Statements made in the US Senate, February 14, 2007 introducing S. 594: A bill to limit the use, sale, and transfer of cluster munitions

Last Action: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Status: Introduced (as of March 21, 2007) [This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Introduced bills go first to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise bills before they go to general debate. The majority of bills never make it out of committee.]

Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]: [Introducing S. 594] Mr. President, I rise with Senator Leahy, Senator Sanders, and Senator Mikulski to introduce legislation to address the continuing threat posed by cluster bombs to innocent civilians around the world.

Our legislation places common sense restrictions on the use of cluster bombs. It prevents any funds from being spent to use, sell or transfer cluster munitions: that have a failure rate of more than one percent; unless the rules of engagement or the agreement applicable to the sale or transfer of such cluster munitions specify that: the cluster munitions will only be used against clearly defined military targets and; will not be used where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.

The bill also requires the President to submit a report to the appropriate Congressional committees on the plan, including estimated costs, by either the United States Government or the government to which U.S. cluster bombs are sold or transferred 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, sale, or transfer 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.

The human death toll and injury from these weapons are felt everyday. Innocent children think they are picking up a play toy in the field and suddenly their arm is blown off.

Last November, the International Committee for the Red Cross called for a ban on the use of cluster bombs in highly populated areas. They joined other leading organizations who have also decried the indiscriminate use of these weapons: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Handicap International, and Landmine Action.

Several countries, including Belgium, Germany, and Norway have either instituted a ban or a moratorium on the use and procurement of cluster bombs. More than 30 countries are actively calling for increased international controls on the weapon.

And next week, Norway will host an international conference to explore the possibility of a international treaty to ban certain types of cluster munitions and provide support for the victims of the weapons.

We need to adjust our policies for their use and can do so easily.

Every year, hundreds of civilians are killed and many more are injured due to unexploded cluster bombs.

From the fields of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, through the streets of Kosovo and Iraq, to the arid hills of Afghanistan and the playgrounds of Lebanon, these lethal relics of war continue to cripple life, hope, and peace.

Cluster munitions are large bombs, rockets, or artillery shells that contain up to hundreds of small submunitions, or individual "bomblets."

They are intended for attacking enemy troop formations and armor covering over a half mile radius.

Yet, in practice, they pose a real threat to the safety of civilians when used in populated areas because they leave hundreds of unexploded bombs over a very large area and they are often inaccurate.

The non-profit group 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.

As the report shows, cluster bombs end up in streets and cities where men and women go to work and do their shopping.

They end up in groves of trees and fields where children play.

They end up in homes where families live.

In some cases, up to 40 percent of cluster bombs fail to explode, posing a particular danger to civilians long after the conflict has ended.

This is particularly and sadly true of children because bomblets are no bigger than a D battery and in some cases resemble a tennis ball.

Children, outside with their friends and relatives, come across these cluster bombs, pick them up because they look a ball, and start playing with them.

A terrible result often follows as these stories demonstrate.

On March 25, 2003 Abdallah Yaqoob was sleeping in his bed in his family's home in Basra, Iraq when he was hit by shrapnel from a cluster munition strike that hit his neighborhood.

He lost his arm, and his abdomen was severely injured. Abdallah was hit by British L20A1/M85 munition.

Falah Hassan, 13, was injured by an unexploded ground-launched submunition in Iraq on March 26, 2003.

The explosion severed his right hand and spread shrapnel through his body. He lost his left index finger and soft tissue in his lower limbs. Source: Bonnie Docherty/Human Rights Watch.

Hassan Hammade, a 13 year old Lebanese boy, lost four fingers and sustained injuries to his stomach and shoulder after he picked up an unexploded cluster bomb in front of an orange tree.

He said, "I started playing with it and it blew up. I didn't know it was a cluster bomb--it just looked like a burned out piece of metal." Source: Christian Science Monitor.

All the children are too scared to go out now, we just play on the main roads or in our homes.

These unexploded cluster bombs become, in essence, de facto landmines.

Instead of targeting troop formations and enemy armor, unexploded bomblets target innocent civilians, seriously maiming or killing their victims.

This runs counter to our values and counter to the laws of war.

Make no mistake, the impact of unexploded cluster bombs on civilian populations has been devastating.

In Laos alone there are between 9 and 27 million unexploded cluster bombs, leftovers 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. Source: International Committee for the Red Cross.

In the first Gulf War, 61,000 cluster bombs were used containing 20 million bomblets. Since 1991, unexploded bomblets have killed 1,600 innocent men, women, and children and injured more than 2,500.

In Afghanistan in 2001, 1,228 cluster bombs with 248,056 bomblets were used. Between October 2001 and November 2002, 127 civilians were killed by them, 70 percent of them under the age of 18.

In Iraq in 2003, 13,000 cluster bombs with nearly 2 million bomblets were used. Combining the first and second Gulf Wars, the total number of unexploded bomblets in the region is approximately 1.2 million.

An estimated 1,220 Kuwaitis and 400 Iraqi civilians have been killed since 1991. Source: Human Rights Watch.

What gives rise, in part, to my bill are recent developments in Lebanon over alleged use of cluster bombs by Israel.

It is estimated that Israel dropped 4 million bomblets in southern Lebanon and 1 million of these bomblets failed to explode.

As Lebanese children and families have returned to their homes and begin to rebuild, they have been exposed to the danger of these unexploded bomblets lying in the rubble.

22 people, including six children have been killed and 133, including 47 children, injured.

One United Nations official estimates that 40 percent of the cluster bombs launched by Israel in Southern Lebanon failed to explode.

So far, more than 58,000 unexploded bomblets in Lebanon have been destroyed but it will take 12 to 15 months to complete the effort. Source: United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon.

