|
NEW YORK
- April 16 - The U.S. Central Command should respond publicly
to evidence that U.S. forces used cluster munitions in a populated
area of Baghdad, Human Rights Watch urged today.
According
to a report in yesterday’s Newsday, a Central Command spokeswoman
has anonymously confirmed that U.S. forces have hit urban areas
of Baghdad with cluster munitions, stating that they were aimed
at Iraqi artillery and missile systems located inside the city.
“U.S.
commanders should never use cluster munitions in populated areas,”
said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
“These are wholly inappropriate weapons when civilians
are around. The reported use of cluster munitions in Baghdad
is a serious charge and the Pentagon must respond publicly to
it.”
Newsday’s
reporter provided Human Rights Watch with a photograph he had
taken inside a building in what he described as a clearly residential
neighborhood well inside Baghdad. Human Rights Watch identified
an unexploded cluster submunition in the photograph from either
a ground-based Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) or an artillery
projectile. The damage to the surrounding walls and floor were
also consistent with a cluster munition strike. Human Rights
Watch has previously reported that, according to The Pentagon’s
own data, these particular submunitions have an especially high
failure rate.
Human Rights
Watch believes that the use of cluster munitions in populated
areas may violate the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks
contained in international humanitarian law. Despite the utility
of cluster munitions in achieving certain military objectives,
the wide dispersal pattern of their submunitions makes it very
difficult to avoid civilians if they are in the area. Moreover,
because of their high failure rate, cluster munitions leave
large numbers of hazardous, explosive duds to terrorize civilians
even after the attack is over.
The U.S.
Army and Marine Corps may be taking less care to avoid civilian
casualties with surface-delivered cluster munitions than the
U.S. Air Force with air-delivered cluster munitions, Human Rights
Watch said.
Human Rights
Watch conducted detailed analyses of the U.S. Air Force’s
use of cluster bombs in the 1999 Yugoslavia war and the 2001-2002
Afghanistan war. In Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force used cluster
bombs substantially less often in populated areas than they
had in Yugoslavia, and therefore caused far fewer civilian deaths
with cluster bombs.
“It
seemed that after Yugoslavia, U.S. commanders learned that cluster
munitions cannot be safely used in populated areas,” said
Roth. “The use of cluster munitions inside Baghdad represents
a disturbing step backwards – with deadly consequences.”
It is not
yet known if there were civilian casualties at the time of the
strike, but Newsday reported on several deaths and injuries
to children and others who encountered the explosive duds left
by the cluster munitions which failed to detonate on initial
impact as designed. The duds function as de facto antipersonnel
landmines.
This is
the first confirmed instance of U.S. use of cluster munitions
in Baghdad or other highly populated areas. There have been
many unconfirmed allegations of use of both air-dropped and
surface-delivered cluster munitions in urban areas by the United
States and the United Kingdom. Most notably, some press accounts
attributed the deaths of scores of civilians near the village
of Hilla in central Iraq on April 1 to U.S. cluster bombs, but
the facts have not been established.
In light
of its admission of use of cluster munitions, and the already
documented deaths and injuries to children and other non-combatants,
Human Rights Watch called on the United States to take responsibility
with the utmost urgency for assuring:
- the provision
of warnings and risk education to the civilian population;
- the clear
demarcation of affected areas in order to effectively exclude
civilians;
- the rapid
clearance of dangerous cluster munition duds.
“The
Pentagon is crowing about the Air Force sparing civilians by
using only precision weapons in Baghdad,” said Roth
###
|
