[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 38 (Monday, March 14, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1595-S1596]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               CLUSTER MUNITIONS CIVILIAN PROTECTION ACT

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, on March 10, my friend from California, 
Senator Feinstein, and I introduced S. 558, the Cluster Munitions 
Civilian Protection Act of 2011. It is identical to the bill she and I 
introduced last year and similar to those in prior years.
  Cluster munitions, like any weapon, have some military utility. But 
anyone who has seen the indiscriminate devastation cluster munitions 
cause over a wide area understands the unacceptable threat they pose to 
civilians. These are not the laser-guided weapons the Pentagon showed 
destroying their targets during the invasion of Baghdad.
  There is the horrific problem of cluster munitions that fail to 
explode as

[[Page S1596]]

designed and remain as active duds, like landmines, until they are 
triggered by whoever comes into contact with them. Often it is an 
unsuspecting child or a farmer. In Laos today, people are still being 
killed and maimed by millions of U.S. cluster munitions left from the 
Vietnam war. That legacy, resulting from years of secret bombing of a 
peaceful, agrarian people who posed no threat to the United States, 
contaminated more than a third of Laos' agricultural land and cost 
countless innocent lives. It is shameful that we have contributed less 
money in the past 35 years to clean up these deadly remnants of war 
than we spent in a few days of bombing.
  Current law prohibits U.S. sales, exports, and transfers of cluster 
munitions that have a failure rate exceeding 1 percent. The law also 
requires any sale, export, or transfer agreement to include a 
requirement that the cluster munitions will be used only against 
military targets.
  The Pentagon continues to insist that the United States should retain 
the ability to use millions of cluster munitions in its arsenal which 
have estimated failure rates of 5 to 20 percent. It has pledged to meet 
the 1 percent failure rate for U.S. use of cluster munitions in 2018. 
But, like Senator Feinstein, I do not believe we can justify using 
antiquated weapons that so often fail, so often kill and injure 
civilians, and which many of our allies have renounced. That is not the 
kind of leadership the world needs and expects from the United States.
  Senator Feinstein's and my bill would apply the 1-percent failure 
rate to U.S. use of cluster munitions beginning on the date of 
enactment. However, the bill permits the President to waive the 1-
percent requirement if he certifies that it is vital to protect the 
security of the United States. I urge the Pentagon to work with us by 
supporting this reasonable step.
  Since December 3, 2008, when the Convention on Cluster Munitions 
opened for signature in Dublin, 108 countries have signed the treaty, 
including Great Britain, Germany, Canada, Norway, Australia, and other 
allies of the United States. However, the Bush administration did not 
participate in the negotiations that culminated in the treaty, and the 
Obama administration has not signed it.
  Some have dismissed the Cluster Munitions Convention as a pointless 
exercise since it does not yet have the support of the United States 
and other major powers such as Russia, China, Pakistan, India, and 
Israel. These are some of the same critics of the Ottawa treaty banning 
antipersonnel landmines, which the United States and the other 
countries I named have also refused to sign. But that treaty has 
dramatically reduced the number of landmines produced, used, sold, and 
stockpiled, and the number of mine victims has fallen sharply. Any 
government that contemplates using landmines today does so knowing that 
it will be condemned by the international community. I suspect it is 
only a matter of time before the same is true for cluster munitions.
  It is important to note that the United States today has the 
technological ability to produce cluster munitions that meet the 
requirements of our bill, as well as the treaty. What is lacking is the 
political will to expend the necessary resources. There is no excuse 
for continuing to use cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to 
civilians.
  I urge the Obama Administration to review its policy on cluster 
munitions and put the United States on a path to join the treaty as 
soon as possible. In the meantime, our legislation would be an 
important step in the right direction.
  I again commend Senator Feinstein, who has shown such passion and 
persistence in raising this issue and seeking every opportunity to 
protect civilians from these indiscriminate weapons.

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