Andrew Bacevich, a noted scholar, author, and critic of U.S. imperialism, will be  speaking on U.S. policy, or lack thereof,  in the Middle East on October 6 from 7-9 pm at the Westminster Unitarian Church, 24 Kenyon Street in East Greenwich, RI. This public presentation will be based largely on his most recent book: America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History. Among his eight other books is the important Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War. There will be a Q&A period.

Prior to a distinguished academic career, Bacevich served in the U.S. Army, retiring with the rank of Colonel. His son, Andrew Bacevich Jr., was also in the army but was killed in Iraq by an IED. Dr. Bacevich had expressed strong opposition to this disastrous war prior to his son’s death.

In addition to the books, Bacevich has written many articles that have been published in various magazines and journals and has appeared frequently on a variety of news shows. He is a Professor Emeritus of Boston University and also is an associate editor for Harper’s Magazine.

This event is being organized by the Rhode Island Anti-War Committee, Pax Christi Rhode Island, the American Friends Service Committee, and the Tuesday Interfaith Peace Group. Cosponsoring and hosting is the Social Responsibility Committee of Westminster Unitarian Church. Light refreshments will be available and attendees are encouraged, if possible, to bring cookies or some type of simple finger food to share. There is ample parking in the Church lot.

“The topic is particularly germane to Rhode Island voters because their state is home to a facility that will help manufacture new nuclear-armed submarines,” according to a news release, making reference to Electric Boat. “In addition, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed serves as ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Rep. James Langevin serves on the House Armed Services Committee.”

One of Wednesday’s speakers, Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said, “As a long-standing member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Reed has an important role to play in ensuring that the U.S. spends its defense dollars wisely. Current plans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build a whole new generation of nuclear weapons are not just a waste of money but would undermine U.S. security.”

Gronlund plans to speak about “what President Obama—and the next president—should do to reduce the odds that nuclear weapons are used again. She’ll discuss the administration’s plan to build a whole new generation of nuclear bombs, missiles and submarines, which will cost roughly $1 trillion in coming decades. She also will call on the president to remove land-based nuclear missiles from hair-trigger alert, which sets the stage for an accidental nuclear launch,” according to the news release.

The United States is the only nation to ever use a nuclear weapon. In August on 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, effectively ending the war with Japan.

Dr. Stephen Colecchi, the director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of International Justice and Peace, will also speak at the event in Providence on Wednesday night.

“The Catholic Church at its highest levels has supported nuclear disarmament as a moral imperative for decades,” Colecchi said, according to the news release. “Saint Pope John XXIII called for a worldwide ban on nuclear weapons in 1963.  Pope Benedict reminded us that in a nuclear war there would be ‘no victors, only victims.’ And Pope Francis has asserted that ‘spending on nuclear weapons squanders the wealth of nations.’”

Bishop Thomas Tobin will be at Wednesday’s event, but it’s unclear if he agrees with Catholic teachings on nuclear disarmament. In May, he expressed some level of support for foreign wars to NBC10.

“Of course I’m against wars, I don’t know anyone who is in favor of wars,” Tobin said. “I think it was St. John Paul who said war is always a defeat for humanity. It’s never good.” But, he added, “Sometimes there are prudential judgments.”

He continued, “The Catholic Church has a long tradition of talking about a ‘just war theory’. It is never to say someone is just in starting a war, but we certainly believe in the right of self defense. What would someone do to respond to the attacks of terrorism, of ISIS, the terrible persecution of Christians taking place in the Middle East, the attacks on our own country or in France or in Belgium? How do we respond to these violent terrorist attacks without having some means of self defense. That’s where I think someone providing legitimate armaments and self defense has a legitimate role to play. Again, no one is in favor of war.”

Tobin sidestepped weighing in on the the other issue the Catholic Church and the Union of Concerned Scientists agree on – climate change. After Pope Francis called upon Catholic churches to take a stand against climate change, Tobin said, ““The pope’s message deserves careful study and prudent discussion by Catholics and all those concerned about this issue.”

