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星期三， 2008年5月28日

由 理查Norton泰勒 | 政府准备在增长的喧闹面前废弃聚合炸弹英国的整个武库反对杀害了和被残废的数百无辜的平民的武器。

官员铺平道路为意想不到，并且根本步在谈话在都伯林在一个国际条约瞄准了对炸弹的全世界禁令。

很好被安置的来源由军事在英国的军械库昨天清楚地做了那尽管反对，政府准备摆脱群军火： 在伊拉克的2003年入侵期间使用的lsraeli被设计的M85火炮武器和在对黎巴嫩的攻击二年前; 并且M73，一部分的武器系统为亚帕基印第安人直升机。

“总理非常是在这个过程之后并且要我们签字[条约]”，一个资深外交部来源昨天认为。

爱尔兰，主持谈话，要条约文本今晚被采取。 “如果我们签字由我们将丢失M85和M73 ″的条约决定，来源认为。 当政府看上去愉快为了英国的力量能立刻时摆脱他们的M85武器，它想要“逐步淘汰期间”为它的M73s。

协议，期望今天被证实，结束与FO抗衡国防部和部门为国际发展的长期运行的Whitehall争执。 MoD认为聚合炸弹的数量在军械库是“操作上敏感的”，但承认退役他们将花费上百万磅。

参加者在谈话在难题昨晚仍然被卷入了队伍从签字由禁令决定的国家是否在操作可能去与那些，著名地美国，不。 防止他们如此做在其他条约承诺能导致突破口，著名地介入北约和有严肃的实用涵义，英国的官员言。 政府也想要允许美国储备群武器在英国的美国基地。

压力是应用的在美国不使用它的群武器在联合作战与禁止了他们的国家，官员建议。

因为他们驱散小“小炸弹”在广域，群武器是高度有争议的。 Many of them do not explode on impact and are activated later by civilians. They caused more than 200 civilian casualties in the year after the Lebanon ceasefire, and more civilian casualties in Iraq in 2003 and Kosovo in 1999 than any other weapon system.

The M85 was fired by British troops around Basra during the invasion of Iraq. According to the MoD, they made a “direct contribution to saving the lives of UK service personnel”.

The M73 rocket, part of the Apache’s weapons system, is fired from pods on the attack helicopters and can also be fitted to Harrier jets. In its defence of their use, MoD officials have argued that they were “direct fire” weapons - in other words a pilot firing them can see the target - and that a single weapon had fewer than 10 “bomblets”.

However, that figure refers to the number in just one rocket pod, and an Apache can carry a total of 684 in its cluster weapons, campaigners say.

Human rights groups campaigning for a ban on all cluster bombs said yesterday the planned treaty was being threatened by the refusal of the US to remove stocks from its airforce bases on UK territory.

Simon Conway, a former soldier and the director of Landmine Action UK, said: “Gordon Brown has pushed the Dublin negotiations in the right direction. Now is the time for him to have the courage of his convictions and tell the US that it cannot store these outdated and indiscriminate weapons on UK soil.”

Article 1 of the planned treaty, due to be signed in Oslo in early December, prohibits assistance with the use, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions. The US, Israel, Russia, China, India and Pakistan are not taking part in the talks.

See More:UK News 

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under War & Terrorism News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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