that contain self-destruct
mechanisms. In addition, the Army is considering developing
requirements for new weapons systems aimed at controlling unexploded
submunitions.“ The report also states that Air Force and Navy munitions
procurements likewise address reliability concerns. DOD has concluded in
this report that ’[w]hile it has been deemed infeasible to attempt to
retrofit legacy weapons systems with self-destruct features, new and
future submunition-based weapon systems for the Services have or will
incorporate self-destruct features to contain the UXO problem.“
In January 2001, the Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum [Footnote
44] directing the services to adhere to DOD policy on submunition
reliability. This memorandum states, ’Submunition weapons employment in
Southwest Asia and Kosovo, and major theater war modeling, have
revealed a significant unexploded ordnance (UXO) concern....It is the
policy of the DoD to reduce overall UXO through a process of
improvement in submunition system reliability”the desire is to field
future submunitions with a 99% or higher functioning rate.“ The
memorandum did accept lower functioning rates under operational
conditions due to environmental factors such as terrain and weather. The
memorandum allows the continued use of current lower reliability
munitions until superseded by replacement systems. Because it was
beyond the scope of this report, we did not assess DOD‘s actions to
increase ammunition reliability and reduce dud rates.
[End of section]
Appendix V: Scope and Methodology:
At least in part because the Gulf War took place over a decade ago, DOD
reported that many records on the U.S. use of land mines and U.S.
casualties had been destroyed, were lost, were incomplete, conflicted
with each other, or were archived and not easily accessed. Resulting
inconsistencies and gaps in data provided to us by the services and DOD
on U.S. Gulf War land mine use, casualties, and lessons learned required
that we perform extensive cross-checking and comparisons to check facts
and identify associated themes. To create a picture of what happened
during the Gulf War, DOD assisted us in obtaining available records and
documents from various DOD sources in many different locations. We
relied heavily on original service casualty reports as well as service
and DOD after-action and lessons-learned reports written soon after the
Gulf War. Based on our request, the Army conducted a reevaluation of
original Gulf War casualty data and arrived at more exact data on
causes and circumstances of Army-reported casualties. Our resulting
compilation of service data used in calculating U.S. usage of land
mines, U.S. casualties, and lessons learned during the Gulf War is the
most complete assembled to date for the topics in this report. DOD
officials believe that the service-provided information on land mine
usage and casualties shown in this report is as accurate as service
records permit. DOD, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the services
confirmed the accuracy of the information they provided us on
casualties and land-mine use and the information included in DOD
lessons-learned and after-action reports.
To obtain information on land mine issues, we reviewed numerous reports
and analyses of land mines by such organizations as the Office of the
Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics); the
Center for Army Analysis; the National Academy of Sciences; Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory; the Army Training and Doctrine Command;
and the Congressional Research Service. No one DOD or service office
maintained complete records on the Gulf War, and existing DOD and
service records were stored in various locations around the country.
For example, the Headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, which had
directed the war, retained no records of the war, and the services had
no central repositories for the Gulf War documentation we sought. We
therefore visited the following locations to obtain all available
detailed descriptions of land mine systems, the doctrine governing
their use, documents and records on Gulf War land mine usage and
effectiveness, and historical records on the Gulf War:
* Office of the Project Manager for Mines, Countermine and Demolitions,
and Close Combat Systems, U.S. Army Program Executive Office for
Ammunition, Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey;
* U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, Night Vision and
Electronic Sensors Directorate, Fort Belvoir, Virginia;
* Headquarters, U.S. Central Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida;
* U.S. Army Engineer Center, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri;
* U.S. Army Field Artillery Center, Fort Sill, Oklahoma;
* Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technology Division, Indian Head,
Maryland;
* Marine Corps History and Museums, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps,
Washington, D.C.;
* Marine Corps Combat Development Center, Capability Assessment Branch,
Quantico, Virginia;
* Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, Washington, D.C.; and;
* Air Force Headquarters, Washington, D.C.
To determine the extent to which land mines and unexploded ordnance
caused U.S. casualties, we gathered data from the services and consulted
original casualty reports. Because DOD data was not sufficiently
detailed to allow identification of land mine or related casualties, we
used the services‘ more detailed data. In collaboration with service
officials, we reconciled inconsistencies in order to identify the most
authoritative data available for casualties. We visited or received
information on Gulf War casualties from the following locations:
* Army Records Management Declassification Agency, Springfield,
Virginia;
* Army Safety Center, Ft. Rucker, Alabama;
* U.S. Marine Corps Casualty Section, Quantico, Virginia;
* Army Casualty Office, Washington, D.C.;
* U.S. Air Force Personnel Center, Casualty Branch, Randolph Air Force
Base, San Antonio, Texas;
* U.S. Navy Casualty Division, Millington, Tennessee; and;
* Office of the Secretary of Defense‘s Directorate for Information
Operations and Reports, Arlington, Virginia.
Lessons learned- and after-action reports and documents on the Gulf War
were similarly not available in a central location but rather were
located in various service organizations and libraries. Therefore, to
identify concerns expressed in these reports about the use of land
mines and related unexploded ordnance issues, we visited and examined
documents at the following locations:
* Center for Army Lessons Learned, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas;
* Army Training and Doctrine Command‘s Analysis Center, Ft. Leavenworth,
Kansas;
* U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, Aberdeen Proving Ground,
Maryland;
* U.S. Naval Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.;
* U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base,
Alabama;
* Combined Arms Research Library, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas;
* U.S. Air Force Headquarters, Washington, D.C.; and;
* Marine Corps Combat Development Center, Quantico, Virginia.
To identify U.S. policy on the U.S. use of land mines during the Gulf
War, we interviewed or obtained documentation from DOD and service
officials in Washington, D.C. These included officials from the Office
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense (Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics); Office of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance,
Assistant Secretary of Defense (Special Operations and Low-Intensity
Conflict); the Army Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations
and Plans, Strategy, Plans and Policy Directorate; Office of the Deputy
Chief of Staff for Logistics, Army Headquarters; and service
headquarters officials of the Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy. To
obtain detailed information on the U.S. policy concerning the use of
land mines during the Gulf War, we interviewed the U.S. commander-in-
chief of all forces participating in the Gulf War.
To obtain details on what ordnance was found on the battlefield after
the Gulf War, we interviewed in person or by telephone seven former
employees or officials of Conventional Munitions Systems (CMS), Inc.
These persons were all retired U.S. military service members, ranking
from major general to sergeant first class, and all but one had
extensive experience in ordnance and explosive ordnance disposal. We
confirmed with each CMS interviewee that they believed that the CMS
data reported to the Army were accurate. We did not examine the
evidence CMS used to prepare its report contracted by the Army.
To discuss U.S. policy and legal issues related to land mines, we
interviewed officials from the Department of State‘s Office of the Legal
Adviser, Office of International Security Negotiations, and Office of
Humanitarian Demining Programs. In addition, we discussed the major
topics and themes in this report with an official from the State
Department‘s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.
We conducted our review between June 2001 and September 2002 in
accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Defense:
Note: GAO comments supplementing those in the report text appear at
the end of this appendix.
Office Of The Assistant Secretary Of Defense:
Special Operations/low-Intensity Conflict:
Washington, D.C. 20301-2500:
September 12, 2002:
Mr. Neal P. Curtin:
Director, Defense Capabilities and Management:
U.S. General Accounting Office:
Washington, DC 20548:
Dear Mr. Curtin:
This is the Department of Defense (DoD) response to the GAO draft
report GAO-02-1003, "Military Operations: Information on U.S. Use of
Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War," dated August 6, 2002 (GAO code
350068).
