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An Interview With Colonel Lawrence Machabee, Usmc: A Retrospective View Of Humanitarian Demining At The Department Of State, Peter J. Hager

The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction

Despite the growing attention that humanitarian demining receives now worldwide, in 1994, when Col. Lawrence Machabee began his three-year stint as a Department of Defense (DoD)/Department of State Exchange Officer within the Department of State, humanitarian demining was "on no one's radar screen, at least politically" in the U.S. In FY 93, the U.S. government started demining programs in six countries and had allocated a total of $9 million to its demining efforts around the world. All this changed in January 1994 with the Department of State publication Hidden Killers. Col. Machabee was a central figure in the development of …