WASHINGTON (AP) – The Bush administration intends to end the U.S. military’s use of land mines that are not timed to self-destruct but will not sign a 150-nation anti-land mine treaty, a senior administration official said Thursday.

The new policy also will double, to $70 million, what the United States spends annually to locate and remove mines considered hazards to people and serving no deterrent purpose, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Lincoln Bloomfield, an assistant secretary of state who is President Bush’s special adviser on land mines, was expected to announce the new policy at the State Department on Friday.

From now on, all new U.S. land mines will be detectable to U.S. authorities and geared to become inert. But those considered to be part of deterring attacks, such as in Korea, will remain in use. Those mines will be timed to self-destruct, but they can be reset to remain operable.

In Afghanistan and Cambodia, among other countries, the buried land mines serve no military purpose and are a menace to farmers, children and other people who accidentally trip over them. The mines maim or kill.

Stephen Goose, executive director of the arms control division of Human Rights Watch, praised the plan to increase spending for mine clearance projects. But he said the United States is isolated by its insistence on using land mines in its defense programs.

“We have a great deal of momentum everywhere else around the world. The U.S. is the only country in NATO that hasn’t banned this weapon. We have a situation where the U.S. is undermining the international norm against this weapon,” said Goose, who said he was informed by the State Department on Thursday about the new policy.

Goose said that the U.S. goal, for a decade, has been to move toward the point where it could eliminate all anti-personnel mines.

“This is a goal that has been embraced by the entire world. But it’s a goal that the United States has now given up on. They now say they want to use some types of anti-personnel mines, the so-called smart mines that self-destruct, anywhere in the world in perpetuity,” he said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., a leading opponent of land mines, said although there are some positive aspects of the policy, “on the whole it is a deeply disappointing step backward.”

“This is another squandered opportunity for U.S. leadership on a crucial arms control and humanitarian issue,” he said. “Worst of all, in a sharp departure from past policy, it says the United States will continue using land mines indefinitely.”

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts in getting the treaty approved in Ottawa, Canada, said 150 countries have signed on. They included Afghanistan, Canada, Germany, Italy and Britain. Among the 44 nations that had not done so, as of October, were the United States, China, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, Pakistan and Russia, according to the group.

The 1997 pact went into force on March 1, 1999, and bans the stockpile of mines and requires each nation to destroy its stock within four years.

Jody Williams, who shared the 1997 Nobel prize with the group she helped create, said in a telephone interview with AP Radio that the latest move “is yet another indication of the Bush administration’s total disdain for international law. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I’m not.”

In early 2001, a Pentagon-commissioned study said advances in technology could lead to alternatives to anti-personnel land mines that would pose fewer risks to civilians. But it said that not all of these emerging technologies were likely to be ready by 2006 – a target set by the Clinton administration for deciding whether the United States should approve the international treaty.

Former President Clinton said land mines were a necessary deterrent that protected South Korea from the North; thousands of mines lie in the demilitarized zone between the two countries. He indicated the United States would be willing to sign the treaty by 2006 if armed forces could find alternatives to the mines.

In May 1998, when Clinton for the first time indicated a willingness to commit the United States to joining the treaty, he linked the move to development of alternate weapons. He also agreed for the first time to order the Pentagon to seek alternatives to the practice of combining anti-personnel mines and anti-tank mines. The technique is used to deter enemy troops from trying to defuse the anti-tank weapons.

The shift was spelled out in a letter from then-National Security adviser Sandy Berger to Leahy.

The letter committed the United States to destroying by 1999 all non-self destructing anti-personnel land mines, except for those needed for Korea; ending the use of all such land mines outside Korea by 2003, including those that self-destruct; aggressive pursuit of the objective of having anti-personnel land mines alternatives ready for Korea by 2006, including those that self-destruct.