The Department found a number of factual inaccuracies in the draft
report. These inaccuracies were pointed out to GAO representatives
during the August 7, 2002 draft report meeting and in subsequent
exchanges. This response addresses DoD concerns with the report in
general, rather than reiterating a list of line-by-line corrections.
The basic flaw in this GAO assessment is that it makes assertions and
speculations that are not based on fact and which cannot be
substantiated. The draft report confuses the issue of unexploded
ordnance with that of landmines and implies, wrongly, that landmines
(including U.S. use of landmines) caused greater casualties to U.S.
forces than the available data substantiates. For example:
* "Some portion of the 142 casualties caused by unknown type of
landmine or unknown type of ordnance might have been caused by U.S. or
other landmines" (page 3). There is no evidence that U.S. landmines
caused any of these casualties.
* `...the possibility cannot be ruled out that some of the casualties
now attributed to explosions of unknown or ambiguously reported
unexploded ordnance were actually caused by landmines" (page 11).
Again, there is no factual basis for this claim, and it could just as
easily he argued that some of the casualties attributed to landmines
were actually caused by unexploded ordnance.
* "Additional casualties could have been caused by landmines" (page
17)[now on page 16]. Additional casualties "could" have been caused by
many other things, such as unexploded ordnance.
The Department also is concerned about the draft report's use of
unreliable or unrelated data. For example, the report draws heavily
from questionable data provided by Conventional Munitions Systems, Inc.
(CMS). Among the weaknesses of the CMS data are misidentified ordnance
and confused nomenclatures of landmine systems. For example, CMS
reported finding 746 Remote Anti-Armor Mine System (RAAM) "duds" in its
post-Desert Storm cleanup efforts. DoD only fired 432 RAAM mines during
the war.
CMS also reported evidence that landmines had been used to attack an
aircraft. While landmines may be used to deny enemy use of airfields,
they are not used to attack aircraft. [See comment 1]
The draft report also states that there is no evidence that GATOR
landmines were effective in destroying Scud missiles. While landmines
may be used to deny maneuver of Scud transporters, they arc not used to
attack the missiles themselves. The report should be adjusted to
reflect this important distinction. [See comment 2]
Another concern is the way draft report deals with unexploded ordnance
and submunitions, including a lengthy discussion of failed submunitions
as a "de facto minefield" (pages 31-33). The report confuses unexploded
ordnance with landmines. This skews the data, erroneously implying a
higher failure rate of U.S. landmine systems and a greater number of
U.S. casualties from landmines. We suggest that the GAO study clarify
its terms to avoid confusing issues.
In short, the draft report's inclusion of unsubstantiated and/or
misleading conclusions, use of unreliable or unrelated data,
inappropriate use of data on other weapon systems to reinforce
conclusions about landmines, and diversion from its original scope
(effectiveness of mixed landmine systems) to an exclusive focus on one
case study (the Persian Gulf War) undermines the report's credibility
as an objective analysis of landmine utility and employment.
We recommend to those interested in a factual analysis of the landmine
issue several other studies: Alternative Technologies to Replace
Antipersonnel Landmines, National Research Council, March 2001;
Battlefield Utility of Antipersonnel Landmines and Proposed
Alternatives, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, September 2001;
Recommendations Regarding Alternatives to Antipersonnel Landmines, Los
Alamos National Laboratory, August 2001; and Landmines and U.S.
Leadership: A View from the Field, Patricia S. Huntington, National
Committee on American Foreign Policy, December 2000. While we may
disagree with the policy recommendations of some of these studies, we
believe that these studies provide a rigorous and objective analysis of
a number of issues regarding U.S. Landmines and their effectiveness.
Finally, we refer interested readers to the hearing record in the
United States Senate regarding the Amended Mines Protocol Treaty, and
especially the associated report of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. [See comment 3]
Sincerely,
Signed by:
Marshall Billingslea:
Principal Deputy:
The following are GAO‘s comments on the Department of Defense‘s (DOD)
letter dated September 12, 2002.
GAO Comments:
1. We have deleted from the report the example of Gator land mine use
against an aircraft on an airfield.
2. We have changed the report to clarify the fact that Scud transporters
were targeted rather than the Scud missiles they carried.
3. In conducting our review, we consulted these and other reports, as we
state in our objectives and scope and methodology sections. We cite the
National Research Council‘s report in appendix IV. However, because it
was beyond the scope of our report to evaluate land mine policy and
program alternatives, which is the general subject of these reports, we
do not discuss them in detail.
[End of section]
Footnotes:
[1] Department of the Army, Field Manual 20-32, Mine/Countermine
Operations, (Washington, D.C.: May 29, 1998 [includes ’Change 2,“ Aug.
22, 2001]) states, ’Mines are explosive devices that are emplaced to
kill, destroy, or incapacitate enemy personnel and/or equipment.... A
mine is detonated by the action of its target, the passage of time, or
controlled means....“
[2] A submunition is any munition that separates from the parent
munition to perform its task.
[3] Minefield reporting involves an oral, electronic, or written
communication concerning mining activities, friendly or enemy,
submitted in a standard format. Minefield recording involves a complete
written record of all pertinent information concerning a minefield,
submitted on a standard form. Minefield marking involves the visible
marking of all points required in emplacing a minefield and the
minefield‘s extent.
[4] DOD reports that these reliability rates are based on proving
ground tests, conducted over the past 14 years, involving nearly 67,000
self-destruct antitank and antipersonnel mines.
[5] Field Manual 20-32 states, ’AHD [antihandling devices] perform the
function of a mine fuse if someone attempts to tamper with the mine....
AHDs are added to a minefield to discourage manual removal and reuse of
mines by the enemy and to demoralize the enemy who is attempting to
reduce the minefield.“
[6] Types of U.S. land mines available to U.S. forces during the Gulf
War include those shown in appendix II. According to service records,
as of 2002, the DOD land mine stockpile contains about 18 million land
mines of the types and quantities shown in appendix I.
[7] The U.S. land mine stockpile in 1990 included over 3.9 million M-14
and 2.3 million M-16 nonself-destruct antipersonnel land mines, with
over 200,000 of these taken by U.S. forces to the Gulf War theater
area. Over 2 million M-15/19/21 nonself-destruct antitank land mines
were available in the U.S. stockpile and over 40,000 were taken to the
Gulf War theater. See appendix II, table 10.
[8] The U.S. land mine stockpile in 1990 included over 4.4 million Area
Denial Artillery Munition (ADAM) antipersonnel and over 2.5 million
Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) antitank artillery-fired self-destruct
land mines. In addition, U.S. forces had a number of other types of
land mines and land mine dispenser systems, including over 2 million
land mines for the M-128 Ground-Emplaced Mine Scattering System (GEMSS)
(see app. II, fig. 6) and nearly 700,000 land mines contained in Gator
CBU89/78 aircraft-delivered cluster bombs (see fig. 5). The United
States took to the Gulf War theater for potential use about 2 million
of these self-destruct land mines. See appendix II, table 10.
[9] ’Mine warfare,“ the use of mines and mine countermeasures, is
divided into two basic concepts with regard to land theaters”(1) the
laying of mines to degrade the enemy‘s capabilities to wage land
warfare and (2) the countering of enemy-laid mines to permit friendly
maneuver or use of selected land areas.
[10] These are the minefields defined in the Army‘s 1985 version of its
Field Manual 20-32, which applied during the Persian Gulf War. The 1998
version lists the types of minefields as protective, tactical,
nuisance, and phony. Protective minefields are employed to protect
soldiers, equipment, supplies, and facilities from enemy attacks or
other threats. Tactical minefields are employed to directly affect
enemy maneuver and to give the defender a positional advantage over the
attacker. Nuisance minefields impose caution on enemy forces and
disrupt, delay, and sometimes weaken or destroy follow-on forces. Phony
minefields are areas of ground altered to give the same appearance as a
real minefield and thereby deceive the enemy.
[11] During the Gulf War, the Iraqis launched more than 90 Scud
missiles, which are liquid-fueled, short-range ballistic missiles. The
Iraqi missiles were developed from the Soviet version.
[12] Combined reporting totals of Gulf War casualties reported to us by
each service differ from figures previously reported by DOD. DOD-
reported figures provided to us used different and broader categories
to report casualties. Because we believe the services have the most
accurate data available for their casualties, we report service-
provided data.
[13] In addition, the Army Safety Center provided us data for U.S. land
mine casualties outside the Gulf War theater for 1990 to 2001. It
reported 22 U.S. casualties, including 2 killed and 20 injured. These
U.S. casualties include 2 in Egypt, 10 in Germany (these 10 casualties
are described elsewhere in this report), 7 in South Korea, and 3 in the
United States. These 22 casualties are not included in the Gulf War
casualty totals included in this report.
[14] Field Manual 20-32 states, ’The modern tendency toward maneuver
warfare and the disappearance of the linear battlefield places
repositioning forces at an increased risk of fratricide by minefields.“
[15] United States Army, Defense Ammunition Center, United States Army
Technical Center for Explosives Safety, Report of Findings for Phase II
Study of Ammunition Dud and Low Order Detonation Rates (McAlester,
Okla.: July 2001)
[16] The 1992 version of Field Manual 20-32 states, ’Mine training is
inherently dangerous. Between FY [fiscal year] 85 and FY 88, there were
eight accidents in the active Army during mine warfare training....
These accidents resulted in the deaths of three soldiers. In FY 90,
there were two mine accidents, resulting in eleven casualties.“
[17] Current U.S. national security policy, established by Presidential
Decision Directive (PDD) 48, dated June 26, 1996, limits the use of,
and live-mine training on, M-14 and M-16 antipersonnel nonself-destruct
land mines to training personnel engaged in demining and countermining
operations and to U.S. forces in Korea. See also Department of the Army
Policy Message 290845Z, July 29, 1997. PDD 48 also directs the
Secretary of Defense to undertake a program of research, procurement,
and other measures needed for the eventual elimination of the M-14 and
M-16 mines from U.S.-owned stockpiles of mines intended to be used by
U.S. personnel. Further, by PDD 64, June 23, 1998, the President
directed the Department of Defense to develop antipersonnel land mine
alternatives to end the use of all antipersonnel land mines outside
Korea by 2003.
[18] Field Manual 20-32 defines ’live-mine training“ as ’preparing,
laying, arming, neutralizing, and disarming live mines (with live fuses
and components) in a training environment.“
[19] See Department of the Army Policy Message 290845Z, July 29, 1997.
[20] The Office of the Program Manager, Mines, Countermine and
Demolitions is now organizationally assigned to Close Combat Systems,
U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Ammunition.
[21] U.S. Army Armament, Munitions, and Chemical Command, Contract
DAAA21-92-M-0300 report by CMS, Inc. (Tampa, Fla.: July 1993).
[22] Members of the CMS explosive ordnance disposal team were
interviewed in ’The Battlefield,“ a 13-minute segment of the Oct. 25,
1992, televised CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. ’The Battlefield“ was
about the unexploded ordnance left on the Kuwaiti battlefield during
the Gulf War and the dangers inherent in the U.S. and other explosive
ordnance disposal experts‘ efforts to clear battlefield sectors of
Kuwait. During the cleanup, 84 operators, including at least 2 private
U.S. contractors, were killed.
[23] These eight systems are the RAAM, the Gator, the Ground-Emplaced
Mine Scattering System (GEMSS), the Pursuit Deterrent Munition, the
Volcano, the Modular Pack Mine System, the ADAM, and the Selectable
Lightweight Attack Munition (SLAM). Some of these systems are depicted
in figures 5 and 6 in appendix II.
