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COUNTERMINE CAPABILITY OF U.S. FORCES IN BOSNIA, OR IN

FUTURE BOSNIA-LIKE OPERATIONS, AND WHAT BARRIERS NEED TO

BE OVERCOME FROM THE STANDPOINTS OF TECHNOLOGY,

ORGANIZATION, AND FUNDING PRIORITIES TO PROVIDE SUCH

CAPABILITIES?

GENTLEMEN, WE LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR TESTIMONY

TODAY AND TO THE DIALOGUE THAT WILL FOLLOW. BEFORE YOU

BEGIN, I WOULD YIELD TO DUNCAN HUNTER, CHAIRMAN OF THE

MILITARY PROCUREMENT SUBCOMMITTEE.

OPENING STATEMENT OF DUNCAN HUNTER
CHAIRMAN, MILITARY PROCURMENT SUBCOMMITTEE
HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMITTEE

HEARING ON RESPONSE TO THE LANDMINE THREAT IN BOSNIA JANUARY 24, 1996

LANDMINES WILL LIKELY BECOME AN INCREASING THREAT

TO OUR FORCES IN FUTURE MISSIONS. TODAY, EVERY WAR-
FIGHTING COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF HAS A MAJOR UNCLEARED

LANDMINE PROBLEM IN HIS AREA OF OPERATIONS. THE

MILITARY SERVICES HAVE IDENTIFIED LANDMINES AS A

SIGNIFICANT THREAT TO FUTURE FORCE PROJECTION OPERATIONS

AND OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR. THE STATE DEPARTMENT HAS ESTIMATED THAT OVER 100 MILLION LANDMINES ARE

SCATTERED AROUND THE GLOBE. WITH THIRD WORLD NATIONS AND REBEL GROUPS INCREASINGLY TURNING TO THESE CHEAP

WEAPONS AS A FORCE MULTIPLIER, U.S. FORCES, IF DEPLOYED IN FUTURE CONFLICTS, PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS, AND OPERATIONS OTHER THAN WAR WILL ENCOUNTER LANDMINES

MORE FREQUENTLY.

AS MR. WELDON INDICATED IN HIS STATEMENT, THE ISSUES THAT WE WANT TO ADDRESS IN THIS HEARING ARE WHAT HAS

BEEN DONE TO IMPROVE THE CAPABILITY OF U.S. FORCES TO

DEAL WITH THE LANDMINE THREAT IN BOSNIA; WHAT CAN BE DONE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF DOCTRINE, TRAINING, AND RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND ACQUISITION TO FURTHER IMPROVE THE COUNTERMINE CAPABILITY OF U.S. FORCES IN BOSNIA, OR IN FUTURE BOSNIA-LIKE OPERATIONS; AND WHAT BARRIERS NEED TO BE OVERCOME TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

GENTLEMEN, I WELCOME YOU AND LOOK FORWARD TO

YOUR TESTIMONY AND THE QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS WHICH WILL FOLLOW.

Mr. WELDON. Mr. Evans.

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to thank you for calling this important hearing. I hope one of the things we can get out of this hearing is that the landmine situation in Bosnia is the exception, not the rule.

Because of the immensity of the problem, over 100 million antipersonnel mines scattered around the world, our forces must be prepared to face these weapons in the future. Because of this humanitarian crisis and the problems our own forces will face, I have advocated a total ban on the use and production of anti-personnel [AP] mines.

Congress is in the process of taking an important step in agreeing to a 1-year ban on these weapons. I hope that this move to show international leadership is the beginning of the end of the tens of thousands of innocent victims who are killed by these indiscriminate weapons annually. Yet no matter what happens on this question, we will all have to deal with the tens of millions of mines already scattered throughout the world.

Congress, through Congressman Dellums' leadership, took an important step in this direction by starting the fiscal year 1995 R&D program to look at new ways to detect and clear landmines. In conjunction with Department of Defense [DOD's] congressionally mandated humanitarian demining program, this program has been reaping real benefits in attacking the humanitarian problem, along with giving our forces new tools and expertise.

I hope that this hearing will bring into focus the advantage of these programs, along with what we need to do to help both our own soldiers and innocent women and children throughout the world cope with this problem. So, Mr. Chairman, I again salute you for holding the hearing.

Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Evans. I appreciate that statement.

Other opening statements by members?

With that, our witnesses today will be divided into two panels. The first panel will review the landmine threat in Bosnia and the United States policy for and capabilities of dealing with that specific threat. Panel two will discuss procurement, research and development, and technologies to meet future landmine threats.

We are very pleased to have our first distinguished panel at the table and would welcome you to begin your testimony. Captain Mazzafro, we will ask you to begin the proceeding.

.STATEMENT OF CAPT. JOSEPH MAZZAFRO, USN, THE JOINT STAFF (J2)

Captain MAZZAFRO. Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Joe Mazzafro with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where I run the Yugoslavia Intelligence Task Force for the J-2 and provide the daily current intelligence updates

Mr. WELDON. Excuse me. Could you pull the microphone closer to you?

Čaptain MAZZAFRO. Certainly, sir. Where I provide the daily current intelligence updates on crisis reporting that go to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Secretary of Defense. Obvi

ously, the situation in Bosnia and the mine threat are daily issues for us.

What I hope to do today is to give you a brief unclassified intelligence assessment and overview of how we see the mine situation in Bosnia, to set the context for the other technology discussions that will follow after me.

Marcus [Captain Mazzafro addressed his assistant].

The way I propose to proceed is to discuss briefly the doctrinal use of mines in the Bosnian theater, the number and order of battle in broad scope. We will show you the minefields, what they look like, where they are laid. We will recount mine incidents that have occurred in general, and can go into detail, depending on your questions.

Since Interposition Force [IFOR] has deployed, we will then discuss the minefield status, cleared, marked, that sort of thing. I will also want to cover the other threats besides mines that IFOR is looking at over there, so you have a sense of context, and then wrap up with a bottom-line assessment of how we see the threat, the mine threat to the IFOR forces in Bosnia.

First, the doctrine, sir, of course, in the former Yugoslavia, the doctrine for mine utilization in Bosnia primarily comes from the Communist regime, the Warsaw Pact. That is usually a doctrine that employs mines as a defensive weapon and lays them in large blocks as a denial weapon, to restrict movement. That is the way we see mines being used in Bosnia, and we see them primarily placed for defensive purposes to keep people out of areas.

The order of battle that we assess in broad scope and round numbers details, of course, are difficult when you begin to talk on this scale-but we assess that in Bosnia there are 2 million mines. Prior to the war, there were several factories that were capable of building indigenous mines in the theater and they were able to stockpile them.

The mines that we see and concern ourselves the most with are antitank and antipersonnel mines, and Mr. Reeder from the National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville will be talking more specifically about those after I finish.

May I have the next slide, please?

I hope you can see that. We certainly have copies of it, sir. This is what we call a scattergram. It is a depiction of where the minefields are in broad scope. It is not a tactical plot. It is a strategic plot to show you the general areas where the minefields are generally laid in Bosnia, where the more or less 2 million are.

If you look at it in macro, what you will see is that the minefields primarily fall along the lines of confrontation of the warring parties prior to the Dayton agreement. Again, getting back to that doctrinal point that I was making, the mines were placed to keep people out of areas or to force people to move through certain checkpoint corridor kind of things.

The next map is actually a zoom-in or focus on the mines in the Tuzla area, and you can see to the west of Tuzla is a fairly extensive minefield. The reason for that minefield, just as an anecdote, was that it was mined by the Muslims to prevent the Serbs from widening the Posavina Corridor, in other words, connecting the

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