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IRAQ: Cluster Bomb 'Duds' Leave Behind a Minefield
By Cristina Hernández-Espinoza - Tierramérica*
SAN FRANCISCO, USA, Apr 18 (IPS) - The Saddam Hussein regime was brought to
an end, but the war is not over, nor will it be for a long time for many
Iraqi civilians, particularly children. There will continue to be deaths in
the coming years, caused by the deadly weapons used in the war, a crucial
issue in the post-war era, warn specialists.
The 750 Tomahawk missiles and the 18,000 bombs fired in the first 21 days of
the conflict by the U.S.-British coalition against Iraq took a considerable
toll, killing many civilians, though it is still impossible to know exactly
how many.
The initial counts of civilian casualties reached 1,300, but the true number
could be much higher, and will continue to rise as the Iraqi population
faces the threat of undetonated cluster bombs, or "duds", as occurred in the
wake of the wars in Kosovo (1999) and Afghanistan (2001).
Despite the exhortations of U.S. civil society groups months before the war
began, the United States armed forces utilized cluster bombs, which release
hundreds of smaller, lethal "bomblets", often claiming civilian lives. These
devices can remain embedded in the ground for years, turning into de facto
anti-personnel mines.
The Pentagon (U.S. Department of Defence) acknowledged on Apr. 2 that it had
used cluster bombs in the city of Al Hillah, 80 km south of Baghdad. The
International Committee of the Red Cross reported dozens of civilians dead
and 300 injured as a result of that attack.
According to the international press reporting from within Iraq, cluster
bombs were used in military operations throughout the country.
Cluster bombs date back to the 1960s and, as a standard element of the
military arsenal, were extensively utilized in the Vietnam War (1965-1975),
the 1991 Gulf War, as well as in Kosovo and Afghanistan.
Experts estimate that more than 10,000 cluster bombs were released during Op
eration Desert Storm, 1,200 in Kosovo and 600 in Afghanistan.
Patrick Garret, a defence and security analyst at the Washington-based
GlobalSecurity.org, explained to Tierramérica that there are different types
of cluster bombs but they all function in much the same way.
A projectile-shaped container carries smaller weapons, or submunitions. When
it is released during a bombardment operation the canister opens and
disperses the bomblets over a broad area, depending on the altitude from
which it is dropped, according to Garret. The area of impact can cover an
area as extensive as two football fields.
These mini-bombs are designed as anti-tank, anti-personnel and anti-material
ordnance, or with combined effect, such as fragmentation and incendiary
capabilities. They are about the same size as a soft-drink can and may
include a small parachute to facilitate their descent.
According to human rights watchdog Amnesty International, the United States
used CBU-97 type cluster bombs in the Iraqi city of Al Hillah. Each one
includes around 200 BLU97 bomblets, which the Pentagon reports have a
five-percent failure or "dud" rate.
In other words, there are some bomblets that do not explode, but sit where
they were dropped. Their colourful encasements might attract children, who
could confuse them for toys.
During the attack against Afghanistan in late 2001 to overthrow the Taliban
regime, the United States issued radio messages and pamphlets to educate the
population about how to differentiate between the food ration packages
air-dropped as part of the humanitarian aid effort and unexploded ordnance.
Weapons experts, meanwhile, have suggested that the percentage of bomblets
that fail to explode on impact could be higher in the field of combat than
in the controlled conditions of testing.
"Our experience in the clean-up operations in Kosovo indicate that we could
talk about 15 percent (failure rate)," José A. Martínez-López, of the United
Nations Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC), told Tierramérica.
In the first two years following the Persian Gulf War, more than 1,400
Kuwaitis and around 200 Iraqis were killed in incidents related to cluster
bomb munitions, according to the British group Landmine Action.
The number of such deaths in Afghanistan is estimated at over 100.
And in Kosovo, 45 percent of the victims of explosive devices can be
attributed to the bomblets, so far totalling 103 dead and 372 injured since
the conflict there ended, says Martínez-López.
These munitions can also have negative effects on the environment. In
Afghanistan, according to the U.N., an 800-square-km area, covering
farmland, pastures, irrigation channels and residential areas, has been
contaminated by ordnance.
U.N.-led clean-up operations in Afghanistan are aimed at protecting some
170,000 civilians, reducing the number of refugees and recovering the land.
If successful it could save the country some 730 million dollars.
According to GlobalSecurity.org's Garret, it is still too soon to know to
what extent the use of cluster bombs will impact Iraq in the long term. He
said the U.S. Central Command has reported that it has mostly used precision
control weapons.
Pentagon officials say that the cluster bombs dropped in Iraq are more
precise in reaching their targets because new technology permits them to
compensate for external factors, such as wind speed.
Cluster bombs are not officially categorized as anti-personnel devices and
so are not covered by the 1999 Convention on Landmines, which bans their
use.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and civil society
organizations are demanding a moratorium on cluster bombs until their
failure rate and margin of error can be further reduced. Some groups are
calling for including the devices in treaties that would ban their use
entirely.
"The international community established accords on nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons, but today's conventional weapons can be as devastating
as the so-called weapons of mass destruction," says Ricardo Aguilar,
director of Spain's Centre for Peace Research.
The issue of the destructive power of new types of weapons in the civilian
arena is crucial in the post-war debate, say experts.
"Countries must set up mechanisms for evaluating arms that are in
development. These assessments today are secret. The ICRC is demanding
transparency," said Dominique Loye, adviser on weapons and international
humanitarian law for the Geneva-based ICRC.
"After the hostilities, the degree of violations must be evaluated in the
legal context that seeks to prevent armies from resorting to just any method
to eliminate the enemy," Loye told Tierramérica.
* Originally published Apr. 12 in Spanish by the Latin American newspapers
in the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service
(www.tierramerica.net) produced by IPS with the backing of the United
Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.
(Cristina Hernández-Espinoza is a Tierramérica contributor. Lidia
Hunter/Spain and Pilar Franco/Mexico contributed to this report.)
(END/2003)
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