By Frida Berrigan | March 25, 2009
Foreign Policy in Focus

The main producers of cluster munitions — Russia, China, and the United States — have not signed the treaty. According to the Pentagon, the United States maintains a stockpile of 5.5 million cluster munitions containing about 728.5 million submunitions. Factoring in War Reserve Stocks for Allies (WRSA), Human Rights Watch calculates that the figure is closer to one billion submunitions.

On March 11, Obama signed into law the 2009 budget, which included a provision stating that the United States can only export cluster munitions that leave behind less than 1% of their submunitions as duds. The importing country must also agree not to use cluster munitions where civilians are known to be present. Only a very small number of cluster munitions in the U.S. arsenal meet the 1% dud-rate standard, and so the provision effectively bans export of these weapons. The specific language of the measure requires that "no U.S. military funds will be used for the sale or transfer or cluster bombs, unless: the cluster bombs have a failure rate of 1 percent or less; and the sale or transfer agreement specifies that the cluster bombs will be used only against clearly defined military targets and not where civilians are known to be present."

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You can also Tell the Senate to Give Cluster Bombs the Boot! Join the National Call-In Day March 30th


Photo by Farah Mokhtareizadeh - On a main road in the village of Soultanieh south of Sur. The canister with a long white parachute attached in the center of the photo is unexploded ordinance. Many of these bombs were dropped over Southern Lebanon in 2006. Nearly 10% of these sorts of bombs are designed not to explode on impact leaving mine fields for miles.