Budget Bill to Slow U.S. Cluster Bomb Sale

[December 19, 2007]  WASHINGTON (AP) -- Lawmakers have agreed to restrict the export of cluster bombs to keep the bomblet-spewing munitions from the indiscriminate killing of civilians for which they are infamous.

The legislation bans export only of weapons that leave large numbers of unexploded charges after an attack. Such bombs, still widely in use, kill and maim for years, their victims mainly civilians.

The United States has millions of them in its armories, even though for more than a decade it has bought for its own use only more advanced versions that explode higher percentages of the bomblets in initial attacks, thus leaving fewer for indiscriminate killing later.

The new legislation, included in a budget bill being sent to President Bush for his signature, would ban transfer only of cluster bombs that leave more than 1 percent of their munitions intact. Export of those would be outlawed, either as military aid or as sales.

The amendment specifies that any cluster bombs exported must explode no fewer than 99 percent of their bomblets and must be used "against clearly defined military targets and will not be used where civilians are known to be present."

The U.S. arsenal contains 5.5 million cluster bombs, or 728 million bomblets. Many have a failure rate higher than the required 1 percent, and some are below 50 percent.

In the past, the Bush administration has said restrictions were unnecessary because it already imposes safeguards on cluster bomb exports.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, a Democratic sponsor of the legislation, said the restrictions are only common sense.

"These are sensible steps that will make a difference in protecting innocent people from the indiscriminate carnage caused by cluster munitions," Leahy said. "These are reasonable limits that the Pentagon should embrace. My hope it that this will serve as an example for other governments that share our concern."

The recent history of cluster bombs is grisly:

• The Gulf region has 1.2 million bomblets left unexploded from the 1991 Gulf War and the current war in Iraq. The leftover weapons have killed an estimated 1,220 Kuwaitis and 400 Iraqi civilians.

• U.S. forces in Iraq used 13,000 cluster bombs with almost 2 million bomblets in 2003, during the initial invasion. During the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 against al-Qaida camps and the Taliban government that sheltered them, the United States used 1,228 cluster bombs with 248,056 bomblets; they have killed 127 civilians, 70 percent under the age of 18.

• In Laos, U.S. bombing campaigns during the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s left 9 million to 20 million bomblets, which have killed 11,000 people, three out of 10 of them children.

• Israel dropped an estimated 4 million bomblets in southern Lebanon in its war against the Hezbollah guerrillas last year, and an estimated 1 million did not explode. There were reports that Hezbollah retaliated with cluster bombs of their own.

A movement, begun by Norway, is under way to ban trade in cluster bombs by treaty. Its aim is to emulate the example of the international treaty banning land mines, another indiscriminate killer. China, Russia and the United States are notable as countries that have bought into the treaty.

The cluster bomb movement was launched in Oslo, Norway, in February to reach a path for an international treaty banning cluster bombs by 2008. Some 130 countries are interested. Among those not are the United States, China, Russia and Israel.

[Associated Press; By WILLIAM C. MANN]

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