According to a study of cluster bombs in 24 countries by Handicap International, civilians make up 98% of those killed or injured by these weapons. To help address this problem, Senator Feinstein and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) have introduced the “Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act” which would ensure that cluster bombs cannot be used, sold, or transferred by the U.S. if there is a risk of civilian exposure to these weapons. 

By design, cluster bombs spread submunitions or bomblets over a wide area in a short amount of time. This substantially increases the risk to civilians, and the consequences are grave:

• Combining the first and second Gulf Wars, the total number of unexploded bomblets in the region is approximately 1.2 million. An estimated 1,220 Kuwaitis and 400 Iraqi civilians have been killed since 1991.
• In Iraq in 2003, 13,000 cluster bombs with nearly 2 million bomblets were used.
• In Afghanistan in 2001, 1,228 cluster bombs with 248,056 bomblets were used. Between October 2001 and November 2002, 127 civilians were killed, 70 percent of them under the age of 18.
• Between nine and 27 million unexploded cluster bombs remain in Laos from U.S. bombing campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s. Approximately 11,000 people, 30 percent of them children, have been killed or injured since the war ended.
• Most recently, it is estimated that Israel dropped 4 million bomblets in southern Lebanon, and 1 million of these bomblets failed to explode. Reports indicate that Hezbollah retaliated with cluster bomb strikes of its own.

(source: Senator Feinstein’s statement, 2/9/07)

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