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| What
Is A Cluster Bomb? |
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WASHINGTON
- May 17 - The Pentagon has acknowledged using cluster bombs in the air war against
Yugoslavia. Some researchers are condemning the use of this weapon. Among those
available for interviews are:
KEVIN KAVANAUGH, kpk@fas.org, http://www.fas.org
A research scientist specializing in defense affairs at the Federation of American
Scientists, Kavanaugh said: "Cluster bomb units -- CBU-87/B, combined effects
munitions, are 1,000-pound deadly munitions that break into 202 bomblets, and
each bomblet fractures into 300 fragments of steel. It covers a football field,
it can turn an apple orchard into apple sauce -- or people into hamburger. It's
used against ‘soft targets,' meaning troops and [other] people, though it can
go through light armor to a certain point... Unexploded munitions are also a concern,
the bomblets are yellow, with a little white umbrella, they're very attractive
to children. That's one more reason to oppose their use."
MICHAEL KLARE, mklare@hampshire.edu
Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Massachusetts
and author of Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws, Klare said: "Demonstrating the
poverty of the NATO strategy in the Balkans is the use of Vietnam-era cluster
bomb weapons which are sure to produce high levels of civilian casualties because
of their inherent nature —- that is, as anti-personnel weapons. So much for a
surgical air war."
STEVE GOOSE, gooses@hrw.org, http://www.hrw.org
Program director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch, Goose said: "The
submunitions inside cluster bombs have a high failure rate and can leave unexploded
ordnance across wide areas, ready to detonate on contact, in effect becoming landmines
and killing civilians even years after the conflict has ended. Because of the
submunitions' appearance— some are orange-yellow soda-can sized objects -— children
are particularly drawn to the volatile live remnants. On April 24, five children
playing with colorful unexploded submunitions were reported killed, and two injured,
near Doganovic in southern Kosovo. We condemn their use. NATO should stop using
them immediately."
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