What did those poor cluster munitions ever do?

[MKSheppard]

Link

JOHANNESBURG, 17 May 2008 (IRIN) - Banning a military weapon said to inflict a 98 percent civilian casualty rate is seen by many as an open-and-shut case, but for two weeks government representatives and interested parties will be guided by the phrase "cluster munitions that have unacceptable humanitarian consequences" in formulating a convention to curtail use of these weapons or totally getting rid of them.

On 19 May, in the Irish capital of Dublin, representatives from countries around the globe will gather for the Dublin Diplomatic Conference on Cluster Munitions. Not since the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which banned the use of antipersonnel landmines and was signed by 155 states, has a protocol elicited such a groundswell of international support.

It is expected that the 37 states not signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, also referred to as the Ottawa Convention - including China, India, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States - will also decline to be party to a treaty limiting the use of cluster munitions.

If some form of consensus is reached, a treaty will be ratified later this year in Norway, where the process began in February 2007, after foreign minister Jonas Gahr Store said at a conference in the capital, Oslo: "We must bring an end to the unacceptable human suffering caused by the use of cluster munitions. This suffering is not an inevitable and unavoidable consequence of modern war. It is the result of a particular group of weapons developed for other conflict scenarios than those we are faced with today."

Thomas Nash, international coordinator of the Cluster Munition Coalition, which represents more than 250 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in 70 countries, reportedly said: "The purpose of this really historic conference is to negotiate the final terms of an international treaty that will ban the use, production, stockpiling and trade of cluster munitions, and set up a framework to ensure the rights of survivors and affected communities are dealt with in a proper way."

But the devil is likely to be in the detail.

Devil in the detail

Handicap International (HI), an NGO working to improve the conditions and quality of life of disabled people in the developing world and post-conflict zones, defines cluster submunition as explosive ordnance that, to perform its task, separates from a parent munition or dispenser. This definition includes all explosive ordnance designed to explode at some point in time after dispersal or release from the parent cluster munition, as well as munitions that are sometimes referred to as bomblets (e.g. from air-dropped cluster munitions), grenades (e.g. from ground-launched artillery, rocket or missile systems) and "improved conventional munitions".

May-Elin Stener, the Minister Counsellor at the Norwegian Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, told IRIN she expected a great deal of technical discussion in Dublin, because defining cluster munitions causing unacceptable humanitarian consequences would be crucial in delivering a convention providing the necessary humanitarian protection.

Analysts familiar with the aims of a cluster munitions convention said a general and unqualified banning of all weapons consisting of more than one explosive submunition would compromise munitions bearing little resemblance to traditional cluster munitions.

While many cluster munitions were indiscriminate, and based on laws of war that disproportionate civilian suffering from armed attacks was illegal, the development of weaponry capable of distinguishing between a military target adjacent to a hospital carried a legal and humanitarian obligation for the use of these weapons.

Experts said it was likely that the convention would seek to ban all cluster munitions that left a high number of unexploded remnants after being deployed, even if they were equipped with fail-safe mechanisms. However, those cluster munitions capable of distinguishing between military targets and civilians - provided they were equipped with adequate fail-safe mechanisms - were unlikely to fall within the ambit of the convention, as they were not seen as violating the aims of preventing "unacceptable humanitarian consequences".

"Most discussions in the negotiations will be generated around the definition of cluster munitions, failure rates and technical 'fixes'", HI said in its 2007 report, Circle of Impact: The Fatal Footprint of Cluster Munitions on People and Communities, which cites a military representative asking why researchers were "surprised" by their initial finding that 98 percent of cluster submunitions casualties were civilians.

"However, it is important to remember that cluster munitions are imprecise weapons, designed to strike a greater surface area than many other conventional weapons by dispersing smaller yet highly lethal explosive submunitions," the HI report pointed out.

Calls for such weapons to be banned were first made 30 years ago, but it was their use by Israeli forces in the final days of the 2006 Lebanon conflict that provided the impetus for a treaty banning or limiting their use.

Cluster munitions were first used by Soviet forces against German tank formations during the Second World War, and the next known use was by the German air force in an attack on the British port town of Grimsby. An eye- witness account of more than 60 years ago could easily be confused with the recent experiences of Lebanese villagers.

"They were found on roofs, on beds, hanging by one wing through ceilings, and the only way for the bomb disposal squads to deal with them was to blow them up with a charge just wherever they happened to be," a Grimsby fireman reportedly said.

Only about 25 percent of the 1,000 submunitions delivered in Grimsby exploded immediately or within 30 minutes of impact, killing 14 people. In a paper on the Grimsby bombing, The Humanitarian Effects of Cluster Munitions: Why Should We Worry? authors John Borrie and Rosy Cave quoted various Grimsby residents: "The rest of the bomblets lay unexploded on roads and roofs and caught in trees and hedges. Within an hour of the all-clear signal, another 31 people were killed, and many more injured."

