While cluster bombs are not specifically banned under
international conventions, landmines are. However the US together
with Turkey refuse to sign on to the convention. However, the
indicscriminate use of weapons is forbidden as well as the use of
indiscriminate weapons.
The failure rate of the bomblets in cluster bombs is roughly 5
(conservatively) to 30 percent.
When the bomblet fails it is in effect a landmine and an
indiscriminte weapon Several Albanian children have already been
blown up. For some reason the bomblets are brightly coloured and
about the size and shape of soda cans in one instance and
baseballs in a different type. This makes them attractive to
children.
The bombs are relatively cheap because no safety devices that
would automatically defuse duds are
engineered into the bombs.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
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NATO's Use of Cluster Munitions in Yugoslavia</b></font><br>
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<td>(May 11, 1999) -- The U.S. Defense Department at the end of April announced a move
toward the use of more "area weapons" in Operation Allied Force. At the same time,
there are reports of NATO's growing shortage of precision-guided weapons. These
factors suggest NATO may increasingly rely on unguided ("dumb") weapons, including
so-called cluster bombs.
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<b><font color="Red">Related Material </font></b><br>
<BR>
<a href="http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/may/arms51199.htm"> NATO Use of Cluster Bombs
Must Stop </a><br>HRW Press Release, May 11, 1999 <BR><BR>
<a href="http://www.hrw.org/hrw/campaigns/kosovo98/index.htm"> Kosovo: Focus on Human
Rights</a><BR>
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<p>
Both the U.S. and Britain have acknowledged using cluster bombs in Yugoslavia already.
U.S. F-15E and F-16 aircraft have dropped CBU-87 cluster bombs, and British Harrier
GR7s began dropping RBL755 cluster bombs on April 6. The CBU-87 and RBL755 weapons
have been used against airfields, communications and early-warning sites, vehicle
concentrations on roads, Yugoslav Army command posts, troop compounds and
concentrations, artillery, and armor units. There have been reports of cluster bombs
being used at Batanica airbase near Belgrade and Podgorica airfield in Montenegro, as
well as in the following areas in Kosovo: an "agricultural school" on the outskirts of
Pristina, near Belacevac, Djakovica, Doganovic, Lukare, Mt. Cicavica (northwest of
Pristina), Mt. Pastrik (near Prizren), and Stari Trg (near Kosovska Mitrovica).<P>
Though probably no more than a few hundred air-delivered cluster bombs have been used
to date in Yugoslavia, there reportedly already have been civilian casualties. A NATO
airstrike on the airfield in Nis last week went off target, hitting a hospital complex
and adjoining civilian areas. In an earlier incident on April 24, five boys were
reported to have been killed and two injured when what was evidently a cluster bomb
submunition exploded near the village of Doganovic, fifteen kilometers from Urosevac
in southern Kosovo. The munition was described as having a yellow-colored jacket,
identical to that of the CBU-87 or RBL755 bomblets.<P>
The U.S. Army is deploying 155mm artillery guns and Multiple-Launch Rocket System
(MLRS) launchers as part of Task Force Hawk in Albania. Both of these systems are
capable of dispensing submunitions—the ATACMS missile fired from the MLRS launcher
dispenses as many as 955 bomblets. There has also been speculation that the CBU-89
Gator scatterable mine is available for use, and the U.S. government has stated that
it reserves the right to use this weapon should the need arise.<P>
The CBU-89 Gator has been banned under the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which came into force
in March 1999. The United States has not signed the treaty, but all other NATO
members, except Turkey, have. Human Rights Watch calls on the United States not to
use the CBU-89 Gator scatterable mine system, because this is an inherently
indiscriminate weapon. <P>
Human Rights Watch condemns NATO's use of cluster bombs in Yugoslavia, given the
proven high dud rate of the submunitions employed. These weapons are indiscriminate
in effect—the equivalent of using antipersonnel landmines. Human Rights Watch is also
concerned that cluster bombs may be used in attacks on urban centers. This would
present a particularly hazardous condition for the civilian population and should
