26 December 2001
Unexploded US Bombs Add to War Legacy
WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S.-led coalition strikes in Afghanistan (news - web
sites) are complicating the task of clearing the remnants of two decades of
conflict: unexploded bombs.
The Pentagon (news - web sites) has not said how many bombs it has dropped
on Afghanistan, but experts on unexploded ordnance estimate that besides
the array of dumb bombs and bunker-busters, coalition forces have dropped
600 cluster bombs.
About the size of a garbage can, each cluster bomb contains 202 mini-bomblets
designed to pierce light-armored vehicles, start fires and send shrapnel
flying in all directions. Some are duds.
``If you're a child in a country like this where there are no toys around,
you're going to throw rocks at one of these to see if it goes BANG!'' said
Paul Heslop, an expert on unexploded ordnance with The Halo Trust, a nonprofit
mine-clearing organization in Afghanistan.
When the bombing ends, several thousand unexploded cluster bomblets alone
will be left behind.
Dud rates are difficult to pinpoint, but if the experience during NATO
(news - web sites)'s 78-day bombing campaign in Kosovo is any indication,
5 percent of the bomblets will fail to explode when they land. That could
mean Afghanistan would be seeded with 6,000 unexploded cluster bomblets,
not counting other kinds of duds or the ordnance still littering the ground
from earlier battles.
Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the U.N. Mine Action Program in
Afghanistan estimated that leftover ordnance still contaminated nearly 300
square miles - an area roughly four times the size of the District of Columbia.
Last year, 1,114 people were killed or injured by mines or unexploded ordnance,
according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Making matters worse, the more than 2 million humanitarian food packets
dropped in the country are still bright yellow - the same color as unexploded
cluster bomblets - despite Defense Department plans to distinguish rations
from munitions.
``Children are children. They'll shoot their slingshot at them,'' said
Andrew Wilder, director of Afghanistan and Pakistan for Save the Children.
Wilder said an estimated 10 million land mines and pieces of unexploded
ordnance still need to be cleared from Afghanistan, roughly one for each
of the 10 million children who live there.
Some bomblets fail to explode because the arming mechanism malfunctions
in flight. A soft landing in the mud, snow or sand also could prevent detonation.
Stamping the ground, talking on a walkie-talkie nearby or hitting the bomblet
with a rock could be enough to detonate it.
``It depends on what they land on,'' explained Caleb Rossiter, defense
analyst for the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. ``These bomblets
are light like Coke cans and so at the last minute, a stiff wind could blow
them sideways. The nose won't hit the ground, and it's the impact of the
nose that makes it go off.'' The foundation and other groups argue that
they should be equipped with a backup feature, developed in past few years,
that causes boomlets to detonate even if they don't explode on impact.
The backup fuse is being discussed this week at the U.N. Convention on
Conventional Weapons in Geneva, and will be addressed at an upcoming congressional
hearing requested by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
``In Kosovo, more than 14,000 of our cluster bomblets - about 5 percent
- did not detonate,'' Leahy said. ``Those duuds have maimed or killed scores
of civilians. The Army has developed a reliable self-destruct fuse that
would have reduced that number of duds to under 500.''
Since the late 1980s, the United States has spent nearly $28 million on
ordnance cleanup in Afghanistan. In recent weeks, an additional $7 million
was approved, which includes $3 million for The Halo Trust.
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