Via Norm, I came across this article about cluster bombs by Bianca Jagger. Referring to attempts to draw up a treaty to ban them she says,
Rather than ensuring that cluster munitions are banned, the UK actually wants a treaty to legitimise the millions of these weapons that it still has in stocks. The Government claims that so-called “self-destruct” mechanisms can be fitted to cluster bombs in order to stop them from contaminating the post-conflict environment. The UK has purchased nearly three million of these “bomblets” from Israel – so they have strong incentive to claim that this system works. Unfortunately, when Israel used these same munitions in Lebanon in 2006 they were left littering the homes, gardens and fields of the civilian population.
However, this Haaretz article claims that Israel did not use its own cluster munitions during the war.
Soldiers in the artillery corps told Haaretz that nearly all the cluster munitions fired into Lebanon were American-made. The officially acknowledged ratio of duds is 15 percent, but the U.S. Army acknowledged during the war in Iraq the ratio of duds was closer to 30 percent. The IDF also makes use of older versions of the U.S.-made cluster bombs, whose ratio of duds is even higher.
The article goes on to say that this was done for budgetary reasons. Israel can’t spend US military aid on weapons it produces itself and so chose to use imported American munitions which have a vastly higher failure rate. Assuming that the different characteristics of the imported and home-produced weapons were known to those taking decisions, and it’s dificult to imagine they weren’t, the decision to use the imported ones shows a disgraceful and possibly criminal lack of concern for the safety of the civilian population of Lebanon.
It does not though, clinch the case for banning cluster munitions; provided their failure rate can be reduced to the levels suggested by the Haaretz article – one or two percent – then it’s difficult to see why they should be as they would pose no greater threat to civilians than traditional munitions.
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