General GILL. It depends. This is a requirements type of issue, but I help define requirements. We are under the 99-point-something percent. Again, it depends on what you are doing. We are willing to accept for breaching operations, that's an under-fire combat type of thing where we have to move through an obstacle, a much lesser degree of assurance that the mines are removed. And then we try to improve on that by proofing the lanes with skimming soil and things out of the way by running mine rollers across it and so forth.

Under those kinds of conditions, we will accept something probably-hopefully, a little better than 70 percent. But when it comes to mine clearing an area that you are going to be in where you have soldiers at risk, we want to be as assured as we possibly can be that we have got them cleared.

Mr. WELDON. Thank you. Just one other question before I go on, and that is relative to the accuracy of the data regarding the mine location and numbers. I think we have indicated that we feel we have some good data, but I have also heard that some of the mine laying techniques were simply hand-setting, I think is what you said, Mr. Reeder, which would mean we would have no way of knowing perhaps where they were put. So how accurate? I mean, are we talking about an accuracy level in the 1990's?

Mr. MAZZAFRO. Sir, that is hard to characterize. I would be reluctant to say it is in the 90-percent range. As I said, we have a broad general sense of where the mines are because of where the war was. That is where you would expect the mines to be. We are getting the data from the factions, which by and large is confirming that presupposition where they are.

As Mr. Reeder says, and as I indicated, we already know from the debriefs and the information that we are getting, that some minefields were never recorded. Some of the recordings were lost, some of the recordings were fragmentary, and some of the mines were randomly placed. But, again, as with any operation or any situation, you have got to go with some presuppositions, and the presuppositions seem to be holding up that you would expect the mines to be in the area of operations along lines of confrontation, and that is what the data seems to show, sir.

Mr. WELDON. Thank you.

Mr. SISISKY. Can I?

Mr. WELDON. Mr. Sisisky.

Mr. SISISKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you gentlemen for being here.

I am a little confused. What is the problem in developing mine detection and mine destruction? I remember 12 years ago, either it was the sense of Congress or-I know I raised the issue, because the Marine Corps had told me that more people die from mines than any other thing in war. I just don't understand if there is metal in there, why we can't develop something. If you don't have the money, I wish you would tell us. But it just seems to me if we can develop high-technology aircraft, high-technology nuclear things, if we can go to the moon, certainly we can do something with mine detection and mine destruction.

What is the Army doctrine for mines? Is it to bypass and mark those things as we go to war? What is the Army doctrine? There

is something that I cannot figure out in my mind-I have been after this for years, and where is the problem? If it is money, please tell us. Maybe we can get the money. It is too late for Bosnia, but I was told we have developed something.

You know, we have hand-held things. That was World War II, wasn't it, where we-well, I was told that we have got the ultimate thing where we dig up the mines, we just go deep and dig them up. You know, give me a break. I just can't believe that. And I would just like to know what the real problem is and how do we protect our troops from that.

General GILL. Sir, let me start that. Mines are things that are built by human beings, who have intent to use them against other humans and vehicles, and they have many different ways of concocting these things. We have problems-metal detection is a technology which we use fairly well, but then we have the nonmetallic mines.

Mr. SISISKY. With some metal in them, am I correct?

General GILL. Well, there are mines in the world-and Mr. Reeder can explain that—that have none. Those that have some are still a problem because you have got to get very close to them to see it. We have a great many promising technologies to try to do things, but we are dealing with a problem that is as complex as the people who build the mines, as their methods of emplacement, be they tripwires, be they putting them under magnetic influence or pressure, stepping on them, coming down from the trees. There are so many different ways that you can put these things in. So any single technology that is looking down at the ground may not solve the problem if it runs into a tripwire.

Then we have the problem of climate and weather and soil. If we dealt with the homogenous mass of dirt, that would present one problem for locating the mine, but if we are dealing with lots of different conditions out there and climate that changes over time, frozen ground, falling ground, and so forth. Every one of these things presents us a new problem.

So the solution to the thing, at the moment, is to go back and defeat each one of those things with somebody who is very well trained, using his equipment, staying as far away from the mines as he possibly can put himself, and being very, very careful.

Mr. SISISKY. Well, you know, that is very good. I have looked at the infantryman of the next century and what we have done with the digital battlefield.

General GILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. SISISKY. And I have looked at that and that is surrounded with a lot of problems. As a matter of fact, the weight has been cut in half in 1 year of a computer. I mean, the technology is there. And I am talking about detection in the same way that

General GILL. I am about at the end of my expertise. I think the technology panel has got a lot more to say about this.

Mr. SISISKY. That may not be the problem.

General GILL. If I could defer to them, unless Mr. Reeder wants to add something.

Mr. REEDER. Just the only point I might make is that it is always enjoyable to deal with Marine Corps personnel. They have a very pragmatic view on life, and they do consider the encountering

of landmines-business as usual. So I do have to agree with you, the Marine perspective is very straightforward.

Mr. SISISKY. That is why I asked about the Army doctrine.

Mr. REEDER. And I think that the right answer is that we should let our technologists address this. You are correct there is an awful lot of work going on with computer processing and signal processing that they will probably discuss.

Mr. SISISKY. That is it.

Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Sisisky.

I would just add that each of the past several years, the Congress has actually increased funding over what was requested in this area because we felt that more of an emphasis needed to be placed on mine operations and R&D necessary to deal with these issues, as Mr. Sisisky raised, I guess, a few years ago.

Mr. Evans.

Mr. EVANS. Mr. Reeder, over the last few months, of course, the seriousness of the mine threat in Bosnia has become obvious. What can you predict in terms of how serious the threat will be to our Armed Forces in the conduct of this current operation?

Mr. REEDER. Thank you, Mr. Evans. Projections are tough, but here is, I think, my call on this: Bear in mind what I said about the preparation by our senior leadership and by the engineers in theater. That comment that I made was very heartfelt. I mean, it is, to me, astounding the work the theater has done to prepare for this mission.

Oftentimes, as a technical expert on landmines, I feel that here sitting stateside, I often have a better perspective than people, say, in the country affected. I don't feel like that at all in Bosnia. As a matter of fact, I am very comfortable sitting back, taking a back seat, and letting the theater do what they are obviously doing very well.

To me, the most important thing that must be accomplished over there is to draw together all the sources of data. In a country by the name of Eritrea, under the humanitarian demining program, we tried to start an information fusion process, a historical research process, that would go out and gather this information.

That kind of a concept is critical in Bosnia. And the thinking is right along those lines already. So as long as that can be supported by the proper decisions and funding, I am pretty optimistic because, again, the first thing that you have got to do is come to grips with where those mine locations are. Even if they have been cleared, they need to be identified, because those mines that have been-minefields that have been cleared are just as suspect as the ones where the mines are still located. All those have got to be addressed by the properly trained personnel.

Above and beyond that, landmines are going to be a problem that we will face operationally in the theater along with other things, and we will continue to have a smattering of incidents. I am afraid-it is unfortunate, that there is no way around it. But the emphasis that I have seen over there, to me, is just absolutely amazing. I cannot eloquently state it, as a matter of fact.

So I have to be optimistic, Mr. Evans, I really do.

Mr. EVANS. I understand you have developed this mine facts CD which now has a subsequent edition, I understand, and that it was

funded through some of our funding through the humanitarian demining program?

Mr. REEDER. Actually, what we have done within the intelligence community, because we also feel that this is an extremely critical task, we have over the years put out about 40 or so major publications, many of them in unclassified versions. I have them here in front of me on Eritrea, Mozambique. We have a wonderful document out now on Angola which has mine locations as best as we can chart from this place, from this side of the ocean; Somalia. And all of these kinds of documents came out of our own data bases down at National Ground Intelligence Center.

From those data bases, we dumped the data down into the Mine Facts CD-ROM, and then also a new one that is just out. This particular one was not DOD-funded but it is a compilation of many other aspects of the global demining program as well as the technical data in mine facts.

Mr. EVANS. Has it been provided, either one of these compact disc [CD's], to our troops in Bosnia?

