| We've all heard the story. During the waning days of the Israeli incursion into Lebanon in August 2006, after the ceasefire had been agreed to but before the deadline, Israel shot huge numbers of cluster munitions into Southern Lebanon, leaving a deadly legacy in the form of unexploded bomblets for the refugees who inhabit this desolate land.
A few days later, on September 6, 2006, Barbara Feinstein introduced amendment 4882 to the 2007 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, proposing that no funds be spent for cluster munitions unless the rules of engagement specify that they not be used in civilian areas.
The amendment failed, 70 to 30. Hillary Clinton voted against it. Barack Obama voted for it. Hillary opposes bans on cluster bombs, and Obama favors them. Simple, no?
No.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON CLUSTER MUNITIONS
First, a little background on cluster munitions, a generic term which includes cluster bombs, rockets, and artillery shells. Regardless of the delivery system, cluster munitions release dozens to hundreds of hand grenade-sized bomblets in flight, and these disperse in mid-air and rain down on the target, dispersing over a wide area. Unlike conventional high explosive (HE) bombs, they are primarily shrapnel weapons, and are effective against personnel and armor. All the small explosions send shrapnel going in all different directions, so they're more damaging than regular bombs against armor and personnel (I'm simplifying, but that's the general idea). They have a larger "kill zone" than HE bombs, so they don't have to be as accurate to get the same effect. Cluster bombs have been around forever, back to Vietnam.
The problem is unexploded bomblets. The bomblets are supposed to explode upon impact (mostly), but failure rates are high, especially for older designs, and for munitions which have been stored for years, or decades. The problem is that some of the bomblets don't go off, but are still armed (they will explode if hit or dropped), so they're basically land mines lying around forever. The ones in Laos dropped 40 years ago are still killing people.
There have been international efforts to ban the use of these, with many non-participants in these Oslo agreements (the US, Israel, China, Russia, basically all the big military countries). The US has supplied Israel on an on-again, off-again basis for decades, with a 1976 secret agreement that they not be used in civilian areas, which has never been consistently honored by Israel. Israel went into Lebanon in 1969 and again in 1982, using cluster bombs near or in civilian areas both times.
The US suspended shipments for eight years after the 1982 use, but started up again under Bush One in 1990. They stopped in 2005 again - the US suspended delivery on the Israelis, as they usually do when Israel is building up for an attack.
The latest Israeli incursion into Lebanon ended in late August 2006, a few days before the Feinstein amendment was voted on. At the end of the incursion, in the last 72 hours before the ceasefire, Israel basically threw everything they had at south Lebanon- all their cluster bombs/rockets/artillery shells. They had US munitions, munitions they had manufactured themselves, and Chinese munitions, but they primarily used US and Chinese munitions. They basically salted the earth, firing junk that had expiration dates from the 1970s with high failure rates (lots of bomblets that didn't go off). Since then, dozens of Lebanese civilians have been killed by these bomblets. They can't work their fields.
Here is an 80 page pdf from Landmine Action which is a good source document, with pictures of unexploded munitions bearing ancient manufacturing dates (warning- pictures of injured children).
THE FEINSTEIN AMENDMENT- SEPTEMBER 2006
The use of these cluster munitions got a lot of play in the press, and it was in this political environment that Diane Feinstein introduced her amendment to the 2007 Department of Defense Appropriations Act. This act is an annual budget exercise with many cooks, lots of pork, and a great deal of carefully orchestrated choreography (read: horsetrading) to get it passed. The Feinstein amendment came in through the window like a hand grenade. She had it read into the record on September 5, and had it brought up on the floor on September 6. Nobody involved in the lengthy negotiations to determine what would and would not be included in the Defense Appropriations bill had ever seen it before.
Here is a link to the congressional record of the amendment's introduction, debate, and vote- pages S8992 through S8996. You can use the "next page" and "previous page" controls at the bottom to look through it.
