US Rejects Ban on Cluster Bombs

by Agence France Presse

February 24, 2007

The United States on Friday rejected an international call to abandon the use of cluster bombs, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "We ... take the position that these munitions do have a place and a use in military inventories, given the right technology as well as the proper rules of engagement," he said.

Forty-six countries meeting in Oslo on Friday pledged to seek a treaty banning cluster bombs by next year, with major user and stockpiler Britain and manufacturer France signing on, Norway said.

"We, ourselves, have already taken a couple of other steps with regard to technical upgrades to cluster munitions, as well as looking very closely at the rules of engagement, how they are used," said McCormack. "So it is something that over the course of the years we have looked at very closely. We have taken very seriously the international discussion with respect to the threat posed by unexploded ordnance to innocent civilians," he said. Japan, Poland and Romania refused to sign the accord, while key nations such as Israel and the United States did not take part in the conference.

The 46 countries agreed to "commit themselves to ... conclude by 2008 a legally binding international instrument that will prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians," according to the declaration. A number of leading countries, including Britain and France, had previously said they wanted a ban to be part of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, a process which Norway and a number of other nations consider to be a failure.

A cluster bomb is a container holding hundreds of smaller bomblets. It opens in mid-air and disperses the bomblets over a large area. The smaller bombs do not always explode on impact, which means they can continue to kill innocent civilians years later. A recent report by Handicap International claimed that 98 percent of casualties from cluster munitions are non-combatants.

[It would appear from this and other studies that the vast majority of casualties caused by ‘cluster munitions’ are civilians and especially children. If the proposed world-wide ban is unacceptable to some users then at least it should be possible to restrict their use to combat zones where it is unlikely that civilians will re-enter once the conflict is over. Use of these weapons should at the very least be outlawed within built-up areas or areas where it is likely that civilian casualties will occur once the fighting has stopped. War in general is an awful business even if it is sometimes a necessary evil. Surely it is not beyond us to make such a distasteful activity as civilized as it possibly can be?]