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document.write("<marquee scrolldelay='75' scrollamount='5'> -------- December 16, 2002 - Despite a 1998 directive by then President Clinton to phase out the use of anti-personnel landmines by the armed forces everywhere but on the Korean peninsula by 2003, the Pentagon has decided to make their use available in the event of a war with Iraq.  Military experts say that landmines play a ``vital and essential role`` in battle by restricting where enemy combatants can move and in protecting US troops. Officially, the Pentagon says it only reserves the right to use landmines in necessary situations that may minimize the risk of casualties (in the military mind).  To prepare for a possible war with Baghdad, the U.S. has stockpiled landmines at bases in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and on the British owned island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The Bush administration has said the current policy, regarding landmines is under review, while the Defense and State Departments have openly clashed over its merits and drawbacks. If they are to be used in Iraq, it would further stoke international criticism of the subject. The EU, likely allies in the case of war, is vehemently opposed to their use and is party to the <font color=#FF0000><em>an international agreement signed by 146 nations banning their use</em>.  The United Nations estimates that between 15,000 and 20,000 people are killed or maimed worldwide each year as a result of landmines, and of those 80% are civilians and one-third are children</font>.  ---------- December 30, 2002 - Human Rights Watch has issued a report claiming that the US military violated international law in Afghanistan by indiscriminately dropping cluster bombs on populated areas and is pleading Washington to reconsider its use of them in the event of a war with Iraq. ``While US modifications in targeting and technology appear to have reduced the adverse humanitarian side effects of the cluster bombs used in Afghanistan to some degree,`` the HRW report says, ``the weapon still poses a danger to civilians in future conflicts because of its broad footprint, lack of accuracy, and high number of explosive duds left behind.`` Jim Wilkinson, a spokesman for the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida denied that the United States indiscriminately uses cluster bombs and <em>faulted</em> the Taliban and al Qaeda for conducting military operations in populated areas. He said the use of cluster bombs requires higher-level approval than the use of non-cluster munitions. He noted that the United States had dropped thousands of leaflets in Afghanistan warning civilians to stay away from the unexploded bomblets. <em>``The biggest casualty in this misleading report is the truth,``</em> Wilkinson said. <em>``The truth is, no military in the history of war has done more to protect the innocent than we have in Afghanistan. On many occasions, legitimate targets were bypassed because of potential collateral damage. The US restrained its force well beyond that required by the law of armed conflict.``</em> Dropped from an aircraft, a cluster bomb releases 202 bomblets at a preset altitude. The bomblets float down to the battlefield on tiny parachutes and detonate when they hit the ground, spraying an oval area as large as 400 feet by 800 feet with steel fragments designed to kill people, molten slugs that penetrate tanks and incendiary fragments that can burn through metal vehicles. HRW based its conclusions on Pentagon statistics and site visits at 250 locations in Afghanistan earlier this year. In the report entitled, <b><font color=#FF0000>``Fatally Flawed: Cluster Bombs and Their Use by the United States in Afghanistan,``</font></b> the group urged the Pentagon to stop using cluster bombs until the ``dud rate`` is reduced from more than 5 percent to less than 1 percent of bomblets. The group`s report said that the United States dropped 1,228 cluster bombs on Afghanistan -- 5 percent of the 26,000 bombs dropped between October 2001 and March 2002. <b>The cluster bombs contained 248,056 bomblets and it is estimated that at least 12,400 unexploded bomblets remain on the ground</b>....  </marquee>");
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