“This was inspired by the Providence protests,” said Cole Harrison, executive director of Mass Peace Action, as activists lined the street outside the division of Textron that makes the controversial cluster bombs the Providence-based conglomerate sells to Saudi Arabia and other nations through the US military.

Textron’s cluster bombs became a cause celebre earlier this year after Human Rights Watch produced evidence that Saudi Arabia used cluster bombs in civilian areas of Yemen. Mass Peace Action planned its action to coincide with recent attempts by Democrats in Congress to ban cluster bombs sales to Saudi Arabia.

“We realized it was an activist issue in Congress,” Harrison said. “We hope to help turn the tide on this. We don’t think it’s an issue that people understand very well.”

This was the first action Mass Peace Action has held at Textron Systems. But it won’t be the last, said Paul Shannon of Summerville, Mass. “Our plan is to come back,” he said. “What we might do is start in town and hand out leaflets to people and then have a march. This is really important to get something off the ground here.”

The action attracted older activists, such as Shannon and Harrison, but also millennials like Matthew Hahm, a Boston College student originally from Seattle.

“I don’t agree with what Textron is doing, selling weapons and profiteering off of that,” he said. “They are complicit in Saudi Arabia war crimes, essentially. It’s pretty terrible stuff. Not enough young people care about peace because it seems far off and removed, but if more young people begin to care…”

While this was the first Textron protest for Mass. Peace Action, there have been a different kind of action every month outside Textron Systems for years. John Bach, a Quaker chaplain from Cambridge, has held “silent meeting for worship” once a month there for six and a half years.

“It’s not a politicization of our spirituality,” he said. “It’s bringing our spirituality to a place that is very dark and needs light.”

He said there are between 12 to 18 people who attend. “We circle up right around the sign and we worship in silence,” he said. “It’s called a gathered meeting. The actual worship is creating the time and the space for what we call the spirit, the small still voice, the divine light, the spark of life – whatever it is – to be spoken through us.”

Bach, who spent two years in prison for refusing to be drafted into the Vietnam war, called cluster bombs “particularly gruesome, they are loathsome, they are uncivilized and according to any just conduct of war, which I do not subscribe to because I am a pacifist, you do not do something that kills as many civilians [as enemy combatants].”

Quoting what he called a popular saying from the 1960’s, Bach said, “When they come for the innocent without having to cross over your body then cursed be your religion and your life.”

He added, “The kids in Yemen are the innocent, clearly.”

An amendment to the House military spending bill narrowly failed last week that would have stopped the sale of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. It was supported by congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin, both of whom notably declined to comment on the vote. I asked Reed about the issue when I saw him on Friday.

“I think we should still be selling those weapon systems that comply with the law,” said Reed, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees.

Providence-based Textron is the last North American producer of cluster bombs, and the only source of cluster bombs for the US military. They’ve become a hot button issue as evidence mounts that Saudi Arabia has used cluster bombs it procured from the US in civilian-populated areas of Yemen.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have each independently found evidence that Textron’s cluster bombs have malfunctioned more than 1 percent of the time in Yemen and have been used in civilian-populated areas. Both allegations would be violations of US law concerning cluster bombs.

“That is something we have to look at very closely because the threshold is 1 percent or less,” Reed said. “That’s the way they are designed, that’s the way they’re tested and that’s the way they are maintained. We have strict protocols in design and the systems need to perform to very high standards and that as a result those and only those systems are sold.”

He added, “I think you do look at all the data that is being submitted. I think we are looking at it, and we are testing it.”

Reed said the US military still has cluster bombs in its arsenal, as well. “We have them in our own inventory so we’re very conscience of trying to make sure they are tested properly,” he said.

He seemed confident in their efficacy. “The systems we provide, technically, are designed so that if a cluster does not detonate it will be deactivated. They are the only ones authorized to be sold.”

Textron’s political action committee has been a long-time financial supporter of Reed, according to campaign finance reports. In 2015, Textron donated $1,000 to Reed’s campaign war chest, and in 2013 Textron made six donations for a total of $10,000 – of which $5,000 was given on June 30. In 2010, Reed got $1,000 from Textron  , as he did in 2006 as well. In 2007 Textron gave Reed $9,000.

Read RI Future’s full coverage of Textron’s cluster bombs here:

• Human Rights Watch condemns use of Textron-made cluster bomb (Feb. 24)
• Textron still makes cluster bombs despite downward global, US trends (Feb. 29)
• Textron sold cluster bombs to seven foreign governments (March 4)
• What US company made the bomb that killed 97 civilians in Yemen (April 8)
• Quaker group to protests Textron for selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia (April 11)
• Textron plays leading role in Middle East violence (April 11)
• CODEPINK, peace groups join campaign against cluster bombs (April 15)
• Peace activists call attention to Textron cluster bombs (April 19)
• Anti-cluster bomb activists arrested for chaining themselves to Textron headquarters
  •  (April 21)
• Human Rights Watch finds evidence of Textron cluster bomb in Yemen (May 6)
• Anti-Textron actions to happen weekly in Providence, RI (May 16)
• Quakers, radicals, others protest Textron cluster bombs (May 19)
• Amnesty International targets Textron, locals target Textron investors (May 24)
• Pia Ward’s personal connection to cluster bomb casualties (May 26)
• Textron’s Scott Donnelly is 2nd highest paid CEO in RI at $12.2 million (May 27)
• Report says US to stop selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia (May 28)
• Peace activists educate Providence residents about Textron’s cluster bombs (June 2)
• (June 16)

Congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin both supported an amendment to the House military spending bill that would stopped the United States from transferring Textron-made cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.

It was narrowly defeated by 12 votes, 204 to 216. Neither of Rhode Island’s congressman could be immediately reached for comment. But Congressman Hank Johnson posted a news release about the bill and his speech before the House Armed Service Committee (Congressman Cicilline can be seen in the background).

“Earlier this year, the Saudi led-coalition dropped cluster bombs in Yemen’s that struck a rehabilitation center for the blind – which also has a school for blind children,” Johnson said. “The destruction of the school and the injuries sustained by the children were unbearably gruesome. This deliberate and reckless use of cluster munitions by Saudi Arabia highlights their complete disregard for the welfare of innocent people. This is unacceptable. We cannot ignore our duty to protect basic human rights values here and around the world. There is something fundamentally wrong with preaching human and civil rights here at home while we export death abroad. Rather, Congress must step up our efforts to keep such internationally reviled weapons out of the hands of those that would misuse them.”

If passed, the bill would have further limited Rhode Island-based Textron’s market for cluster bombs. Located in downtown Providence, Textron, a defense industry conglomerate, is the last North American manufacturer of cluster bombs, which have been banned by 119 nations but not but the United States and Saudi Arabia. The US is known to have sold Saudi Arabia Textron-made cluster bombs and Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International as well as local peace activists have called upon Textron to stop making cluster bombs.

“It’s an important program for us,” Textron spokesman David Sylvestre told RI Future in February. He could not immediately be reached for comment today.

Human Rights Watch in a post published today mentioned the grassroots effort in Rhode Island to convince Textron to stop making cluster bombs.

“Public pressure seems to be mounting against Textron,” wrote Mary Wareham, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “Outside Textron’s headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island, local activists have been demonstrating for weeks – demanding that the company cease its production of cluster munitions.”

The FANG Collective and the American Friends Service Committee have led efforts to call public attention to Textron cluster bombs. Members of the groups and other peace activists participated in another protest outside Textron headquarters in downtown Providence today.

Singapore recently stopped making cluster bombs and Wareham wrote, “Textron should follow the example set by Singapore Technologies Engineering and commit to stop making these indiscriminate weapons as a way to assure the public that it is responsive to global concern at civilian suffering.”

Read RI Future’s full coverage of Textron’s cluster bombs here:

• Human Rights Watch condemns use of Textron-made cluster bomb (Feb. 24)
• Textron still makes cluster bombs despite downward global, US trends (Feb. 29)
• Textron sold cluster bombs to seven foreign governments (March 4)
• What US company made the bomb that killed 97 civilians in Yemen (April 8)
• Quaker group to protests Textron for selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia (April 11)
• Textron plays leading role in Middle East violence (April 11)
• CODEPINK, peace groups join campaign against cluster bombs (April 15)
• Peace activists call attention to Textron cluster bombs (April 19)
• Anti-cluster bomb activists arrested for chaining themselves to Textron headquarters
  •  (April 21)
• Human Rights Watch finds evidence of Textron cluster bomb in Yemen (May 6)
• Anti-Textron actions to happen weekly in Providence, RI (May 16)
• Quakers, radicals, others protest Textron cluster bombs (May 19)
• Amnesty International targets Textron, locals target Textron investors (May 24)
• Pia Ward’s personal connection to cluster bomb casualties (May 26)
• Textron’s Scott Donnelly is 2nd highest paid CEO in RI at $12.2 million (May 27)
• Report says US to stop selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia (May 28)
• Peace activists educate Providence residents about Textron’s cluster bombs (June 2)

“The United States should cease its production and transfer of cluster munitions to conform with the widely accepted international ban on the weapons,” says the HRW report.  Textron spokesman David Sylvestre declined to comment.

Textron-made cluster bombs injured a woman and two children in December, 2015 and two civilians in April, 2015, according to the report. HRW documents six separate locations where unexploded cluster bombs were found, most recently in February of this year.

The report also contains new proof that Textron-made cluster bombs malfunction more often than US trade law allows. US export law prohibits the use of cluster bombs in populated areas and only allows the sale of cluster bombs that malfunction less than 1 percent of the time, a rate HRW says Textron’s cluster bombs have not complied with.

“Following multiple attacks in Yemen, it is now obvious that Sensor Fuzed Weapons are not the ‘reliable’ or ‘intelligent’ cluster munitions they have been promoted as,” said Steve Goose, arms director at Human Rights Watch and chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition, the international coalition working to eradicate cluster munitions. “The US should cease production and transfer of these weapons following the evidence of their failures and their use in and near civilian areas and should join the international ban on cluster munitions.”

RI Future reporting on Textron and Rhode Island grassroots activism targeting Textron is cited in the HRW report.

In an RI Future article on February 24, 2016, a Textron spokesperson, David Sylvestre, asserted that the company cannot be held liable if the weapons are misused, reportedly stating: “We’re not in the plane dropping the bomb. If it was dropped in an area that is perhaps too close to a civilian population, that is not supposed to happen.” The report said that he affirmed that CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons are provided to the US military for delivery to foreign recipients, stating: “No company can put that on a boat and deliver it to a foreign government.”

Sylvestre described the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapons as “intelligent” munitions and said: “They are not intended to target human beings at all…. They are made to target armored-vehicles.” None of the CBU-105 attacks documented by Human Rights Watch in Yemen have involved armored vehicles nor have any damaged or destroyed armored vehicles been documented at the strike locations.

During an April 19 demonstration at Textron’s corporate headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island, Textron representatives apparently refused to receive a petition signed by more than 3,000 people calling on the company to cease its production of cluster munitions. Two days later, Rhode Island police arrested three activists who chained themselves to Textron’s front doors during a protest against the company’s production of cluster munitions.

Megan Burke, the director of the Cluster Munitions Coalition who participated in the April 19 demonstration outside of Textron headquarters in Providence, said in a news release, “The only way to ensure that no lives or limbs are claimed by cluster munitions in the future is to eliminate those weapons altogether. The United States should stop producing and exporting cluster munitions, and join the Convention.”

