Thursday 10 December 2009

HRW: US cluster bombs threaten Iraqi lives

Link
Posted by realistic bird under Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , |

Thu, 10 Dec 2009, Press TV
The Human Rights Watch has raised alarm over the cluster ammunitions left strewn all over Iraq by the US-led coalition forces attacks during the Persian Gulf wars.
The organization says during 1991 and 2003, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom dropped over 61,000 cluster bombs on Iraqi soil.
The rights group adds the shocking extent of unexploded cluster bombs, dropped by coalition planes in Iraq, shows the vast area of the country is at danger from cluster bombs lying in cities, farmland and on the main arteries across the country.
Experts in clearing conflict zones of unexploded bombs say that millions of Iraqi adults and children are at risk, along with humanitarian aid workers, United Nations workers, and military personnel.
In 2003 alone, the US and UK used nearly 13,000 rounds of cluster bombs containing an estimated two million sub-munitions during three weeks of major combat. The new revelation raises fresh questions for former US president George Bush and ex British primer Tony Blair, who insisted that post-conflict Iraq would be a safer place than it was under Saddam Hussein.
Aid agencies say that hundreds of Iraqi civilians have already been maimed after touching the unexploded cluster bombs. The victims are often young children scavenging for the valuable metal that encases the explosives.
Some 103 countries have already signed a convention on banning the use of cluster bombs, but Washington is not yet a signatory.
The need for an international ban has become particularly evident after Israel’s war against Lebanon in 2006. The Israeli military is believed to have left a huge number of cluster munitions in the region which continue to kill and maim scores of civilians every year.

No comments: