Letter to President George W. Bush from Paul and Heather McCartney

HE PRESIDENT HAS SEEN mpL 4.21.03 1 Soho Square London WID 3BQ 4 April 2003 The President The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, D.C. Dear Mr President, The main reason we are writing to you is to understand your views on landmine usage, and more specifically, on their use in Iraq. As you may know we have been heavily behind banning the use of landmines, as they are barbaric and out of date with today's technology. We are sure you are aware of the many former military personnel, including generals and admirals, who agree with this given the fact that landmines kill more innocent civilians than they do the enemy, and are a liability to our own troops. According to a recent GAO report on the use of landmines in the Gulf War of 1991, the services reported no evidence of enemy casualties, either killed or injured, no enemy equipment losses, either destroyed or damaged, or enemy manoeuvre limitations resulting directly or indirectly from the deployment of landmines during the war. Yet 81 U.S. casualties were attributed to landmines and according to UNICEF 80 deminers were killed in post Gulf War Iraq. This is not to mention the countless Iraqi civilian casualties. We can understand your resistance to being pushed to sign something that you may feel restricts you, but your announcing to the world that the U.S. will not use anti-personnel mines, but deploy other weapons, would minimise the risk of mine usage in Chechnya, Pakistan and India, who may be emboldened to continue mine laying activities which can only lead to disastrous consequences for civilians. Countries that recently gave up mine use, such as Angola and Afghanistan, which have much weaker armed forces than those of the U.S., may resume mine laying efforts. This would be a tragedy after all we have managed to achieve to date, as well as a huge waste of U.S. funds that have already gone into demining. We thought we would write to you directly as the media are renowned for their misrepresentations. Perhaps we can assist in supporting you should you wish to announce that you have no intention of using these atrocious weapons. Please let us know - otherwise a written response to understand your viewpoint on this subject, at such a delicate time, would suffice. Yours faithfully, Preservation Copy- - Miscellaneous Handwriting Paul and Healther Paul & Heather McCartney