Read RI Future’s full coverage of Textron’s cluster bombs here:

• Human Rights Watch condemns use of Textron-made cluster bomb
• Textron still makes cluster bombs despite downward global, US trends
• Textron sold cluster bombs to seven foreign governments
• Quaker group to protests Textron for selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia
• What US company made the bomb that killed 97 civilians in Yemen
• Textron plays leading role in Middle East violence
• CODEPINK, peace groups join campaign against cluster bombs
• Peace activists call attention to Textron cluster bombs
• Anti-cluster bomb activists arrested for chaining themselves to Textron headquarters

CODEPINK, a female-organized anti-war group, the Cluster Munition Coalition, (ICBL-CMC) an international group that lobbies against cluster bombs, Pax Christi, a Catholic peace organization, the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, and others plan to protest at Textron’s world headquarters in Providence, 40 Westminster St., on Monday at 4:30.

“The only beneficiaries of Endless War have been the huge military industrial complex,” according to a news release from the groups. Textron, according to the release, “produces many pieces of the war machine.”

After a Human Rights Watch report detailed the dangers posed by cluster bombs used by Saudi forces in Yemen, RI Future reported that local RI business Textron made and sold the cluster weapons in question. Textron is one of only four private businesses in the world that still makes cluster bombs, and the only one in North America  and recently sold cluster bombs to Turkey, Oman, United Arab Emerites, South Korea, India, Taiwan as well as Saudi Arabia.

Cluster bombs have been outlawed by 119 nations across the planet because of the indiscriminate harm they can cause to civilians during and after military conflicts. They are not banned by either the United States or Saudi Arabia.

“When these weapons are dropped, it is impossible to be sure they will not hit people’s homes or neighborhood. Each cluster munition contains many small submunitions- some of which do not explode when dropped,” said Megan Burk, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines – Cluster Munition Coalition, who will speak at Monday’s action. “These unexploded submunitions act as landmines.”

CODEPINK recently started a petition asking Textron to end production of cluster bombs.

“We, the undersigned, call on Textron Industries and CEO Scott C. Donnelly to immediately cease all sales of munitions to Saudi Arabia,” it says. “Textron’s munitions have been part of a campaign that has caused the death of 3,000 innocent Yemeni civilians. It’s time for this to stop. Please immediately cease all weapons sales to Saudi Arabia to ensure that your products are not used to commit further atrocities.”

After protesting at Textron, the group plans to deliver a copy of the petition to Rhode Island’s congressional delegation. Most of the delegation has spoken out against the use of cluster bombs.

“Cluster munitions pose an unacceptable danger to civilians,” said Congressman David Cicilline. “I’ve advocated for restricting the use of these weapons in the past, and I’ll continue working to limit the risk they pose to civilians.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a co-sponsor of the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act, said, “Cluster bombs can take a terrible and lasting toll on civilians, which is why I’ve cosponsored legislation to restrict their use. I hope the Senate will take action on this bill to help protect innocent civilians from these dangerous weapons of war.”

Senator Jack Reed, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, “has supported efforts to limit the sale and transfer of cluster munitions and to ensure the use of more precise technologies to protect civilians,” according to spokesman Chip Unruh.

Read RI Future’s full coverage of Textron’s cluster bombs here:

• Human Rights Watch condemns use of Textron-made cluster bomb
• Textron still makes cluster bombs despite downward global, US trends
• Textron sold cluster bombs to seven foreign governments
• Quaker group to protests Textron for selling cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia
• What US company made the bomb that killed 97 civilians in Yemen
• Textron plays leading role in Middle East violence

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. will present a talk titled “The End of the American Empire:  Foreign Policy without Diplomacy” at The Barrington Congregational Church, Fellowship Hall on Saturday, April 2, 2016 at 7:30 PM at 461 County Rd, Barrington, RI.

Ambassador Freeman is a businessman, author and senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.  An American diplomat, he was Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs from 1993-94 and honored for his roles in designing a NATO-centered post-Cold War European security system and in reestablishing defense and military relations with China. He served as U. S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992 and was principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the historic U.S. mediation of Namibian independence from South Africa and Cuban troop withdrawal from Angola.

Ambassador Freeman is the author of two books on U.S. foreign policy, two on statecraft and was the editor of the Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on “diplomacy.”  After his retirement from government, he served concurrently as co-chair of the United States China Policy Foundation, president of the Middle East Policy Council, and vice chair of the Atlantic Council of the United States. He is a sought-after speaker on a wide variety of foreign policy issues.

The program is sponsored by East Bay Citizens for Peace, the Mission and Justice Ministry of the Barrington Congregational Church UCC and American Friends Service Committee – South East New England.  It is free and open to the public.

East Bay Citizens for Peace is a grassroots organization committed to peaceful solutions to conflict, and social and economic justice through open, respectful dialogue. For more information contact 401-247-9738, info@eastbaycitizens4peace.org or www.eastbaycitizens4peace.org

[From a press release]

Textron’s cluster bomb, the only such weapon still made in North America, was recently featured in a Human Rights Watch report condemning the use. The report says Textron’s product malfunction more than 1 percent of the time, which would be a violation of US export law pertaining to the sale of cluster munitions to foreign governments. The HRW report tells of civilian injuries from errant cluster bomb projectiles during Saudi-led military raids on Yemen. Saudi Arabia purchased the cluster bombs from Textron, via the US military.

The 2014 Worldwide Investment in Cluster Munitions report says the longtime Rhode Island conglomerate has sold cluster bombs to: Turkey, Oman, United Arab Emerites, South Korea, India, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia.

About half of the cluster bombs Textron produces are sold to foreign governments, Textron spokesman David Sylvestre told RI Future. The report, citing the company’s 2013 factbook, says Textron has sold more than 7,400 of the cluster bombs to the US Air force and foreign governments. “It’s an important program for us,” Sylvestre said.

It’s an important program of a different kind for PAX and the Cluster Munitions Project. “Textron is included on the red flag list because there is sufficient evidence that the company has produced the SFW after May 2008,” says the report. “The company has not stated publicly that it will end its involvement in the coming 12 months.”

The 200 page report devoted to private sector cluster bomb industry has one-page a section about Textron under the chapter “Hall of Shame: Financial Involvement and Investments.” Textron is on the “red flag” list – the seven companies most responsible for the continued production of cluster bombs. There are only two American companies on the red flag list: Textron and ATK, which was included because it makes a component of the Textron cluster bomb. Like Textron, ATK has a diverse portfolio. It makes military grade defense weapons, firearms for civilians, ammunition, stand up paddle boards, Bolle sunglasses and Camelbak water bottles. Textron also makes Cessna airplanes Bell helicopters, golf carts, gas tanks and power tools.

Textron is a longtime Rhode Island-based company with about 300 employees in the Ocean State and more than 34,000 across the globe.

Sylvestre told RI Future military products, made by subsidiary Textron Systems, represents about 11 percent of Textron’s total revenues. DefenseNews lists Textron as the 17th largest military contractor in the world, with $4.179 billion in defense revenue in 2014. It says 34 percent of the company’s revenue comes from military contracts.

Three of four members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation has responded for comment about America’s continued role in cluster bomb use and production. Much of Europe, Canada and 118 total nations have already banned the use of cluster bombs. The United States has not but has committed to curtailing their use and danger.

“Cluster munitions pose an unacceptable danger to civilians,” said Congressman David Cicilline. “I’ve advocated for restricting the use of these weapons in the past, and I’ll continue working to limit the risk they pose to civilians.”

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a co-sponsor of the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act, said, “Cluster bombs can take a terrible and lasting toll on civilians, which is why I’ve cosponsored legislation to restrict their use. I hope the Senate will take action on this bill to help protect innocent civilians from these dangerous weapons of war.”

Senator Jack Reed, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, “has supported efforts to limit the sale and transfer of cluster munitions and to ensure the use of more precise technologies to protect civilians,” according to spokesman Chip Unruh.

Read our full coverage of Textron’s cluster bombs here:

• Human Rights Watch condemns use of Textron-made cluster bomb
• Textron still makes cluster bombs despite downward global, US trends

“The cluster munition industry is gone because many nations have banned the weapon,” said Mark Hiznay, a senior arms researcher for Human Rights Watch.

“Most foreign producers are state-owned industries,” he said, such as China and Russia. In addition to Textron he knows of only three other privately-held companies in the world that still make cluster bombs, two are in South Korea and one is in Singapore.

Human Rights Watch recently released a report criticizing the failure rate of Textron-made cluster bombs and accused Saudi Arabian-led forces in Yemen of using them dangerously close to civilians.

At one time 34 different nations made cluster bombs but now only 16 still do, or reserve the right to, according to the Cluster Munition Monitor, an annual report of the sale, use of and efforts to ban cluster bombs. 119 countries have banned them. Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and England, among others, have already destroyed their entire stockpiles, Hiznay said.

The United States, on the other hand, has not signed the 2008 Convention on Cluster Bombs treaty. In 2003, the US military used Textron-made cluster bombs against Iraqi tanks as it advanced on Kirkuk.

Both of Rhode Island’s senators say they see the need to curtail the use of cluster bombs.

“Senator Reed has supported efforts to limit the sale and transfer of cluster munitions and to ensure the use of more precise technologies to protect civilians,” said his spokesman Chip Unruh.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a co-signer of the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act. “Cluster bombs can take a terrible and lasting toll on civilians, which is why I’ve cosponsored legislation to restrict their use,” he told RI Future. “I hope the Senate will take action on this bill to help protect innocent civilians from these dangerous weapons of war.”

The House-version of this bill is sponsored by Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, who represents the Worcester area. Congressmen David Cicilline and Jim Langevin could not be reached for comment.

The Textron-made bomb – the CBU-105 Sensor Fuzed Weapon – is at the center of a new Human Rights Watch report that indicates the weapon malfunctions more than 1 percent of the time, a violation of US export law, and accuses the Saudi Arabian-led forces in Yemen of using the weapon dangerously close to civilian populations which has resulted in several documented injuries.

“It’s puzzling to us that Textron is marketing this as a reliable weapon,” Hiznay said. “We’re not sure if it’s Textron’s problem or the Saudis’ problem, but we’ve had the US Air Force use them in Iraq and produce duds and now we have Saudi forces using them and producing duds in Yemen.”

US export law requires cluster bombs sold to foreign countries to malfunction less than 1 percent of the time, a success rate Human Rights Watch says the Textron-made bomb has not achieved. A 2008 Department of Defense Directive, the current prevailing US policy on the use of cluster bombs, requires the US military to only use cluster bombs with similar success rates.

“Most of the SFW’s have been sold to the US Air Force,” said Textron spokesman David Sylvestre in an email. “Comparatively few have been sold to US allies.” He declined further comment about the sale of weapons saying, “Much of the data about what we sell to a particular military customer may be considered protected or classified info by the US government or the customer.”

According to a 2011 Department of Defense news release, Textron was contacted to sell 404 cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia for $355 million. In 2012, Textron was contracted to sell 325 cluster bombs to South Korea for $325 million. The US last put aside funds to buy cluster bombs from Textron in 2007, said Hiznay, but didn’t make the buy after the weapons malfunctioned more than 1 percent of the time.

“We believe that SFW is truly the best area attack weapon in the world,” said Ellen Lord, senior vice president and general manager of Textron Defense Systems. “Through a process of rigorous research, testing and analysis, we have created a weapon that is reliable, safe and meets current clean battlefield standards.”