Wikileaks: UK allowed US to use cluster bomb 'loophole' (Cable written by "CLINTON" last year)

Turborama

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Thu Dec-02-10 01:56 AM
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Wikileaks: UK allowed US to use cluster bomb 'loophole' (Cable written by "CLINTON" last year)

Edited on Thu Dec-02-10 02:31 AM by Turborama

Source: BBC

The UK kept quiet about a loophole allowing the US to continue storing cluster bombs on its territory despite an international ban on the weapons, a leaked US diplomatic cable suggests. A senior Foreign Office official is quoted in the message sent in May 2009.

Dropped from the air or fired from the ground, cluster munitions release small bomblets over a wide area. Critics say they have a devastating humanitarian impact - most victims are civilians; a third are children.

Britain was among more than 90 countries which signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) in December 2008. The treaty bans the use of cluster bombs and prohibits signatories from assisting other countries to use, stockpile or transfer them. The then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, hailed the treaty as a "major breakthrough".

'Temporary exception'

But the US - along with other major military powers such as Russia, China, India and Pakistan - was not a signatory. And that clearly put the UK in an awkward position with a key ally.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11894759

The cable ...

Summary
This is a secret account of a meeting between the British Foreign Office and their American counterparts last year. The Foreign Office suggests that a loophole to allow the US keep cluster bombs on British soil be kept from Parliament in case it "complicated or muddied" the debate. Key section highlighted in yellow:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/208206?intcmp=239

ETA

http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/05/09STATE52368.html">The cable on Cablegate has this header:

R 211912Z MAY 09
FM SECSTATE WASHDC
TO AMEMBASSY LONDON
INFO JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC
SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
USMISSION USNATO
USMISSION GENEVA

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

WikiLeaks cables: Secret deal let Americans sidestep cluster bomb ban
Officials concealed from parliament how US is allowed to bring weapons on to British soil in defiance of treaty

Rob Evans and David Leigh
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday December 01 2010 22.59 GMT

British and American officials colluded in a plan to hoodwink parliament over a proposed ban on cluster bombs, the Guardian can disclose.

According to leaked US embassy dispatches, David Miliband, who was Britain's foreign secretary under Labour, approved the use of a loophole to manoeuvre around the ban and allow the US to keep the munitions on British territory.

Unlike Britain, the US had refused to sign up to an international convention that bans the weapons because of the widespread injury they cause to civilians.

The US military asserted that cluster bombs were "legitimate weapons that provide a vital military capability" and wanted to carry on using British bases regardless of the ban.

Full article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/01/wikileaks-cables-cluster-bombs-britain