Looking at these figures it is clear that several countries are awash with unexploded bomblets.

The number is indeed staggering and the consequences are real.

Each death that results from an unexploded American bomblet weakens American diplomacy and American values.

How are we supposed to win the hearts and minds of civilians in these countries when we leave behind such deadly weapons that indiscriminately kill boys and girls?

How are we supposed to speed up reconstruction efforts--building homes, schools, hospitals, clinics, and ensuring electricity and water supplies--when populated areas are littered with these bombs?

Simply put, unexploded cluster bombs fuel anger and resentment and make security, stabilization, and reconstruction efforts that much harder.

And it is not just a humanitarian problem, it is a military problem.

By showering targets with cluster bombs, we ensure that our troops will face thousands of unexploded bomblets as they move forward.

This will force them to change course and slow the mission.

During the Iraq war, U.S. troops would fire six rockets containing 4,000 bomblets to eliminate one artillery piece in a civilian neighborhood. With a 16 percent dud rate, approximately 640 duds were left behind. Source: Human Rights Watch.

As an August 2003 Wall Street Journal article noted: "Unexploded bomblets render significant swaths of battlefield off-limits to advancing U.S. troops."

In fact, during the first Gulf War, unexploded cluster munitions killed 22 U.S. troops--6 percent of total U.S. fatalities--and injured 58.

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen recognized the threat cluster bombs posed to civilians and U.S. troops alike and issued a memorandum which became known as the Cohen Policy.

It stated that beginning in fiscal year 2005, all new cluster bomb would have a failure rate of less than one percent.

This was an important step forward but we must remember that we still have 5.5 million cluster bombs in our arsenals containing 728.5 million bomblets. That is, we are still prepared to use an enormous amount of cluster bombs that have significant failure rates. That is unacceptable.

Let me be clear. While this legislation prohibits the sale, use, or transfer of cluster bombs with a failure rate of more than one percent, it does include a national security waiver to allow the President to waive the restriction.

Instead of exercising the waiver, I would hope that administration would work with Congress to extend the Cohen Policy to the entire U.S. cluster bomb arsenal.

During the 1990s, a comprehensive pact was forged to protect civilians from land mines worldwide. The United States and the international community have since spent millions to remove mines in post-conflict regions.

There is no question there should be a similar program for cluster bombs.

Simply put, this legislation will save lives--civilians and soldiers alike--and will help save the reputation of the United States.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows: [...]

Sen. Patrick Leahy [D-VT]: Mr. President, I am very pleased to cosponsor this legislation on cluster munitions with my friend from California, Senator FEINSTEIN. I commend her for the determination she has shown to prevent future harm to innocent people from these weapons.

The problem of cluster munitions, which overwhelmingly maim and kill civilians, has been known for many years. Perhaps the most egregious example is Laos, where millions of these tiny explosives were dropped by United States military aircraft during the Vietnam war. Over three decades later they continue to cause horrific casualties among local villagers and unsuspecting children.

I have urged the Pentagon to address this problem for nearly a decade.

While they have acknowledged the problem, they have not yet taken sufficient steps to solve it. We used large numbers of cluster munitions in the invasion of Iraq, including in densely inhabited, urban areas, and many civilians paid and continue to pay a terrible price.

Israel used these weapons extensively in Lebanon, including cluster munitions supplied by the United States, and again it has been civilians who have suffered disproportionately.

Cluster munitions, like any weapon, have military utility. They can be effective against armor or other military infrastructure. But they are, in effect, indiscriminate, because they are scattered by the thousands over wide areas.

Many of them--between 1 and 40 percent depending on the type and the condition of the terrain--fail to explode on contact and remain on the surface of the ground as hazardous duds indefinitely, no different from landmines.

The duds are exploded by whoever comes into contact with them. Often it is a child who thinks it is a toy. The consequences are disastrous--lifelong disfigurement and disability, or death.

No one suggests that it is possible to completely avoid civilian casualties in war. Innocent casualties are an inevitable, tragic consequence of all wars. But this legislation should not be necessary. Weapons that are so disproportionately hazardous to civilians should of course be subject to strict controls on their use.

The Feinstein-Leahy bill does not prohibit the use or export of cluster munitions. Rather, it would set a standard for reliability that is the same as what the Pentagon now requires for new procurements of these weapons.

The President may waive this requirement if he certifies that doing so is vital to protect the security of the United States, and he submits a report describing the steps that will be taken to protect civilians and the failure rate of the cluster munitions to be used or sold.

Our bill, which is not aimed at any particular country because this is a global problem, would also require that cluster munitions be used only against military targets and not where civilians are known to be present or in areas normally inhabited by civilians.

This is a moral issue and it is an issue of our own self-interest. Using or selling weapons that are so indiscriminate in their effect without strict controls on their use is immoral. It is immoral.

Anyone who has seen the horrific consequences of children with an arm or a leg blown off, or a part of their face, or their lifeless body cut to pieces by shrapnel, knows that.

It is also contrary to our own interest to be using or selling weapons which cause such appalling casualties of people who are not the enemy. It fuels anger and resentment we can ill afford among the very people whose support we need.

Again, I am pleased to join with the Senator from California. This is a thoughtful, much needed response to a serious humanitarian problem.

It is also timely because other governments, following the leadership of Norway, Austria and others, are meeting in Oslo later this month to begin discussions on an international treaty to curtail the use and export of cluster munitions that pose unacceptable risks to civilians.

The United States should play a visible, constructive role in those negotiations and it is our hope that this legislation will contribute to that process.

source:http://www.govtrack.us/congress/record.xpd?id=110-s20070214-40&person=300043#sMonoElementm24m0m0m