[24] United States Army, Defense Ammunition Center, United States Army
Technical Center for Explosives Safety, Report of Findings for Study of
Ammunition Dud and Low Order Detonation Rates (McAlester, Okla.: July
2000).
[25] Field Manual 20-32 identifies the advantages and problems of using
scatterable mine systems in urban terrain [i.e., cities]. For example,
it indicates that ADAMs/RAAMs ’are the most rapidly deployed SCATMINE
systems,“ and ’these mines can be delivered under enemy fire.“ It also
identifies problems: ’Using ADAMs/RAAMs in urban terrain involves
five specific problem areas: Difficulty in precise minefield siting....
Uncertainty of ADAM and RAAM survivability upon impact with a building
or ground surfaces... availability of artillery firing units.... High
detectability of these mines on bare and lightly covered surfaces....
Difficulty in achieving a good random pattern. Hard-surfaced areas cause
mines to bounce and roll. Some mines (especially AT [antitank] mines)
will land on top of buildings and are ineffective.“
[26] U.S. General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: Casualties
Caused by Improper Handling of Unexploded U.S. Submunitions, GAO/NSIAD-
93-212 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 6, 1993). See table 6 for a list of duds
found by CMS, Inc., on the Kuwaiti battlefield. This list includes M77
duds.
[27] Field Manual 20-32 requires minefield marking: ’Minefields must be
marked to prevent fratricide. Marking ensures that friendly soldiers do
not accidentally enter a minefield, and it is a requirement under
STANAGs [Standardization Agreements] and Geneva Convention agreements
....For scatterable minefields, a commander may choose to remove
markings once the self-destruct (SD) time of the mines has expired; but
the location of the minefield must still be recorded and forwarded to
higher and adjacent units in case some of the mines did not self-
destruct....To prevent friendly casualties, all affected units must be
notified of the location and the duration of scatterable minefields....
Due to the large footprint created when the minefield is fired, many
mines will scatter outside the planned minefield area. It is therefore
necessary to plot the safety zone in order to prevent fratricide.“
[28] U.S. Army Armament, Munitions, and Chemical Command, Contract
DAAA21-92-M-0300 report by CMS, Inc.
[29] U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, Unexploded Ordnance
(UXO) Study, Technical Report No. TR-654, (Aberdeen Proving Ground,
Md.: Apr. 1996).
[30] Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology
& Logistics)/Strategic & Tactical Systems/Office of Munitions,
Unexploded Ordnance Report, Report to Congress (Washington, D.C.: Feb.
29, 2000).
[31] The Air Force version of the Gator (CBU-89) dispenser contains 72
antitank and 22 antipersonnel land mines, and the Navy and Marine
version of the Gator (CBU-78) dispenser contains 45 antitank and 15
antipersonnel land mines. (See fig. 5 in app. II.) Mixed Volcano
dispensers each contain 5 antitank and 1 antipersonnel land mines.
Modular Pack Mine System dispensers contain 17 antitank and 4
antipersonnel land mines.
[32] Presidential Decision Directive 48, June 26, 1996, and
Presidential Decision Directive 64, June 23, 1998. Because it was
beyond the scope of this report, we did not assess land-mine policy
topics.
[33] The organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) in 1996
directed the commanders-in-chief (CINC), except for the CINC United
Nations Command (Korea), to undertake actions related to eliminating M-
14 and M-16 antipersonnel land mines from unit supplies, prepositioned
land mine stockpiles, and land mine warfare plans. See JCS messages UUU
162338Z, May 1996, ’Anti-Personnel Landmine Policy Implementation,“ and
UUU 061520Z, Aug. 1996, ’Implementation of Presidential Decision
Directive on Anti-Personnel Mine Warfare.“ Because it was beyond the
scope of this report, we did not assess DOD‘s progress in completing
these directed actions.
