US cluster bombs to be banned from UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/29/military.defence

The US will no longer be able to stockpile cluster bombs at its military bases in Britain under government proposals for an international ban on the controversial weapons, it emerged last night.

As diplomats from more than 100 states unanimously passed a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs around the world, it emerged that British ministers are prepared to go further.

The government has agreed to scrap the two types of cluster weapon in the armoury of British forces, but it will also ask the US to get rid of its cluster bombs based here, and it will no longer ask for a "phasing out" period for its newest cluster munition - the M73, which is attached to Apache attack helicopters.

Both this weapon and the M85 - an Israeli-designed artillery shell used by British forces during the 2003 invasion of southern Iraq - will now be scrapped as soon as possible. Cluster weapons scatter "bomblets" across a wide area. Many of them fail to explode, later killing and maiming civilians long after the weapons are fired.

sign on to.

cuz that might have been construed as critical of the Israelis' actions. The Israelis dumped thousands and thousands of these vicious "bomblets" across a wide swath of Lebanon, days before the already agreed to cease-fire.

Like the IWR vote, just stupid here and the cause of too much death and destruction elsewhere.

Cluster bombs are an effective weapon. If the problem is that not enough of the bomblets are going off, then call up the contractor and get better fuzes put in. A combination impact fuze/timer would work as well.

And kind of bomb that doesn't go off nearly all of the time is a flawed weapon and needs to be fixed. But I don't think the locals would feel any more appreciatative if instead of a couple of cluster bombs an F-18 laid down a string of a dozen 500-pound bombs instead.

bomb I'm sure the military would have that in the contract. However dropping a half dozen five hundred pound bombs and dropping a half dozen cluster bombs that disperses 1,000 bomblets is not even an argument. Let's say we have a failure rate of 10% on cluster bombs, which would be very low, we would still have 600 pieces of ordnance that would be unexploded. Now let's say the five hundred pound bomb has a failure rate of 50%, we would only have three unexploded pieces of ordnance.

What is more of a hazard to the population?
What is easier to clean up after military operations cease?
What is cheaper to clean up after military operations cease?

These are just some of the reasons we should get rid of the cluster bombs, but it is also,unfortunately, the reason we use them.

Considering how they run things now with the contractors.


But yes, unexploded ordinance is always a problem. However, there is a better solution than banning cluster bombs and artillery shells.

Whenever we fight, we have a choice to make about what weapons we use. In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, we have comple air dominance and artillery superiority. Our enemy is not manning flak guns, field artillery, nor do they have armored fighting vehicles or military convoys. Therefore, we can chose to use more concentrated weapons like 2.75" rockets, guided air-to-ground missiles, guided bombs, and unguided but computer-dropped bombs or artillery shells in place of cluster bombs.

With the situtation such as it is, the use of cluster bombs is a choice, not a necessity. We should retain the capability to use them, while at the same time sayings "now is not the time".

If 99 out of 100 countries ban any type of arms what is the reasoning to for the 1 country not to go along with such a ban? When the choice of weaponary has a long residual complication why use it at all? DU has a lot of benefit in the short term but the residual complications have a long term effect through the health of the soldiers and the remaining civilian population.

If 99 out of 100 countries ban any type of arms what is the reasoning to for the 1 country not to go along with such a ban? When the choice of weaponry has a long residual complication why use it at all? DU rounds have a lot of benefit in the short term but the residual complications have a long term effect through the health of the soldiers and the remaining civilian population who come into contact with it.

Tungsten. It costs more than depleted uranium but works just as well. What directly replaces cluster bombs?

There really isn't one that I can think of. Not napalm, not regular bombs, not fuel-air explosives.


I don't know. Maybe we can do high-altitude drops of tungsten penetrators that have five or six miles of altitude to pick up speed before slamming into the ground, but how fast can they ultimately go? High subsonic? That's the speed of a medium-powered pistol bullet like a .38. Not really associated with armor-piercing velocities.

I still think the double-fused bomblet with timer backup is a good idea, but we can also do something basic like putting little beeper powered by a button cell battery on every bomblet, that activates upon release from the main canister. If it doesn't go off, you can find it by the beeping so it can be easily destroyed from a distance.

I think what we need to do is make better bomblets and intelligently limit their use. War always leaves a deadly residue. :-(

For those who profit off of making land mines and other weapons of war, her death must have been welcome news.

I don't know much else of him, but these weapons kill civilians and children indiscriminately, long after wars end. He did a good thing.