Israel May Have Violated Arms Pact, U.S. Officials Say

By DAVID S. CLOUD and GREG MYRE

01/27/07 "New York Times" -- -- WASHINGTON, Jan 27 — The Bush administration will inform Congress on Monday that Israel may have violated agreements with the United States when it fired American-supplied cluster munitions into southern Lebanon during its fight with Hezbollah last summer, the State Department said Saturday.

The finding, though preliminary, has prompted a contentious debate within the administration over whether the United States should penalize Israel for its use of cluster munitions against towns and villages where Hezbollah had placed its rocket launchers.

Cluster munitions are anti-personnel weapons that scatter tiny but deadly bomblets over a wide area. The grenadelike munitions, tens of thousands of which have been found in southern Lebanon, have caused 30 deaths and 180 injuries among civilians since the end of the war, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service.

Midlevel officials at the Pentagon and the State Department have argued that Israel violated American prohibitions on using cluster munitions against populated areas, according to officials who described the deliberations. But other officials in both departments contend that Israel’s use of the weapons was for self-defense and aimed at stopping the Hezbollah rocket attacks that killed 159 Israeli citizens and at worst was only a technical violation.

Any sanctions against Israel would be an extraordinary move by the Bush administration, a strong backer of Israel, and several officials said they expected little further action, if any, on the matter.

But sanctions against Israel for misusing the weapons would not be unprecedented. The Reagan administration imposed a six-year ban on cluster-weapon sales to Israel in 1982, after a Congressional investigation found that Israel had used the weapons in civilian areas during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon. One option under discussion is to bar additional sales of cluster munitions for some period, an official said.

The State Department is required to notify Congress even of preliminary findings of possible violations of the Arms Export Control Act, the statute governing arms sales. It began an investigation in August.

Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said that the notification to Congress would occur Monday but that a final determination about whether Israel violated the agreements on use of cluster bombs was still being debated.

“It is important to remember the kind of war Hezbollah waged,” he said. “They used innocent civilians as a way to shield their fighters.”

Even if Israel is found to be in violation, the statute gives President Bush discretion about whether to impose sanctions, unless Congress decides to take legislative action. Israel makes its own cluster munitions, so a cutoff of American supplies would have mainly symbolic significance.

Israel gave the State Department a dozen-page report late last year in which it acknowledged firing thousands of American cluster munitions into southern Lebanon but denied violating agreements that prohibit their use in civilian areas, the officials said. The cluster munitions included artillery shells, rockets and bombs dropped from aircraft, many of which had been sold to Israel years ago, one official said.

Before firing at rocket sites in towns and villages, the Israeli report said, the Israeli military dropped leaflets warning civilians of the attacks. The report, which has not previously been disclosed, also noted that many of the villages were deserted because civilians had fled the fighting, the officials said.

David Siegel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said Israel “provided a detailed response to the administration’s request for information” on its use of cluster munitions “to halt Hezbollah’s unprovoked rockets attacks against our civilian populations centers.”

He added, “Israel suffered heavy casualties in these attacks and acted as any government would in exercise of its right to self-defense.”

John Hillen, who was assistant secretary of state in charge of the bureau until he resigned this month, told Bloomberg News in December that Israel had provided “great cooperation” in the investigation. “From their perspective, use of the munitions was clearly done within the agreements,” he said.

Another administration official said the investigation had caused “head-butting” involving the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department, as well as Pentagon arms sales officials. Some officials “are trying to find a way to not have to call this a substantial violation,” the official said.

In particular, the State Department has asked Israel for additional information on reports that commanders and troops violated orders that restricted how cluster bombs could be used, an official said. In November, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the chief of staff of the Israeli military until his resignation on Jan. 17, ordered an investigation into whether restrictions on use of the weapons were ignored by some units.

That investigation is still under way, and military officials have refused to divulge any details in public.

Israel’s Channel 2 television reported in December that the military’s judge advocate general was gathering evidence for possible criminal charges against military officers who might have ordered cluster bombs fired into populated areas.

Israel has told the State Department that it originally tried targeted strikes against Hezbollah rocket sites, but those proved ineffective.

Heavy use of cluster bombs was tried instead, to kill or maim Hezbollah fighters manning the launchers. Israeli commanders employed cluster weapons because they suspected that they would flee after firing their rockets. Even those attacks failed to stop the rockets barrages.

The agreements that govern Israel’s use of American cluster munitions go back to the 1970s. But the details, which have been revised several times, are classified.

However, officials said that the agreements specified that cluster weapons could not be used in populated areas, in part because of the risk to civilians after a conflict is over if the bomblets fail to self-destruct, as they are designed to do.

The agreements said the munitions be used only against organized armies and clearly defined military targets under conditions similar to the Arab-Israeli wars of 1967 and 1973, when Israel arguably faced threats to its survival, officials said.

Since the end of last summer’s war, de-mining team have located 800 cluster-bomb strike areas, and they destroyed 95,000 bomblets, said Christopher Clark, program manager for the United Nations Mine Action Service in Lebanon.

“We found them pretty much everywhere — in villages, at road junctions, in olive groves and on banana plantations,” Mr. Clark said.

The casualty rate has come down sharply, he said. Right after the war, there were more than 40 casualties a week; now it is about 3 or 4 a week.

Donatella Rovera, a researcher with Amnesty International in London, said older American cluster weapons used by Israel during the war did not reliably self-destruct, compared with Israel’s own cluster munitions, which are newer and are said to have a much lower dud rate.

“We’ve asked them to release detailed maps on where the cluster bombs were used,” Ms. Rovera said of the Israeli military. “That the one thing that could help speed up the cleanup process.”

David S. Cloud reported from Washington, and Greg Myre from Jerusalem.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company