Biden should scrap idea behind cluster bombs

US President Joe Biden’s delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine is controversial and shameful. He announced that the decision to agree to Ukraine’s demand for cluster bomb shells for its 155mm howitzers was “difficult” and he tried to shift some of the blame by saying he had “discussed this with our allies, I discussed this with our friends up on the Hill (Congress).” Then he justified the provisions of these weapons by saying, “The Ukrainians are running out of ammunition.”

Biden’s comment was echoed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a video address to the annual Aspen Security Forum in Colorado where experts meet to discuss US foreign relations. When questioned why Ukraine’s much touted counter-offensive had been delayed and is, finally, progressing slowly, he replied this was due to a shortage of weapons and the need for training which has given Russia the opportunity to strengthen its defences.

The Ukrainian counter-offensive has been delayed from spring to summer and its pace is causing concern among NATO powers. Russian troops manning defensive positions in eastern Ukraine are well dug in and protected by razor wire and landmines. Ukraine finds it is fighting World War I’s static lines as well as a 21st-century high tech war. Due to the massive flood of weapons and funds into Ukraine since Russia invaded, Kyiv behaves as if the flow will continue indefinitely, and supplies are consumed as soon as they arrive. Since Ukraine has cleared US stockpiles of conventional howitzer shells, Biden has had to send cluster munitions which kill and maim not only Russian soldiers but also Ukrainian civilians.

Biden authorised the provision of cluster munitions despite a US law banning the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1 per cent. Although the Pentagon claims this is 2.5 per cent experts say the rate could be much greater.

Shells filled with cluster munitions designed to kill infantry and delivered by air or artillery are controversial because shell casings explode in the air over a target and scatter “bomblets” over a wide area. Their failure rate can be high when they do not detonate on impact. Consequently, they can remain on battlefields long after wars have ended.

Bomblets come in many shapes, sizes, and bright colours. Some are round like tennis balls, some look like butterflies, others like tins of sweet drinks. They can be buried in soil or hidden by vegetation for weeks, months and decades. Since these unexploded bomblets are a danger to anyone who encounters them, 123 countries, including US NATO allies Britain, France, and Germany, have outlawed them under the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Since Ukraine, Russia and the US are not parties to the Convention, they clearly feel they can ignore it. Russia and Ukraine, which have stocks of Soviet-era cluster munitions, have been deploying them since 2014. On July 6th, Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that civilians have been killed by bomblets used by both sides in the war. Despite US assurances over a low failure rate of the munitions supplied to Ukraine from stockpiles, HRW revealed, “The cluster munitions that the United States is considering sending to Ukraine are more than 20 years old, scatter over a wide area, and have a notoriously high failure rate, meaning they could remain deadly for years. Their use in US combat operations in 1991 and 2003 in Iraq resulted in casualties among civilians and US military personnel.”

According to Reuters, the deployment during this war of cluster munitions — which are anti-personnel mines — could add to the estimated 174,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian land contaminated by all types of landmines. This could take a decade for deminers to clear. The Washington Post has reported that Ukraine has already become the most landmined country on earth. HRW stated, “Both sides should immediately stop using cluster munitions and not seek to obtain more of these indiscriminate weapons. The US should not transfer cluster munitions to Ukraine.” Biden turned a deaf ear to this sensible appeal.

The US has used cluster munitions since the 1960s. Between 1965-1973, the US dropped 413,130 tonnes of cluster munitions on Vietnam and attacked both Laos and Cambodia with these weapons. In 2010, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) cited the Laotian authorities which said that country is “contaminated by some 80 million cluster submunitions, which affect all 17 provinces and result in 300 casualties per year.”

Veteran US foreign correspondent Louis Simons told US National Public Radio that “Laos to this day remains the most heavily bombed country in the history of the world — more than Japan, Germany and Britain during World War II.”

During the US-led 1991 war on Iraq, HRW reported that “the 61,000 aerial-delivered cluster munitions released by the US and its allies accounted for ‘about one quarter-of the bombs dropped on Iraq and Kuwait.”

Between October 2001-March 2002, the US deployed aerial bombs containing nearly 250,000 bomblets in Afghanistan. During the combat phase of the 2003-2006 war on Iraq the US and UK used 13,000 cluster shells containing 1.8-2 million bomblets.

The ICRC said that between 10-40 per cent of cluster munitions fail to explode on impact and could detonate if trod on or touched. The Cluster Munition Monitor revealed civilians amounted to 97 per cent of all cluster munition casualties in 2021. The Monitor reported that since the convention was signed in 2008, 99 per cent of the world’s stockpiles of these bombs have been destroyed.

Nevertheless, these munitions have been used in conflict in the territories of Convention signatories as well as non-signatories. HRW has reported that between 56,500 and 86,500 civilians have been killed by cluster munitions since 1943. While other countries have used cluster munitions, they do not adopt Washington’s “holier than thou” approach and claim US conduct in warfare adheres to international law and norms. Biden’s dispatch of these weapons has negated any moral authority he might have hoped he possessed. Instead of stoking the fires of war Biden should be urging both parties to ceasefire and negotiate.