Military Operations: Information on U.S. Use of Land Mines in the Persian Gulf War
Released: 2002-10-31T00:00:00

Letter

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. 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.

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. 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. 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. (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 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.

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.

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. 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 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.

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.

The casualty categories depicted in figure 1 are defined in table 3.

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.)

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.

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.

Additional Casualties Could Have Been Caused by Land Mines

Of the 177 explosion casualties attributed by the services to some type of ordnance explosion, service records specify that 35 were caused by Iraqi land mines (see fig. 2). Casualty records for some of the 142 other explosion casualties are inexact or ambiguous. Thus, the other explosion categories—cluster munition UXO from CBU and dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, unidentified land mines, and other UXO—could include some U.S. casualties by U.S. or other land mines because casualty records did not always permit DOD to identify definitively the type of UXO causing the casualty.

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.

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 EOD 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.

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.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 land- mine 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. 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. 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.

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, service members still are prohibited from live-fire training 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.

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, 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. “For safety reasons, SCATMINEs 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 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.

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. 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 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 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. Table 6 lists the types and amounts of U.S. dud submunitions CMS reported finding in its disposal sector of the Kuwaiti battlefield.

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.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. 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 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.

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. 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.” “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 consisted of mainly wheeled vehicles, EOD 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 “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.

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.

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. 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.

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 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.

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.)

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. 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 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.

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 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.

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.

Appendix III: U.S. Gulf War Casualties by Service

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. 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. 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.

In April 2001, DOD reported to the Congress 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.

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.

In response to the June 1998 Presidential Decision Directive 64, DOD has also been pursuing alternatives to pure antipersonnel land mine systemsto end the use of all antipersonnel land mines outside of Korea by 2003 and in Korea by 2006. 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 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 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.

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.”

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, 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, 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 “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 memorandumdirecting 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.

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, Marine Corps History and Museums, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 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, U.S. Army Materiel Systems Analysis Activity, Aberdeen Proving Ground, U.S. Naval Historical Center, Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.; U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base, 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.

Appendix VI: Comments from the Department of Defense

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.