Senators Leahy And Feinstein Introduce
Bill
To Reduce Cluster Munitions’
Danger To Innocent Civilians
(THURSDAY, Feb. 12) -- U.S.
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) this week
introduced legislation to restrict the use or deployment of dangerous
cluster munitions.
Leahy, who has worked for
years to protect civilians from cluster munitions, said: “Anyone
who has seen the devastation cluster munitions cause over wide areas
understands the unacceptable harm they cause to civilians. Any weapon,
whether cluster munitions, landmines, or even poison gas, has some
military utility, but this is an important step to protect the innocent
from these indiscriminate weapons. I urge the Pentagon to work
with us by supporting this bill, and I urge the Obama Administration to
review its policy with a view toward putting the United States on a path
to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions as soon as possible.”
The Feinstein-Leahy measure
would prevent any U.S. military funds from being spent to use or deploy
cluster munitions:
· that have a failure rate of more
than one percent,
· unless the rules of engagement
specify:
The bill also requires the
President to submit a report to the appropriate congressional committees
on the plan to clean up unexploded cluster bombs.
Finally, the bill includes a
national security waiver that allows the President to waive the
prohibition on the use of cluster bombs with a failure rate of more than
one percent, if he determines it is vital to protect the security of the
United States to do so.
The Senate measure is also
sponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio),
Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), Robert Casey (D-Pa.), Richard Durbin (D-Ill.),
Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Barbara Mikulski
(D-Md.), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernard
Sanders (I-Vt.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and Sheldon Whitehouse
(D-R.I.).
Companion
legislation was introduced in the House by Rep. James McGovern
(D-Mass.).
In 2007,
Congress passed and President Bush signed into law a provision in the FY
2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act sponsored by Leahy and Feinstein
that prohibited the sale and transfer of cluster bombs with a failure
rate of more than one percent.
More
recently, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved the FY 2009
State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bill
renewing the ban on the sale or transfer for another year. Leahy
chairs the Appropriations Subcommittee on State Department and Foreign
Operations, which wrote the bill.
Background
Cluster
bombs are designed to come apart in the air before making contact,
dispersing between 200 and 400 small bomblets that can saturate a wide
radius of 250 yards. They are intended for military use when
attacking large-scale enemy troop formations, but in practice, they
increasingly have been used in or near populated areas.
Handicap
International studied the effects of cluster bombs in 24 countries and
regions, including Afghanistan, Chechnya, Laos, and Lebanon. Its
report found that civilians make up 98 percent of those killed or
injured by cluster bombs; 27 percent of the casualties are children.
The
civilian toll includes casualties from such episodes as these:
-
Combining the first and second Gulf Wars, the total number of
unexploded bomblets in the region is approximately 1.2 million. An
estimated 1220 Kuwaitis and 400 Iraqi civilians have been killed
since 1991.
-
In Iraq in 2003, 13,000 cluster bombs with nearly 2 million bomblets
were used.
-
In Afghanistan in 2001, 1228 cluster bombs with 248,056 bomblets
were used. Between October 2001 and November 2002, 127 civilians
were killed, 70 percent of them younger than 18 years old.
-
Between nine and 27 million unexploded cluster bombs remain in Laos
from U.S. bombing campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s. Approximately
11,000 people, 30 percent of them children, have been killed or
injured since the war ended.
-
Most recently, it is estimated that Israel dropped 4 million
bomblets in southern Lebanon, and 1 million of these bomblets failed
to explode. And reports indicate that Hezbollah retaliated with
cluster bomb strikes of their own.
In December
2008, 94 nations formally signed the Oslo Convention on Cluster
Munitions, which would prohibit the production, use, and export of
cluster bombs and requires signatories to eliminate their arsenals
within eight years. The Bush Administration refused to sign the treaty.
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