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By: 10th August 2000 at 11:16 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-RE: Do we still need cluster bombs?
It is a typical reactionary media headline grabbing tactic. The UK, nor any other nation that used cluster munitions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, did not breached the Ottawa Treaty by its use of the BL755 or RBL755s. No mention is made of the Yugoslav Air Force and its air strikes against KLA positions with their own BL755s bought from the UK. 755s are being replaced in the RAF inventory with Brimstone. For example Harriers GR7s will be upgraded and be able to deliver Maverick and Brimstone. Plans are in hand for a GR7 upgrade to GR9 standard. (The designation “8” is already in use with the T8). Yes, I agree it is a nasty weapon and the consequences of the bomblet detonation failures expose non-combatants to the dangers long after the weapon is dropped, but no law was broken by there use. Nations such as the Russia, China and US have not even signed or ratified the Ottawa Treaty and will not do so as anti-personnel landmines and anti-personnel bomblet dispensing weapons in their inventories are deemed essential.
By: 10th August 2000 at 16:51 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-RE: Do we still need cluster bombs?
Not one Tornado was lost while deploying the JP233. Tornado GR.1,serial ZA392, was hit some three minutes later on egress from the target. All other RAF Tornado losses were non JP233 related. USAF F-111E's also deployed Durandal against airfield targets at low-level.
By: 11th August 2000 at 02:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-RE: Do we still need cluster bombs?
CBU's will be with us for a while. They're an effective and relatively cheap area weapon. The US has addressed the problem of wind-induced drift by introducing the Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser. This is basically the CBU-87/-89/-97 series weapons with a tail modification kit. This changes them to the CBU-103/-104/-105 weapons and promises greater battlefield effectiveness.
By: 12th August 2000 at 17:07 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
-RE: Do we still need cluster bombs?
The only reference I have of the F-111E/Durandal strikes is:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/blu-107.htm
TJ
By: Anonymous (not verified) - 10th August 2000 at 08:42
Britain 'broke law with Kosovo cluster bombs'
By Fran Abrams, Westminster Correspondent
8 August 2000
Britain's use of cluster bombs, which have killed more than 200 people since the end of the war in Kosovo, breached international law, says an anti-landmines organisation.
Although the weapons, which often leave unexploded "bomblets" lying around, do not breach the United Nations' ban on landmines, their use is indiscriminate and therefore illegal, the UK Working Group on Landmines says.
The umbrella group of 55 organisations says the Geneva Convention bans weapons that cause "superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering", and those not directed at a specific military target.
Because the 147 bomblets contained in a cluster bomb are scattered over a wide area and are often found some distance from their target, their use is indiscriminate, the group says. They cause unnecessary suffering because between 9 per cent and 30 per cent fail to explode immediately and so cause a danger to civilians.
Two British Gurkhas were killed by cluster-bombs during the clean-up operation after the Kosovo war, as were many local people.
A 13-year-old boy in Pristina Hospital, recovering after both legs were amputated, told researchers how he and his friends had picked up one of the bright yellow bombs, the size of a fizzy drinks can. "We began talking about taking the bomb to play with and then I just put it somewhere and it exploded," he said. "The boy near me died and I was thrown a metre in the air. The boy who died was 14 – he had his head cut off."
Other parts of the world are still suffering from late cluster-bomb detonations. In Laos, where the US dropped the equivalent of a planeload of bombs every eight minutes for nine years during the Vietnam War, 500,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance remain nearly 30 years later.
Richard Lloyd, director of the UK Working Group on Landmines, said there was plenty of evidence before the Kosovo conflict, particularly from the Gulf War, that the bombs were likely to be blown off course when dropped from high altitudes.
"Not only is there a strong chance that such bombs will fail to explode but, as there is no way of distinguishing between soldiers and civilians, such use is indiscriminate and in clear breach of international humanitarian law," he said.
The Ministry of Defence argued that cluster bombs were not covered by the Ottawa Convention against landmines because they are designed to detonate on impact. Their use was not specifically proscribed under any weapons convention, a spokesman said.
Do you think we still need them?
What could we replace them with?
Who should pay for the clean up?
KZ