San Francisco Chronicle - Weapon of War -- Killer of Innocents Like Landmines, U.S. Wants its Cluster Bombs

Weapon of War -- Killer of Innocents
Like Landmines, U.S. Wants its Cluster Bombs


Frida Berrigan, San Francisco Chronicle


Sunday, January 7, 2007






In one week in October, Germany suffered a series of bomb scares.
Outside Hannover, 22,000 people fled their homes when three bombs were
discovered. A few days later, a weapons-removal squad defused a
500-pound bomb near the city's highway. Finally, a highway worker near
Frankfurt was killed when his cutting machine hit a buried bomb.


Terrorists hadn't planted the bombs. They weren't the opening salvo in
the next war. The culprit was unexploded ordnance left over from World
War II.


The submunitions dispersed by cluster bombs are a lot smaller than 500
pounds, but their use in every major conflict in the last 60 years
ensures that bomb clearers the world over will have work for decades --
even centuries -- to come. From Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, to the
countries of the former Yugoslavia, and onto Afghanistan, Iraq and
Lebanon, modern battlefields are littered with bombs that continue to
kill long after wars have ended.


Cluster bombs are not singled out for prohibition under international
law, despite the fact that they cannot distinguish between civilian and
combatant and their effects stretch beyond the duration of hostilities,
two crucial litmus tests for munitions use under the Geneva Conventions.
Ninety-eight percent of those killed or injured by cluster bombs are
civilians.


In September, the Senate voted on an amendment by Sens. Dianne
Feinstein, D-Calif., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. The measure was attached
to the defense appropriations bill and bore the title "Protect civilian
lives from unexploded cluster munitions." Seventy senators voted it
down.


A cluster munition consists of a large canister -- as long as 13 feet
and weighing up to 2,000 pounds -- packed with bomblets. Dropped from
the air by fighter planes, bombers or helicopters, or launched from
artillery, the canister is designed to break open in midair, spreading
bomblets over a football field-size area. The bomblets -- a single
canister can hold hundreds -- range in size from an AA battery to a soda
can and are packed with shrapnel and an explosive charge.


Militaries value cluster bombs because a single volley can impede
advancing troops and render airfields and surface-to-air missile sites
unusable. But the weapons seldom work as designed. Mine-removal teams,
post-conflict workers, military officials and even the manufacturers
themselves admit that wind, weather and soil conditions, as well as
mechanical malfunction or human error, can drive the "dud rate" for
these weapons as high as 40 percent.


Last fall, with global attention still focused on Israel's use of
cluster bombs in Lebanon, the call for a cluster bomb ban grew louder.
Belgium instituted a ban, Germany announced a suspension, and Australia
and Norway declared a moratorium. Sweden, Mexico, the Vatican and the
International Committee of the Red Cross took up the call. Meetings will
begin in Norway early this year to take the next steps toward
negotiating a cluster bomb ban.


The land mine ban is their model. The March 1999 treaty prohibits the
manufacture, trade and use of anti-personnel mines and obliges signing
countries to destroy stockpiles within four years and clear their
territory within 10 years. The United States is not among the 151 states
that have ratified the land mine ban, and the Bush administration's
February 2004 land mine policy reserves the right to use what it called
self-destructing mines through 2010. Israel, Burma, North Korea and 36
other countries also remain outside the international consensus banning
land mines.


While the United States has not ratified the land mine treaty, the
Pentagon is concerned about cluster weapons. In an October 2004 report
to Congress, the Department of Defense described cluster munitions as
vital and versatile, but military officials admit they are "keenly aware
of and interested in reducing our cluster munitions dud rates and
improving the accuracy of the delivery methods." Consequently, the
Pentagon recently adopted the Cohen policy, named after former Defense
Secretary William Cohen, which requires the military to purchase only
cluster weapons that have a 1 percent or smaller dud rate.


The Army, Marines and other military services are requesting hundreds
of millions of dollars for new cluster weapons and the retrofitting of
existing systems to conform to the Cohen policy. Weapons manufacturers
have adapted to the new policy, and their promotional material
emphasizes the "limited footprint" and "targetable" nature of their
weapons. In vivid military jargon, weapons manufacturer Textron
describes the Clean Lightweight Area Weapon as "the next generation
smart soft target munition." (For those not familiar with the lingo, a
soft target is a person.) The Rhode Island company boasts that a "single
64-pound munition has the footprint and effectiveness of a 1,000-pound
legacy cluster bomb."


The Cohen policy and the weapons it has spawned ensures that despite
whatever progress is made in Norway and at other international forums to
ban cluster bombs, the eight U.S. companies that produce cluster
weapons, including Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, will continue
to manufacture the systems and the military will keep using them.


The United States may well be the largest producer, but it is not
alone. Human Rights Watch asserts that 33 other countries produce more
than 210 types of cluster munitions.


As an indiscriminate weapon, a cluster bomb hides responsibility and
removes culpability. The big bomb releases the little bombs, killing a
soldier tomorrow, a farmer next month, or a child a year from now, and
creating a permanent state of terror where human activity is dangerous.




Recent experience in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere demonstrates the grave
and lasting consequences of cluster bombs. Weapons that indiscriminately
kill long after hostilities have abated are an anathema to international
law -- and human decency. It is time to ban them all. Feinstein and
Leahy will resubmit a version of their amendment in the 109th Congress.
This important first step demands resounding support. Otherwise, future
generations of bomb removers will have their work cut out for them, and
innocent civilians will continue to die.




Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate at the World Policy
Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center. A longer version of this piece
appeared in In These Times.


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=====================
Frida Berrigan
Senior Research Associate
World Policy Institute
66 Fifth Ave., 9th Floor
New York, NY 10011
ph 212.229.5808 x4254
fax 212.229.5579


The Arms Trade Resource Center was
established in 1993 to engage in public
education and policy advocacy aimed at
promoting restraint in the international
arms trade.


www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms


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