[34] For an overview of land mine issues, including the role of land
mines, international treaties, legislative actions, administrative
policy, and land mine technology, see Congressional Research Service,
CRS Report for Congress, Landmines: Background and Congressional
Concerns, 96-362F (Washington, D.C.: updated Aug. 28, 1998).
[35] U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense (Acquisition, Technology & Logistics), Report to Congress,
Progress on Landmine Alternatives (Washington, D.C.: Apr. 1, 2001). DOD
indicated that this report responds to section 248 of the Strom
Thurmond National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1999,
Public Law 105-261, which requires the Secretary of Defense to submit
to the congressional defense committees, not later than April 1 of 2000
and 2001, a report describing the progress made in identifying
technologies and concepts with regard to antipersonnel land mine
alternatives that:
a. would provide a combat capability that is equivalent to the combat
capability provided by nonself-destructing antipersonnel land mines;
b. would provide a combat capability that is equivalent to the combat
capability provided by antipersonnel submunitions used in mixed
antitank mine systems, or;
c. would provide a combat capability that is equivalent to the combat
capability provided by current mixed mine systems.
DOD reported it has undertaken a three-tracked approach to identifying,
evaluating, selecting, and developing alternatives. The DOD report
describes numerous programs and activities related to land mines and
land mine alternatives. Because it was beyond the scope of this report,
GAO did not assess DOD‘s progress in identifying and developing
alternatives or in achieving objectives and dates established by
Presidential Decision Directives (PDD) 48 and 64.
[36] U.S. Department of Defense, Project Office for Mines, Countermine
and Demolitions, ’Anti-Personnel Landmine Alternative Program Status
Briefing for General Accounting Office“ (Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey:
May 6, 2002).
[37] U.S. Army, Engineer Systems Handbook (Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo.: May
2001) characterizes this alternative: ’The NSD-A system relies on a man
in the loop to achieve Ottawa [Treaty} compliance. An operator remotely
controls grenades and M16 warheads. Operational war-fighter
requirements include a target-activated option that is not Ottawa
compliant. The operational requirements document (ORD) is approved by
the Joint Requirements Oversight Committee. The USD (ALT) [Under
Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology)] decision
to enter engineering manufacturing design is pending NSC [National
Security Council] policy guidance.“ Because it was beyond the scope of
this report, we did not assess this policy topic.
[38] ’…Pure‘ APL [antipersonnel land mines] are used alone and not part
of a mixed [including antitank land mines] system.“ See National
Academy of Sciences, Alternative Technologies to Replace Antipersonnel
Landmines (Washington, D.C.: Mar. 21, 2001). On Sept. 3, 2002, a
representative of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
(Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict) (ASD/SOLIC), provided
to us the following DOD statement to include in this report. The
statement in part defines ’pure“ and ’mixed“ land mine systems, PDD-64
requirements, and the Ottawa Convention and interprets how one DOD land
mine program concept”the Remote Area Denial Artillery Munition”is
related: ’Among its other provisions, PDD-64 directed DoD to develop
alternatives to anti-personnel land mines in order to end the use of
anti-personnel land mines outside Korea by 2003. PDD-64 also directed
development of the Remote Area Denial Artillery Munition (RADAM) for use
outside Korea. RADAM combines anti-personnel and anti-tank land mines
into one …mixed‘ system. Since the PDD directed development of a mixed
anti-tank system for use outside Korea, the requirement …to end the use
of anti-personnel land mines outside Korea by 2003‘ has been
interpreted to mean ending the use of …pure‘ anti-personnel land mines
rather than mixed systems that include anti-personnel land mines along
with anti-tank land mines. (The Ottawa Convention permits use of mixed
systems consisting of anti-tank land mines that have an anti-personnel
device physically attached to the anti-tank mine. In this case, the use
of the anti-personnel device, called an …anti-handling device,‘ has the
same function as do separate anti-personnel land mines used as part of
mixed systems”the anti-personnel element protects the anti-tank
minefield from easy breaching by enemy forces.)“ By comparison, the
U.S. Army‘s Engineer Systems Handbook, May 2001, contains an
alternative interpretation: ’The RADAM is a mixed system that combines
seven remote-anti-armor-mine (RAAM) AT mines and five area-denial-
artillery-munition (ADAM) AP mines in one 155 shell. Because of its AP
component, this mixed system is not Ottawa compliant. The directive is
to develop alternatives to AP land mines to end the use of all pure AP
land mines outside of Korea, including those that self-destruct, by
2003 (2006 for Korea). Without RADAM production, tactical commanders
will lose their ability to emplace a mixed system during this period.
