Clinton Praises U.S. Weapons Removal Efforts

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today praised the U.S.’s efforts to clear landmines and destroy unsafe conventional weapons stockpiles left over from past wars.

At a press conference announcing the release of “To Walk the Earth in Safety,” a State Department report documenting the U.S.’ global weapons destruction efforts, Clinton said that leftover munitions and buried landmines “pose a grave danger to the lives and safety of men, women, and children everywhere,” and said that “the United States is proud to be the single largest financial supporter of humanitarian mine action around the world.”

Clinton claimed that in the past decade, the United States has helped decrease the annual number of casualties from landmine explosions from 15-20,000 to 4,000. Clinton called the current figure “still unacceptably high,” but stated that “we are making important progress.”

According to the State Department’s report, the United States has spent $1.9 billion since 1993 on conventional weapons destruction assistance in 81 countries, and $161.5 million in 2010.

While not mentioned in the report, which only covers U.S. activities up to 2010, Clinton also highlighted U.S. weapons destruction assistance to Libya, where the regime of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was overthrown this year by rebels aided by a NATO air campaign.  Clinton claimed that the U.S. was working with Libya to take stock of weapons stockpiles left by the Qaddafi regime and “destroy arms that exceed Libya’s national defense needs.”

Despite its international disarmament work, the United States remains one of a shrinking number of countries that has not signed the Ottawa Convention, a UN treaty banning the use of anti-personnel land mines.

Asked about the U.S.’ stance on the landmine treaty at the conference, Assistant Secretary for Weapons Removal Andrew Shapiro replied that the U.S. was “reviewing its policy” the treaty, and that a final decision would be based on the treaty’s “impact on our ability to conduct military operations.”

Shapiro confirmed that it was a “goal” to complete the policy review before the end of President Obama’s first term in January 2013.