Pentagon Rethinks Use of Cluster Bombs

Thursday, August 28th, 2003

According to Pentagon Rethinks Use of Cluster Bombs, cluster bombs don’t simply leave unexploded duds that kill civilians; they also create “no-go” areas on the battlefield, keeping friendlies from advancing. Some interesting stats:

Cluster bombs are designed to destroy armor and kill troops over wide areas. The bombs scatter as many as 900 individually armed bomblets in midair, across a wide area. The U.S. showered between 1 million and 1.5 million bomblets on Iraq during the three-week invasion earlier this year.
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The Pentagon said its tests show that between 2% and 6% of its bomblets don’t explode on impact, which it considers acceptable at present. The General Accounting Office has found so-called dud rates as high as 16%, but Army officials call such estimates far too high. Precise rates in Iraq aren’t available, but U.S. Marine experts in Karbala say they believe dud rates in some places were as much as 40%.
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Marine explosives specialists in the hard-hit Karbala-Hillah area have destroyed more than 31,000 unexploded bomblets — some Iraqi, most American — that landed on fields, homes, factories and roads. Two were on the roof of a downtown hotel, one stuck in its soft tar. Many were in populated areas on Karbala’s outskirts.

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