Under the Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology)
(USD [ALT]), the production decision is on hold until new guidance is
received from the National Security Council (NSC). Production remains
on hold pending the OSD decision.“ Because it was beyond the scope of
this report, we did not assess these DOD policy-related determinations.
[39] U.S. policy regarding the use and employment of antipersonnel land
mines in Korea is outlined in Field Manual 20-32. This policy,
according to the field manual, ’is subject to the Convention on Certain
Conventional Weapons and Executive Orders. Current US policy limits the
use of non-self-destructing APLs [antipersonnel land mines] to (1)
defending the US and its allies from armed aggression across the Korean
demilitarized zone and (2) training personnel engaged in demining and
countermine operations.“ The three types of nonself-destruct
antipersonnel land mines that may be used only in Korea include the M-14
(a low metallic pressure-detonated blast mine), the M-16 (a bounding
fragmentation mine that can be detonated by pressure or by trip wires),
and the M-18A1 Claymore (when employed in the trip-wire detonation
mode). The use of the M-18A1 Claymore in the tripwire mode is permitted
only in Korea. According to Field Manual 20-32, the M18, when employed
in the command-detonation mode, may be used in Korea or elsewhere: ’The
use of the M18A1 claymore in the command-detonation mode is not
restricted under international law or Executive Order.“ Field Manual 20-
32 refers to the M18 Claymore alternately as a ’land mine“ and a
’munition.“ A representative from ASD/SOLIC said that DOD does not
consider the M-18A1 Claymore in the command-detonated mode as a land
mine. This representative provided for inclusion in this report the
following description of the M-18 Claymore: ’The M18 Claymore is not a
land mine. Land mines are detonated by the …presence, proximity or
contact of a person or vehicle.‘ The M18 is detonated by a human
operator‘s command.“ Regarding the use of the Claymore in Korea, the
field manual states that U.S. forces may use the Claymore in Korea in
the trip-wire mode. Because it was beyond the scope of this report, we
did not assess these DOD policy-related determinations.
[40] See U.S. Department of Defense, Multiservice Procedures for
Operations in an Unexploded Ordnance Environment, FM 100-38, MCRP 4-
5.1, NWP TP 3-02.4.1, ACCPAM 10-752, PACAFPAM 10-752, USAFEPAM 10-752
(Air Land Sea Application Center, Langley Air Force Base, Va.: July
1996).
[41] U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, Unexploded Ordnance
(UXO) Study, Technical Report No. TR-654 (Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.:
Apr. 1996).
[42] U.S. General Accounting Office, Unexploded Ordnance: A Coordinated
Approach to Detection and Clearance Is Needed (GAO/NSIAD-95-197, Sept.
20, 1995).
[43] Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology
& Logistics)/Strategic & Tactical Systems/Office of Munitions, Report
to Congress, Unexploded Ordnance Report (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 29,
2000).
[44] See Secretary of Defense, Memorandum for the Secretaries of the
Military Departments, ’DOD Policy on Submunition Reliability“
(Washington, D.C.: Jan. 10, 2001).
[End of section]
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