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Landmark Treaty Outlaws Use Of Cluster Bombs

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The Associated Press

Published: May 31, 2008

DUBLIN, Ireland - Chief negotiators of a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs predicted Friday the United States will never again use the weapons, a critical component of American air and artillery power.

The treaty formally adopted Friday by 111 nations, including many of America's major NATO partners, would outlaw all current designs of cluster munitions and require destruction of stockpiles within eight years. It also opens the possibility that European allies could order U.S. bases located in their countries to remove cluster bombs from their stocks.

The United States and other leading cluster bomb makers - Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - boycotted the talks, emphasized they would not sign the treaty and publicly shrugged off its value. All defended the overriding military value of cluster bombs.

Treaty backers, who long have sought a ban because cluster bombs leave behind "duds" that later maim or kill civilians, insisted they had made it too politically painful for any country to use the weapons again."The country that thinks of using cluster munitions next week should think twice, because it would look very bad," said Espen Barth Eide, deputydefense minister of Norway, which began the negotiations last year and will host a treaty-signing ceremony Dec. 3.

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