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HANOI, Vietnam, June 5, 2006 – Recovering remains of missing American servicemembers and de-mining operations were among the host of issues Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his Vietnamese counterpart discussed here today. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vietnamese Minister of Defense Gen. Pham Van Tra participate in a ceremony officially welcoming Rumsfeld to Hanoi, Vietnam, June 5. Photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, USN   In his first visit here as defense secretary, Rumsfeld and Vietnamese Minister of National Defense Pham Van Tra met at the Ministry of Defense headquarters for discussions on policy issues....

KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 29, 2005 — The Afghan National Army recently put their training to use as they successfully conducted the first ANA-led demining operation in Afghanistan. The mission highlighted not only the expanding military capabilities of the ANA, but the government's commitment to achieve a mine-free Afghanistan for future generations. With the approval of the Afghan Ministry of Defense, the ANA leadership took charge and organized two days of real-world demining operations at the Area Military Depot of Pol-e-Charkhi. HALO Trust, a British-based non-governmental organization dedicated to humanitarian mine clearing, identified the area as containing mines. "Getting the soldiers...

US to Alter Land Mine Policy By Joshua Kucera, JDW Staff Reporter, Washington, DC The US announced on 27 February that it would continue to use some land mines indefinitely and would not sign an international treaty outlawing the weapons, reversing the position of the previous administration. The Bush administration said it would allow the military to continue to use 'smart' land mines, which can be deactivated when a conflict is over. It also said it would continue to use the more traditional persistent land mines until 2010 on the Korean peninsula, rather than 2006 as was the policy of...

AP Enterprise: A Private Army Grows Around the U.S. Mission in Iraq and Around the World By Jim Krane Associated Press Writer Published: Oct 30, 2003 In Iraq, private contractors do just about everything a soldier would do. They sling Spam in mess tents. They tote guns along base perimeters. They shoot. They get shot. Sometimes they get killed. And it's not just in Iraq, but around the world - in conflict zones from Liberia to Kosovo to Afghanistan - that the United States is putting hired help behind the front lines to ease the burden of its overworked...

ALKHANLI, Azerbaijan -- Sheila has been in the de-mining business for nine years. She's worked in Cuba, Kosovo and Namibia and now she's come to Azerbaijan to spend her twilight years probing for mines near the cease-fire line with Armenia before she retires. She works much faster than the local men who have been trained to search for land mines by ANAMA, Azerbaijan's National Agency for Mine Action. Where a man can clear 11 to 15 square meters of mine field a day, Sheila can clear up to 1,000. But then Sheila is a dog. One of the cruelest legacies...

PARIS (AFP) - The US military's use of trained dolphins to help demine southern Iraqi waters ran into crossfire on Tuesday from animal-rights groups and biologists, who branded the scheme both unethical and unreliable. "We are strongly opposed to keeping these mammals in captivity, and we're not happy with this exploitation," Cathy Williamson of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, a British-based agency, told AFP. "The animals could get hurt, and that's not justified," Williamson said. Stephanie Boyles, a wildlife biologist at the US campaign group PETA (People for the Ethical Treaty of Animals), slammed the US military for...