[Dialogue] US Rejects Ban on Cluster Bombs

[Harry Wainwright]

Published on Saturday, February 24, 2007 by Agence <http://www.afp.com>
France Presse 

US Rejects Ban on Cluster Bombs 

 

 

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," McCormack 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.

C Copyright 2007 AFP

 

###

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20070227/14bb0ebf/attachment.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 6731 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20070227/14bb0ebf/attachment.gif