Borrie and Cave noted that "Despite immediate action by the authorities, it took more than 10,000 hours of work over the next 18 days to clear the submunitions and re-open the port."

In Circle of Impact, HI said, "It is estimated that during the 2006 [Lebanon] conflict alone, well over four million cluster submunitions were delivered." Most of the cluster munitions were from the Vietnam era, and the submunitions had a high failure rate.

About one million people fled southern Lebanon, which undoubtedly reduced the number of casualties, HI said, although there were 16 known casualties from air strikes, nine of which were children. Only two casualties were caused by unexploded cluster submunitions during the conflict period, a father and his 11-year-old son.

But as internally displaced people returned in the first month after the ceasefire on 14 August 2006, "casualties due to cluster munitions occurred at a rate of three per day. Until the end of 2006, there were on average two casualties per day, and as of January (2007) there are on average two casualties per week," HI said.

Military use

About 34 countries are known to have produced about 210 different types of cluster munitions. According to Human Rights Watch, an international rights organisation, about 75 countries currently stockpile them, accounting for millions of cluster munitions containing billions of individual submunitions.

Cluster munitions were developed during the Cold War and it was envisaged that they would be used against massed formations of tanks and infantry during a conventional conflict between Warsaw Pact forces and those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

They have so far been used in at least 21 countries, but rarely, if ever, for their intended purpose as weapons to be deployed against tanks and massed infantry formations, and usually in close proximity to civilian populations.

[Feil]

Sounds good to me. They just aren't effective enough, compared to what else is available, to warrant their continued use in the face of the human cost of employing them.

[K. A. Pital]

It is expected that the 37 states not signatory to the Mine Ban Treaty, also referred to as the Ottawa Convention - including China, India, Israel, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States - will also decline to be party to a treaty limiting the use of cluster munitions.

Of course. Russia has already declined as our morning news told us, and the US will soon do.

[MKSheppard]

Lets just bring back Napalm; which cluster munitions replaced.

[Feil]

Lets just bring back Napalm; which cluster munitions replaced.

Is there anything (useful) napalm can do that white phosphorous can't do better?

[Adrian Laguna]

Lets just bring back Napalm; which cluster munitions replaced.

Ironically, one of the reasons for that replacement was people getting their panties in a bunch about how burning enemy soldiers to death was inhumane.

[Sidewinder]

As noble as the sentiment is, I don't think nations that will engage in military action will sign a treaty banning cluster bombs, because they're so damn useful in area denial. Also, a glance at the list of Ottawa Treaty signatories reveals that the NON-signatories include nations that are most likely to be at war within the near future, e.g., Israel, Iran, Iraq, North and South Korea, Syria, India, Pakistan, Lebanon... Which means the governments of nations whose citizens are most likely to be wounded/killed by land mines and cluster munitions, are choosing NOT to deny the use of these weapons for themselves.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Lets just bring back Napalm; which cluster munitions replaced.

We didn't get rid of it; we used it in Fallujah. Or rather, we used a new formula that did the same thing but wasn't called "napalm", then denied for quite some time that we'd used napalm on people.

[Adrian Laguna]

We didn't get rid of it; we used it in Fallujah. Or rather, we used a new formula that did the same thing but wasn't called "napalm", then denied for quite some time that we'd used napalm on people.

Heh, deception without lying by using the truth, one of the best tricks in the book.

[Sea Skimmer]

Sounds good to me. They just aren't effective enough, compared to what else is available, to warrant their continued use in the face of the human cost of employing them.

Cluster bombs are enormously effective, per pound they produce more destruction then any other type of bomb except nukes. GPS guided unitary warheads reduce the need for cluster bombs, but no real military is going to be getting rid of them any time soon at all.

That ‘98%’ figure happens to be based on a list of just 11,000 people who voluntarily registered in a database maintained by Handicap International, it is not by any means a result of a comprehensive survey of actual cluster bomb casualties.

[Lord of the Abyss]

We didn't get rid of it; we used it in Fallujah. Or rather, we used a new formula that did the same thing but wasn't called "napalm", then denied for quite some time that we'd used napalm on people.

Heh, deception without lying by using the truth, one of the best tricks in the book.

Not really, since it didn't work.

[hongi]

Sounds good to me. They just aren't effective enough, compared to what else is available, to warrant their continued use in the face of the human cost of employing them.

Cluster bombs are enormously effective, per pound they produce more destruction then any other type of bomb except nukes. GPS guided unitary warheads reduce the need for cluster bombs, but no real military is going to be getting rid of them any time soon at all.

That ‘98%’ figure happens to be based on a list of just 11,000 people who voluntarily registered in a database maintained by Handicap International, it is not by any means a result of a comprehensive survey of actual cluster bomb casualties.

I was watching a news report about how the people of Laos was still suffering years after America cluster-bombed the fuck out of their country. I wouldn't have a problem with cluster bombs - if the country using them helps to clean up the mess.

[Sarevok]

Why not restrict the use of cluster bombs depending on how strong the enemy is ?

