Cluster bombs worse than landmines
'Cluster bombs, designed to wreak destruction on concentrations of troops, each contain around 200 smaller bomblets which are dispersed on impact. In the Kosovo conflict between 7% and 11% of NATO bomblets failed to detonate.

"Analysis of the effects of cluster bombs from the 1991 Gulf, Kosovo and Afghanistan [conflicts] shows that unexploded bomblets cause even more post-conflict deaths among civilians, especially children, than landmines," the charities say. "In the immediate post-conflict period [in Kuwait] there were 1,348 injuries from explosive remnants of war compared with 531 mine-related injuries." By the end of 2002, nearly 2,000 people had been killed or injured by exploding bombs which had been accidentally triggered by Kuwaitis.'

In all the hysteria over Iraq's more-or-less non-existent 'weapons of mass destruction' it needs to be remembered that an array of 'conventional' weapons that will be used in the war on Iraq have real devastating power: cluster bombs, landmines, carpet bombing, depleted uranium, riot gas, artillery barrage, daisy cutters, fuel air explosivesm, water and power infrastructure demolition etc etc.

Cluster bombs worse than landmines
'Cluster bombs, designed to wreak destruction on concentrations of troops, each contain around 200 smaller bomblets which are dispersed on impact. In the Kosovo conflict between 7% and 11% of NATO bomblets failed to detonate.

"Analysis of the effects of cluster bombs from the 1991 Gulf, Kosovo and Afghanistan [conflicts] shows that unexploded bomblets cause even more post-conflict deaths among civilians, especially children, than landmines," the charities say. "In the immediate post-conflict period [in Kuwait] there were 1,348 injuries from explosive remnants of war compared with 531 mine-related injuries." By the end of 2002, nearly 2,000 people had been killed or injured by exploding bombs which had been accidentally triggered by Kuwaitis.'

In all the hysteria over Iraq's more-or-less non-existent 'weapons of mass destruction' it needs to be remembered that an array of 'conventional' weapons that will be used in the war on Iraq have real devastating power: cluster bombs, landmines, carpet bombing, depleted uranium, riot gas, artillery barrage, daisy cutters, fuel air explosivesm, water and power infrastructure demolition etc etc.