In May, more than 100 countries agreed to ban cluster bombs. But the United States, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan have refused to agree to the ban.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed a memo requiring that the US build so-called safer cluster bombs—but the rule won’t go into effect until 2018.

In 2001 a defense policy issued by then-Defense Secretary William Cohen called for a similar reduction in submunitions from cluster bombs by 2005. Leahy said, “Now the Bush administration’s ‘new’ policy is to wait another ten years.”