therefore be avoided.<P>
Recognizing the danger to civilians inherent in the use of cluster bombs, air combat
commander Maj. Gen. Michael Ryan (now U.S. Air Force chief of staff) decided during
Operation Deliberate Force in Bosnia in 1995 to prohibit their use. "The problem was
that the fragmentation pattern was too large to sufficiently limit collateral damage
and there was also the further problem of potential unexploded ordnance," says one Air
Force-sponsored study.<P>
<B>High Dud Rate</B><P>
The CBU-87 and RBL755 are both mixed antipersonnel/antiarmor weapons that dispense
explosive and incendiary submunitions fused to explode on contact. With 202
individual bomblets, the CBU-87 disperses its submunitions over an area at least the
size of a football field. The RBL755 dispenses 147 bomblets. Most cluster bombs are
intended for "soft" targets, that is, troops or unarmored vehicles, as well as fixed
targets of a dispersed yet unprotected nature, such as communications sites.<P>
The weapons are kept relatively inexpensive (in comparison with guided weapons)
through the economical use of fuses and materials. The side-effect of keeping the
expense of individual bomblets low is a significant dud rate. Estimates of overall
dud rates vary from the conservative 2-5 percent claimed by manufacturers, to up to 23
percent observed in acceptance and operational testing, to some 10-30 percent observed
on the ground in areas of Iraq after the Gulf War. Human Rights Watch has used a
conservative estimate of 5 percent mechanical and fuse failures to estimate the
humanitarian effect. This number seems credible to most experts.<P>
Thus for Operation Allied Force, the historical record and testing experience would
tend to indicate that for every single CBU-87 used, there will be an average of some
ten unexploded bomblets, and for every RBL755, there will be an average of five
unexploded bomblets. Bombing in Operation Allied Force to date has been almost
exclusively from medium altitudes (circa 15,000 feet), raising important questions
regarding the ability to control the collateral damage effects of the use of cluster
bombs, and the number of dispersed unexploded bomblets. It is also important to note
that the experience of cluster bomb use in the Gulf War and other conflicts indicates
that the failure to fuse properly does not mean that submunitions on the ground are
harmless. Cluster bomb submunitions, however fused, may explode at the slightest
touch, even after extended periods of time.<P>
<B>Widespread Cluster Bomb Use in the Gulf War</B><P>
The 1991 Gulf war saw the most extensive and widespread use of cluster bombs in the
history of armed conflict, both air- and ground-delivered. Given the flexibility in
delivery modes for the newer bombs, particularly the capacity for delivery at
extremely high speeds, and the reliability in comparison with Vietnam-era cluster
bombs, CBU-87s became, according to the U.S. Air Force, the "weapon of choice." About
one quarter of the total number of weapons dropped by aircraft on Iraq and Kuwait were
cluster bombs, a total of 62,000 air-delivered cluster bombs. In addition, some
100,000 Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM) artillery shells and
10,000 MLRS rockets were expended (see Table 2). This translates, overall, into the
dispersal of somewhere on the order of 24-30 million submunitions. Assuming a dud
rate of 5 percent, the number of individual live submunitions left on the battlefield,
and in other areas of Iraq and Kuwait, can be reasonably estimated to be, at a
minimum, 1.2 to 1.5 million.<P>
Cluster bombs were used in attacks demanding dispersed yet fairly accurate damage
against fixed "soft" targets (for example, radar, surface-to-air missile, and
communications installations). Bombing from medium or high altitudes had a
significant impact on both cluster bomb accuracy and reliability. Not only was there
a greater dispersal pattern for the submunitions than was intended with low-altitude
delivery, but pilots were outside the range needed to make sighting corrections or
assess damage. Vietnam-era CBU-52/58/71 cluster bombs, intended originally solely for
low-altitude delivery, also "performed poorly throughout the war," according to the
Gulf War Air Power Survey.<P>
One of the unexpected problems involved in medium- and high-altitude delivery of
cluster bombs in Operation Desert Storm, even with the newer CBU-87s, was that the
weapons began to experience what has been termed "excessively high dud rates."
