"Ninety-Four Nations Sign Cluster Bomb Ban:  United States Did Not"

By Doug Tuttle

On Dec. 3, 2008, nearly one hundred countries gathered in Olso, Norway to sign a ban on the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster munitions. The United States was not among them.

The Oslo meeting marks the culmination of a 20-month campaign to ban cluster munitions, single-canister munitions that carry dozens, sometimes hundreds, of smaller submunitions. When launched from a rocket system or dropped from an aircraft the larger munition breaks open, scattering “bomblets” over an area as wide as two football fields. The weapon was designed to be effective against dynamic or fixed targets, such as armor in defensive positions or groups of military vehicles. However, in recent years, cluster munitions have come under international scrutiny from governments and nongovernmental organizations because of the threat they pose to civilians. Their use in the 2007 war between Israel and Lebanon revived attention to these deadly weapons.

Critics of cluster munitions point to their incredibly high “dud” rates – some as high as 40 percent. These unexploded bomblets sometimes lay dormant long after the cessation of conflict until they are disturbed by returning populations, farmers or children. Unexploded cluster bombs cause injury and death, limit access to agricultural land and transportation routes, and paralyze entire communities long after a conflict has ended.

Throughout the 20-month long negotiations to develop the treaty, the United States remained vocal in its opposition to a legally binding treaty on cluster bombs. The Bush administration and the State Department argued a treaty on cluster munitions could be potentially damaging to efforts to address cluster bombs through other international mechanisms, namely Protocol V of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Despite the participation of nearly all NATO member states, they also argued that provisions in the treaty prohibiting cooperation with states employing cluster bombs would limit military cooperation and international military partnerships. In 2007, the State Department laid out the military argument against participating in the treaty, saying that in certain instances the use of cluster munitions would cause less collateral damage than unitary bombs, a stance repeated by State Department officials in Oslo this week.

The United States last used cluster bombs in its 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to a report by U.S. Central Command, the United States military dropped nearly 11,000 cluster bombs during initial operations in Iraq. The Department of Defense estimates that the U.S. military has stockpiled nearly 750 million cluster submunitions.

Despite the reluctance of the current administration to engage in an international treaty banning the weapons, Congress has attempted to change U.S. policy on cluster munitions. For example, Sec. 695 of the 2008 Foreign Appropriations Bill includes a provision limiting the transfer of cluster munitions systems that have a 99 percent or better success rate, and further mandates that any country importing U.S. cluster munitions can only use them against clearly defined military targets absent of civilians. Despite objections to the restrictions in the appropriations bill, President George W. Bush signed it into law on Dec. 26, 2007, effectively ending the sale of cluster munitions for one year. Department of Defense directives have also set reliability standards on new production of cluster munitions. (For more information on the U.S. cluster bomb position, click here. For a complete list and summaries of U.S. statements on cluster bombs, click here.)

U.S. policy on cluster munitions may change with the new Obama administration. While a senator in 2006, Obama voted for legislation to restrict the use and sale of cluster munitions. Although the transition team has not committed to signing the treaty, press reports quote an Obama spokeswoman as saying that President-elect Obama would “carefully review the new treaty and work closely [with] our friends and allies to ensure that the United States is doing everything feasible to promote protection of civilians.”

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