Ten years

It looks like the pentagon is attempting a punt on cluster bombs, in reaction to a recent treaty banning them that we didn't join. It wants to use '99% effective' bombs by 10 years from now. As it states further down in the article, this type of thing has already been proposed with negligible effect. If we stop using them our soldiers lives will be at risk, so the logic says. Anything less than indiscriminate bombing will require actual warfighting, and we just don't have the stomach to do that, especially in two wars at the same time. Anything we can do to keep the deaths we keep track of (our own) to a minimum. Fast cheap easy war for fast cheap easy energy for fast cheap easy folks brought to you by a slow spendy obnoxious frat boy.

Let the free market decide

Over 100 countries have signed a treaty that bans the use of cluster bombs, George Bush and the US govt disagree. In addition to not signing it, we didn't even show up at the talks about it. Among the handful of countries not to sign the treaty, a common trait was being home to companies that manufacture them.

This is nothing new for the country with the largest military budget in the world and the most WMD's, we have been stubbornly against common sense civility before GW came to town. Bill Clinton passed on banning land mines, and when a vote on cluster bombs came up in the Senate in '06 out of the 3 current candidates, Obama was the only one that supported banning them. The issue came up at that time largely due to Israel's use of them in Lebanon in the last days of the fighting. The Red Cross came out against them. Our PR department opened up an investigation at the time (a probe as some would call it), to make it seem like we cared, meanwhile OJ is still investigating who the real killer is.