From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Wed Jun 11 2003 - 02:33:21 MDT
>Amara,
>Have you noticed we haven't carpet bombed Iraq with cluster bombs.
>Cluster bombs like any other weapon are intended for specific targets.
>We haven't had those targets and hence have not used the weapons.
>You've been listening to the Hate America First crowd again.
>Ron h.
The lethal detritus of war
Unexploded bombs are still killing
a great many people in Iraq
The Economist May 10, 2003
Pg. 38-39
The newest cluster bombs sound too good to be true. Small bomblets
emerge from their casing as they hurtle towards the earth, whereupon
sensors guide them to tanks and other targets, as mini-parachutes
slow their descent. If the bomblets fail to find something suitable to
destroy, they automatically self-destruct.
Too good to be true, indeed. Even some of the newest bomblets deployed
by American and Britain have malfunctioned, says the Mines Advisory
Group (MAG)(, which is working to clear up unexploded ordnance in
northern Iraq. Along with the rest of the detritus of war - bomblets
from older devices, Iraqi landmines left over from successive
conflicts, and vast stockpiles of abandoned weapons left unguarded by
Iraq's new occupiers - they are killing and maiming those unfortunate
enough to stumble upon them.
These casualties tend to peak in the weeks after a war, explains
Richard Lloyd, of Landmine Action, a campaign group, as people return
to places that they had wrongly assumed to be safe. Sean Sutton, of
MAG, says that there have been hundreds of casualties in the north
since the hostilities ceased, around half of which have been children.
Landmines, trickier to spot than cluster bomblets -- are the biggest
problem, though the latter's shiny casing fatally attracts youngsters.
Cluster bombs have a long and controversial history. Most of the
individual bomblets -- dozens or hundreds of which are contained in
each bomb -- fall haphazardly over wide areas, and some fail to
explode; the self-destruct mechanisms on the newer models have reduced
the risk, but not entirely. Advocates argues that the weapons are
useful against broad targets, such as runways, armoured columns and
troop concentrations. America says it dropped 1500 of the things in
Iraq for these purposes.
Human Rights Watch, a lobby group, says that the figure is misleading,
because it does not include munitions fired from the ground. America
admits to using them in civilian areas, but says they struck only 26
targets within 1500 feet of civilian neighbourhoods. For their part,
the British fired around 2000 cluster bombs from the ground, and the
Royal Air Force dropped another 65, mostly around Basra.
America Britain both say that they will help to clear up the deadly
mess they have left, but others say they have been slow in disclosing
what they dropped and where. The question remains whether the use of
cluster bombs, old or new, in civilian districts, violates the rules
of war.
-- *********************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ *********************************************************************** "If you wish to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water." --A Bulgarian proverb
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