Creation of Iraqi National Humanitarian Mine Action Program

On July 31, 2003, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, presided over the graduation of 45 Iraqi humanitarian deminers in Baghdad trained in middle management under an initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs' humanitarian mine action program. This marks a critical step in helping Iraq to develop and manage its own indigenous, civilian-run National Mine Action Authority and National Mine Action Center.

The U. S. goal is to enable the Iraqi program to meet international mine action standards, operate in a transparent fashion, and become self-sustaining. Conflicts in Iraq dating back to World War II left it infested with an estimated 10 to 15 million persistent landmines and significant amounts of unexploded ordnance. Iraq's population is also threatened by large stocks of abandoned ordnance and unstable, poorly secured munitions stockpiles.

Officials from the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs' Office of Humanitarian Demining Programs have been in Iraq since April 2003. Their mission has been to assess the threat to Iraqis from persistent landmines and other explosive hazards, quickly launch landmine survey and demining operations, and create from scratch a national Iraqi humanitarian mine action program, in close coordination with the Coalition Joint Task Force Commander, U.S. Central Command and in cooperation with the United Nations. The Bureau's Quick Reaction Demining Force, based in Mozambique, has been actively demining in the Al Hilla and Baghdad regions since May, assisted by experts from RONCO Consulting Corporation under contract to the Bureau.

A fact sheet entitled "The U.S. Humanitarian Demining Program in Iraq," available at www.state.gov/t/pm/rls/fs/22184.htm, provides an overview of Iraq's persistent landmine threat and how the United States is helping to mitigate it and empower Iraqis to eventually rid themselves of their legacy of landmines and other explosive remnants war.