Mr. REEDER. These have all gone through the standard distribution, but I think the humanitarian demining program can address, upcoming in a little bit, that that kind of product is being tailored to go out to the troops. And General Gill, I think, is-go ahead, sir. General GILL. Sir, one of the tools that one of my predecessors put together, along with a lot of help from the Science and Technology Center, and allied nations I would add, a great cooperation with all the allies involved in UNPROFOR, is an engineering contingency handbook for the former Yugoslavia. The handbook was originally put out in 1993. It was a best seller. It has grown to be a much bigger best seller now, to the tune that we have shipped since last summer 4,800 copies of this document; color photographs, pictures, techniques. It is a wonderful tool to assist the people, the leaders, and for the leaders then to train their soldiers.

I think the idea of a CD-ROM in Bosnia is a little bit far for 1996. But I would tell you that I spoke with Colonel Hawkins, who is the First Armored Division engineer and has the responsibility in that sector for collecting the information. I spoke to him on Monday, and his report to me was that he was impressed with the cooperation of the warring factions and with the general accuracy and goodness of the minefield reports that they brought him.

He had over 3,000 of them recorded at the time. And as they are recorded in their data base, they are not just-it is not just a docile data base. They are linked to all of their little subunits to include nodes that are out with the Russians and the Nordics, where they push this information out to them. So as they get a minefield report in an area, it goes out to everybody in the field to know where it is, be aware of it, and if they are in the area, to try to get some assistance from the warring factions to mark it and begin the clearing operation. So a little bit of high tech is entering the business. Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.

Mr. WELDON. Thank you. We will adjourn the session briefly while we vote on the DOD authorization conference report. Following that, Mr. Bartlett, you will be the first member to question.

Mr. WELDON. I would like to reconvene the subcommittee for continuation of the hearing. Next in order of questioning is Congressman Roscoe Bartlett.

Mr. BARTLETT. Thank you. I want to thank our chairman for convening this hearing and thank all the witnesses for appearing.

Since we have not gone to Bosnia as combatants and should not be fighting, to what extent can we simply minimize this problem by going where we wish to go and avoid most of the potential problems?

General GILL. I think you have hit on our strategy, our policy. We go where we must go. We need to have mobility. We have asked the former warring factions to do all of the work to clear the areas where we need to go. We will attempt to mine roll and proof and do things to ensure those areas are in fact clear, but discipline and control of where we are going is key to bringing us back unscathed.

Mr. BARTLETT. I would just like to note for the record that this is one of the areas where the Congress has authorized and appropriated funds in addition to that requested by the Pentagon in past years. We are sometimes criticized because we sometimes authorize and appropriate moneys in addition to what was requested by the Pentagon. I was impressed with the statement that our ability to detect these mines is imperfect at best, and I am pleased that this committee has had the foresight in past years to appropriate additional moneys for this, because if it weren't for that, we would be even in a poorer position to ensure the safety of our personnel.

I hope that this kind of thing becomes more and more publicized so that the American people understand they have a committee here that is genuinely interested in not just the security of our country but in the security of those that provide for the security of our country, and I am pleased that we have had the foresight to both authorize and appropriate additional moneys for this area in the past several years.

Thank you very much for being here.

General GILL. Thank you, sir.

Mr. WELDON. Mr. Peterson.

Mr. PETERSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you having this panel together, because I think this is very important. I was rereading the purpose, and that is to really acquaint the members here on what the threat really is out there.

I also want to reiterate something that I think this panel has said to us, and that is that we are not in this alone. Other countries have demonstrated significant interest and have provided a great deal of research and development [R&D] by virtue of the fact that most of our equipment over there in the detection area is from Austria, I think the AN-19P or whatever it is.

General GILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. PETERSON. They actually may be in fact ahead of us, some other countries, so our cooperation in that regard, I think, is commendable, and we need to join hands as we use our funds to develop this.

But I want to settle on this 5 minutes with really an analysis of this threat. The threat to me seems to have been minimized by great training, No. 1, and the innate knowledge of every soldier out