Despite contact fuses and secondary firing systems, an enormous number of submunitions
failed to detonate, particularly when landing in soft sand, shallow water, or mud.<P>
One of the most immediate problems raised by the large number of unexploded bomblets
that was being observed on the ground was the threat to U.S. and coalition forces in
ground operations. The situation became so critical that the use of cluster bombs by
aircraft was cut back by U.S. Central Command during the ground war for fear of
friendly casualties. As the ground war began, in some instances, "ground movement
came to a halt because units were afraid of encountering unexploded ordnance." Troops
with the U.S. 1st Armored Division said that the principal threat they faced was
"unexploded ordnance believed to have been left over from an earlier American
bombardment." The Washington Post observed on March 3 that "units of the army's 1st
Cavalry Division that had suffered no combat casualties in their unopposed drive
through southern Iraq have seen several of their soldiers killed or wounded by bombs
or mines in the area they are holding."<P>
Post-war injuries to U.S. and U.K. soldiers from submunitions on the battlefield,
mostly because of excessively high dud rates of one type of grenades in the 155mm
artillery projectile and MLRS rockets, subsequently received much press attention in
the United States and Britain, as well as U.S. Congressional interest. The General
Accounting Office (GAO) concluded that during Operation Desert Storm at least
twenty-five U.S. military personnel were killed and others were injured by
submunitions fired by their own forces. Unexploded submunitions also caused many
casualties among disposal specialists.<P>
<B>Dangers to the Civilian Population</B><P>
The use of cluster bombs in Kuwait, on and around roads in southern, northern, and
western Iraq, as well as in urban areas in Iraq led to a particularly hazardous
situation for the noncombatant civilian populations of both Iraq and Kuwait. In the
Iraqi town of Safwan, for example, as the refugee population swelled after the
cease-fire, "the number of injuries caused by unexploded ordnance rose alarmingly."
There were widespread and consistent reports of Iraqi and Kuwaiti civilians being
killed or injured by unexploded bomblets from coalition cluster bombs. Unexploded
submunitions were a hazard to Kurdish refugees and foreign relief operations in the
north.<P>
The widespread and indiscriminate use of cluster bombs in civilian areas thus
generally impeded post-war recovery for the civilian population. Iraqi authorities
claim to have cleared over one-half million items of unexploded ordnance in urban
areas of the country, and removed tens of thousands of unexploded submunitions from
electrical power plants and telephone, television, and radio communications
installations, from the approaches to bridges, and from civilian neighborhoods. Even
if the Iraqi authorities and the experiences of other observers in Iraq were not to be
believed, one of the first tasks of the Allied forces in extinguishing the oil fires
in Kuwait after the war was clearing unexploded ordnance, particularly coalition
submunitions. The Kuwaiti minister for electricity and water stated that delays in
restoring services were caused by the discovery of "unexploded cluster bombs and
minefields at crucial spots in the electric grid."<P>
Cluster bomb submunitions that failed to detonate were also responsible for a
considerable portion of the immediate post-war civilian injuries in Iraq. It is
estimated that more than 1,600 civilians (400 Iraqi and 1,200 Kuwaiti) were killed and
over 2,500 injured in the first two years after the end of the Gulf war from accidents
involving submunitions.<P>
A particular problem for the civilian population, particularly children, was the very
design of the submunitions. "Toy-size bombs designed to kill tanks and soldiers
[also] appear as white lawn darts, green baseballs, orange-striped soda cans," one
report from Kuwait reported almost a year after the war ended. These attractively
arrayed and intriguing unexploded submunitions "proved deadly to children." Kuwaiti
doctors stated that some 60 percent of the victims of unexploded ordnance injuries
were children aged fifteen and under.<P>
The "lawn darts" referred to are Vietnam-era Rockeye submunitions that were used in
huge numbers in 1991. The baseball-like remnants are from older CBU-52/58/71 cluster
bombs and the ground artillery- and rocket-delivered bomblets. The orange-striped
"soda cans" are the distinct remnants of the BLU-97 bomblets from the CBU-87 and the
British BL755.<P>
<P>
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<td><B>For Further Information:</B><P>
Joost Hiltermann (316) 2293-6742 (in the Netherlands)<BR>
Bill Arkin (802) 457-3426 (home) or (201) 583-5151 (at MSNBC in New Jersey) <BR>
Carroll Bogert (212) 216-1244 (in New York)<BR><BR>
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