For example in a war with China will need no holds barred use of firepower to win. Use cluster bombs, tactical nukes or whatever it takes to win. On other hand dropping cluster bombs on populated areas of Iraq and Afganistan is a needless overkill that can maim innocent people for years to come. Appropriate level of force can win wars where everybit of advantage counts while sparing civilians in places like Iraq where the enemy is no match for occupation military forces.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

To be honest, such restrictions are meaningless. So long as they are bloody effective in mass killing infantry etc., armies are going to use them. It will be just like the treaty on the ban of Mines.

[JBG]

Sounds good to me. They just aren't effective enough, compared to what else is available, to warrant their continued use in the face of the human cost of employing them.

Cluster bombs are enormously effective, per pound they produce more destruction then any other type of bomb except nukes. GPS guided unitary warheads reduce the need for cluster bombs, but no real military is going to be getting rid of them any time soon at all.

That ‘98%’ figure happens to be based on a list of just 11,000 people who voluntarily registered in a database maintained by Handicap International, it is not by any means a result of a comprehensive survey of actual cluster bomb casualties.

I was watching a news report about how the people of Laos was still suffering years after America cluster-bombed the fuck out of their country. I wouldn't have a problem with cluster bombs - if the country using them helps to clean up the mess.

The actual munitions in cluster bomb units are as reliable or as unreliable as most munitions.

[KlavoHunter]

The actual munitions in cluster bomb units are as reliable or as unreliable as most munitions.

It's just that the bomblets are fiddly little small things, and are a little harder to find than a dud 2000-pound bomb.

[Beowulf]

Why not restrict the use of cluster bombs depending on how strong the enemy is ?

For example in a war with China will need no holds barred use of firepower to win. Use cluster bombs, tactical nukes or whatever it takes to win. On other hand dropping cluster bombs on populated areas of Iraq and Afganistan is a needless overkill that can maim innocent people for years to come. Appropriate level of force can win wars where everybit of advantage counts while sparing civilians in places like Iraq where the enemy is no match for occupation military forces.

It's needless overkill, so the US doesn't use cluster munitions in heavily populated areas. The current weapon of choice for air strikes in heavily populated areas is actually an artillery weapon, the unitary warhead GMLRS.

[Netko]

Using cluster munitions against urban targets is already possibly a war crime, depending on the capabilities of the weapon, especially internationally after the Martić judgment at the ICTY, as it states:

The Trial Chamber will now focus on the M-87 Orkan. This weapon is a multi-barrelled rocket launcher, which launches non-guided rockets. The primary use of the M-87 Orkan is to target soldiers and armoured vehicles. The evidence shows that each rocket launched on Zagreb on the 2 nd and 3 rd of May 1995 contained a cluster warhead loaded with 288 so-called bomblets. These bomblets are ejected at a height of 1,000m above the targeted area. Upon impact, each bomblet explodes and releases 420 steel pellets. The lethal range of each pellet is ten metres. This means that each rocket releases around 120,000 pellets.

The maximum firing range is 50 kilometres and at this distance the weapon displays a targeting error of one kilometre in any direction.

The evidence shows that on the 2 nd and the 3 rd of May 1995 the M-87 Orkan was fired from the Vojnić area, near Slavsko Polje which is at the extreme of the weapon's range. The evidence shows that by virtue of its characteristics and the firing range in this specific instance, the M-87 Orkan was incapable of hitting specific targets. For these reasons, the Trial Chamber has found that the M-87 Orkan is an indiscriminate weapon, the use of which in densely populated civilian areas, such as Zagreb , will result in the infliction of severe casualties.

The Defence has argued that there were military targets in Zagreb at the time of the attacks on the 2 nd and the 3 rd of May 1995, including the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Defence, Zagreb airport, and the Presidential Palace. I n view of the characteristics of the M-87 Orkan, the Trial Chamber has found that the presence or otherwise of military targets in Zagreb is irrelevant. The Defence's argument has therefore been dismissed.

Martić was sentenced to 35 years for this and other crimes. Obviously a more precise weapon system that only targeted specific targets in an urban environment could provide a different judgment, however the ruling makes it pretty clear that any cluster munition that has a large dispersal targeting a populated area is very problematic, and that even the existence of valid military targets doesn't help.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Why not restrict the use of cluster bombs depending on how strong the enemy is ?

For example in a war with China will need no holds barred use of firepower to win. Use cluster bombs, tactical nukes or whatever it takes to win. On other hand dropping cluster bombs on populated areas of Iraq and Afganistan is a needless overkill that can maim innocent people for years to come. Appropriate level of force can win wars where everybit of advantage counts while sparing civilians in places like Iraq where the enemy is no match for occupation military forces.

It's needless overkill, so the US doesn't use cluster munitions in heavily populated areas. The current weapon of choice for air strikes in heavily populated areas is actually an artillery weapon, the unitary warhead GMLRS.

Um. We used cluster bombs on Baghdad, which certainly qualifies as a "heavily populated area".