Image Credit ©IRIN 2006-08-19.
Meanwhile Austria Banned Them, and Many Countries Consider Cluster Bombs "Immoral"
BBSNews 2007-12-25 -- Israel made a dubious declaration yesterday when it's military said it's use of cluster bombs was legal and not used against civilians. According to the New York Times the Israeli Army chief investigator Maj. Gen. Gershon Hacohen concluded, "the majority of the cluster munitions were fired at open and uninhabited areas, areas from which Hezbollah forces operated and in which no civilians were present."
This is course flies in the face of credulity. The United Nations and Human rights organizations have been vocal and united in condemning Israel's use of cluster bomb munitions during the Israeli War on Lebanon sparked by Israeli's operating near the South Lebanon border in 2006. The vast majority of which was dropped during the last 72 hours of the aggression when a settlement was clearly imminent. Many believe it was simply collective punishment to the civilians of Lebanon by Israel, and a prominent American Air Force University report has concluded much the same.
Although Israel was cleared by the United Nations in November 2006 of using depleted uranium in Lebanon during the 34 day war, the attacks did include white phosphorus mortar and artillery ammunition. Still, the "main obstacle" said the report, was the ongoing threat posed by thousands of unexploded bomblets from the massive amounts expended by Israeli forces during the last three days of the war on Lebanon. "the huge number of cluster bombs with a low detonation rate dropped by the IDF over the last days before the ceasefire as the main remaining problem to return to normal life in the affected regions."
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Lebanon. Israeli cluster bombs, like these ones lying outside Nabatiyeh, continue to kill civilians.
Image Credit ©IRIN 2006-08-19. |
Just the day before that report the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre (UNMACC) in southern Lebanon heavily criticized Israel's use of cluster bombs where a release with Annan's remarks also said that the density and number of cluster bombs in Lebanon by Israel was higher than both Iraq and Kosovo, especially near "built up" areas, Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan said:
"'I have repeatedly called upon States to comply fully with international humanitarian law,' Mr. Annan said. "In particular, I call on you to freeze the use of cluster munitions against military assets located in or near populated areas. At the same time, we should all remember that placing military assets in such areas is illegal under international humanitarian law.'I also urge you to freeze the transfer of those cluster munitions that are known to be inaccurate and unreliable, and to dispose of them. And I challenge you to establish technical requirements for new weapons systems so that the risk they pose to civilian populations can be reduced.'"
In April 2007, new UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon agreed that the use of cluster bombs should be banned when he:
"...called on the international community to act immediately to address the horrendous humanitarian effects of cluster bombs, which scatter hundreds of smaller bombs, intended to detonate on impact, but of which a significant portion do not.
'These indiscriminately kill and maim civilians, just as easily and frequently as landmines do,' Mr. Ban noted, lauding the drive by a group of countries to create an international agreement to ban these weapons."
In May 2007 Human Rights Watch reported that 68 countries are calling for a total ban on cluster bomb munitions pointing out "Israel's use of cluster munitions in southern Lebanon in 2006 demonstrated the potential humanitarian disaster that accompanies cluster munition use."
Israel Holding Out on Unexploded Ordinance Maps Since Last Year
Since the Second Israeli War in Lebanon, the United Nations has sought detailed maps on where at least 350,000 unexploded bomblets might lie from Israel's extensive use of cluster bomb munitins, particularly during the last three days when a full cease-fire was at hand. In September 2006, "Dalya Farran, spokeswoman for the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre in the southern city of Tyre, said Israel had handed over some maps of cluster bomb strikes in Lebanon. 'But they're useless, they don't have any coordinates or legend,' she said by telephone from Tyre."
More than 30 people have been killed by left over "bomblets" after the 2006 second Israeli War on Lebanon and scores have been injured.
A Harsh Assessment by US Air Force air College Report
According to an article in Haaretz in assessing the value of "shock and awe" air campaigns, in particular the Second Lebanon War, William Arkin wrote "Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War," which was released by the U.S. Air Force Air University late this year and he offered a damning assessment of Israel's use of air power on Lebanon:
"In his assessment, the Israeli failure stems among other things from an obsession with everything related to censorship, field security and information control that even exceeds what the Americans do; this led to the data and information distributed being neither consistent nor accurate. But Hezbollah ran a well-oiled machine of information warfare.Arkin concluded, from visiting sites and the photos, that Israel bombed too many sites from the air and bombed the wrong targets. Potentially some of the bombing was appropriate, but Israel intentionally launched an air war whose aim was the punishment and destruction of the people and the government of Lebanon. That is a harsh determination.
"Perhaps Israel deluded itself into thinking that every house and every structure that was hit in South Lebanon and in Beirut was associated with Hezbollah, but the truth is that from a military perspective, the strikes are less impressive that what the war's planners and its commanders sought to achieve, and much more destructive from a political perspective."
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