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Washington refuses to dump cluster bombs
The United States has refused an international call to abandon the use of cluster bombs.
Forty-six countries meeting in Oslo on Friday pledged to seek a treaty banning cluster bombs by next year.
Japan, Poland and Romania refused to sign the accord, while key proliferators the US and the Israeli occupation regime did not take part in the conference.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We take the position that these munitions do have a place and a use in military inventories."
McCormack said the US had taken "very seriously the international discussion with respect to the threat posed by unexploded ordnance to innocent civilians".
However, a last month report by State Department cited violations over the Israeli occupation regime's use of US-made cluster bombs against the Lebanese during the summer aggression.
Since 2005, the Pentagon has required that newly purchased sub-munitions have a failure rate of less than one percent. Human Rights Watch, however, estimates that only about 30,000 of the millions of cluster munitions currently in the US arsenal meet the bill's criteria.
Forty-six countries meeting in Oslo on Friday pledged to seek a treaty banning cluster bombs by next year.
Japan, Poland and Romania refused to sign the accord, while key proliferators the US and the Israeli occupation regime did not take part in the conference.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "We take the position that these munitions do have a place and a use in military inventories."
McCormack said the US had taken "very seriously the international discussion with respect to the threat posed by unexploded ordnance to innocent civilians".
However, a last month report by State Department cited violations over the Israeli occupation regime's use of US-made cluster bombs against the Lebanese during the summer aggression.
Since 2005, the Pentagon has required that newly purchased sub-munitions have a failure rate of less than one percent. Human Rights Watch, however, estimates that only about 30,000 of the millions of cluster munitions currently in the US arsenal meet the bill's criteria.
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The smaller bombs do not always explode on impact, which means they can continue to kill innocent civilians years later.
A recent report by Handicap International claimed that 98 percent of casualties from cluster munitions are non-combatants.
The US used about 2 million sub-munitions in occupied Iraq in 2003, some 248,000 in Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002, and another 295,000 on Kosovo in 1999, the group said.
On Friday, the 46 countries agreed at the Oslo conference to "commit themselves to conclude by 2008 a legally binding international instrument that will prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians".