Afghanistan has defied the Bush administration and signed a new international ban on cluster bombs. The last-minute decision came as more than ninety other governments also ratified the treaty Wednesday in Oslo. The US has led a group of large nations refusing to adopt the ban. It bars use, stockpiling and trading of cluster weapons and requires signatories to clear contaminated areas within ten years. The White House reportedly urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai not to sign the treaty. Thomas Nash of the Cluster Munition Coalition welcomed the new signatories.

Cluster Munition Coalition Coordinator Thomas Nash: “When we banned landmines in '97 they had already affected more than eighty countries. We have actually only had thirty countries affected by these weapons so far. So we're actually acting before the problem gets out of hand.”

According to the group Handicap International, 98 percent of cluster bomb victims are civilians, and 27 percent are children. The US has played a central role in two of the world’s worst cases of cluster bomb attacks. The Nixon administration dropped millions of cluster bombs on Laos during the Vietnam War. And the Bush administration provided critical support to Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon that also left millions of unexploded bomblets on the ground. In Washington, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino laughed off a question from veteran correspondent Helen Thomas on the Bush administration’s refusal to sign the ban.

Helen Thomas: “Is the President going to sign the anti-cluster bomb treaty? Apparently this is —”

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino: “Right, this is a treaty that was passed out of the UN Security Council several months ago. We said then that, no, we would not be signing onto it. And so, I think that the signing is actually — we did not participate in the passage of it, and therefore we’re not going to sign it either.”

Thomas: “Why not?”

Perino: “What I have forgotten is all the reasons why, and so I’ll get it for you.” (Laughter)