The text of Diane Feinstein's amendment read:
At the end of title VIII, add the following:
Sec. 8109. No funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act my be obligated or expended to acquire, utilize, sell, or transfer any cluster munition unless the rules of engagement applicable to the cluster munition ensure that the cluster munition will not be used in or near any concentrated population of civilians, whether permanent or temporary, including inhabited parts of cities or villages, camps or columns of refugees or evacuees, or camps or groups of nomads.
Patrick Leahey was a cosponsor of this legislation, which lent significant credibility to it. Leahey has a long history of working to prohibit the indiscriminate use of land mines, which is functionally what unexploded cluster bombs are.
But remember, this is September 2006. The November miracle hadn't happened yet- Republicans still controlled Congress. Up jumps crazy old Ted Stevens, who rants and raves about Feinstein's amendment. A lot of his objections are garbage, but he has a couple of valid points:
Mr. STEVENS: Mr. President, I cannot support this amendment. It is not enforceable. It establishes policies that may in some situations dangerously restrict the options available to our commanders on the battlefield. I do share the Senator's concern about potential use on the indiscriminate manner of these antipersonal (sic) weapons. Protecting innocent civilians from the violence and destruction of war is our goal. It is a laudable goal. Of course, the consequences of using cluster munitions must be carefully considered before such weapons are engaged. This is a complex policy area. It deserves comprehensive review by the relevant policy committees, not only the Committee on Armed Services but also the Foreign Relations Committee. As the Senator has said, it has already been reviewed on a secretarial level several times in the Department of Defense. This amendment is just not acceptable. It legislates the rules of engagement for an entire class of weapon. The task of settling the rules of engagement properly belongs to the military and to the commander and ultimately to the Commander in Chief.
Shorter and more lucid Ted Stevens:
1. Rules of engagement for the military are not traditionally set by the Congress. They are a series of complex negotiations between the military and congressional experts.
2. Anything that affects the military's ability to do its job or international balances of power has to go through committee, where policy experts in the Pentagon, State Department, and Congress confer and advise Congresscritters of the effects of proposed changes. The two relevant committees in this case are the Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.
For example, say you're a Senator and you don't like nuclear submarines because they make noise that hurts whales. You want them to operate far from where the whales are. Fine, but nuclear submarines are also one leg of our three-legged strategic deterrent. Many a megalomaniacal Russian and Chinese leader, plotting late at night, has rolled over and gone back to sleep rather than pressing the button because, even if you wipe out every US land-based weapon in a perfect first strike, the submarines are out there. Somewhere. You don't know where. The PENTAGON doesn't know where they are. Nobody does. They WILL destroy your country and kill millions of your citizens if you attack the US. It's a promise. Their lethality comes from the fact that they could be anywhere. If the US restricts submarines to areas where whales aren't, their movements become much more predictable, they're easier to detect and attack, and the entire strategic deterrent matrix has to be reconfigured. You'd need to talk to the Pentagon and the Congressional experts to see if there's a way to restrict submarine use without creating a vulnerability and getting us attacked by the Russians or whomever.
Same thing with cluster munitions. Remember, Ted Stevens called them "an entire class of weapons." They are a significant part of the arsenal, and the military is trained to use them when the situation calls for it, including near civilian areas. We cluster bombed downtown Baghdad during shock and awe. We have cluster bombed the bejesus out of Afghanistan and Iraq in the past six years. The Taliban and Saddam's army didn't surrender just because they thought our uniforms looked spiffy. There's nothing worse for morale than death from the skies which leaves nothing but burning vehicles and body parts. Remember the "Highway of Death" leading out of Kuwait in Gulf War One? Cluster bombs. The military's current configuration calls for cluster bombs to be available for certain uses, including near civilian areas. If you want to change that, you have to replace them with something, manufacture that something, phase out the cluster munitions, retrain all your personnel, etc. Ted Stevens was right, for once in his life.
And then, guess what happens. Ranking Minority Member of the Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden gets up... AND AGREES WITH TED STEVENS.
Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I share the concerns that prompted the introduction of this amendment, but I am not prepared to approve such a far-reaching measure without a clear legislative record regarding the need for it and its likely impact on U.S. and allied forces.
Cluster bombs have always posed problems for responsible military forces like those of the United States. The weapons are very useful militarily, but they also carry a real risk of causing civilian casualties if they are used where civilians are present or if too many submunitions fail to explode when they hit the ground. This is a legitimate issue to consider and, perhaps, to legislate. But it should be done in a careful manner, after holding hearings and with proper preparation. I urge the Senate Armed Services Committee to hold hearings on the issue of cluster munitions so that we can all gain a better understanding of how to maintain their usefulness while minimizing their risks. The committee should also make sure the Defense Department lives up to its claim that it ``is working towards minimizing `dud' cluster munitions by phasing cluster munitions systems with more reliable or self-destructing fuses.'' Success in that effort would go far to reduce the risks of postwar casualties.
So, with Republicans AND the Democratic ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee saying Diane Feinstein hadn't done her homework (which she hadn't), the measure went to a vote. It went down, 70-30, and never had a chance of passing because:
1. Diane Feinstein hadn't done her homework. Her presentation consisted of floor speeches by herself and Leahey, and a USA Today article she had put into the record. No consultation, no committee work, no nothing. It had been thrown together in a day or two, maybe less. It was a principled gesture, but not a serious effort to pass legislation. And everyone there in the Senate knew it.
2. The Bush administration had signaled its objection to this amendment, and the Republicans had a majority in the Senate at the time. Any party line vote was going to lose.
Remember, Israel wasn't going to get cluster bombs or not depending on this vote- the 2005 ban was in effect, and still has not been lifted. Israel's manufacturing their own now anyway, as well as importing them from Britain and China, and doesn't need US imports, although US imports are cheaper for them- the US munitions used on Lebanon in 2006 were part of block grants of military aid, and cost Israel nothing.
What were the reasons the senators voted the way they did on this amendment? The Republicans voted against it because George Bush told them to. As the majority party, they had control over the military appropriations process, and had made a few deals with Democrats to share the wealth. They had a consensus.
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the other Democratic senators who voted on it had a free shot, because the amendment was not going to pass, so they were in no danger of sending the military scrambling to reconfigure on no notice without being able to use cluster munitions near civilian areas.
The "impolite" name for such a free vote is a pander. If a vote is not going to affect the outcome and a senator is free to vote however they choose, the question is which constituent group do they want to please? Hillary and Barack came to different conclusions in how to vote on this amendment. Barack Obama chose to pander to the progressive and anti-cluster munitions groups. Hillary Clinton didn't. She, along with all the other New York and Florida senators, pandered to the Jewish constituency in these states, which is less pro-cluster bomb than sensitive to criticism of Israel, even when Israel is clearly in the wrong, as it was in this case. This vote wasn't going to affect the outcome of the legislation. No children died, or didn't die, as the result of Hillary's and Barack's votes.
Now that Obama is president-elect, he can't posture by taking the losing side in a meaningless vote for political gain. Now he's responsible for looking at both sides of the issue (well, he's been responsible for that for a while, but he didn't have to take it seriously in a deliberative body like the Senate). If Obama comes out for a cluster bomb ban now, the military and the Congresscritters who take military defense seriously will go apeshit because of the huge strategic gap this will open in current military doctrine.
My prediction is that if Obama gets trapped and has to address this issue, he'll gyrate all over the place - probably say he'll be happy to review any legislation Congress sends him, is waiting for them to act, stuff like that. And the cheetos will be silent - because neither they nor Obama never gave a shit about this issue in the first place. It was just a handy rhetorical device to attack Hillary with.
Obama was smart enough to know not to bring it up during the campaign because he knew if he won it would be obvious his 2006 vote was pure political theater if he ever had to address the issue as president. His followers weren't that smart. |
