Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald. A legal expert at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva said the use of napalm or fuel air bombs was not illegal "per se" because the US was not a signatory to the 1980 weapons convention which prohibits and restricts certain weapons. "But the US has to apply the basic principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and take all precautions to protect civilians. In the case of napalm and fuel air bombs, these are special precautions because these are area weapons, not specific weapons," said Dominique Loye, the committee's adviser on weapons and IHL.
Коалиция использует снаряды с урановой начинкой 23.03.2003 [18:17]
В ходе обстрела Басры на юге Ирака американо-британская коалиция использовала снаряды, начиненные обедненным ураном, передает IRNA со ссылкой на иракские источники. Снаряды с урановой начинкой применялась против танков Т-72 советского производства. Боеприпасы с малообогащенным ураном использовались также антииракской коалицией против армии Багдада в ходе операции "Буря в пустыне". Сейчас в ряде стран расследуются утверждения о том, что эти снаряды стали причиной возникновения "балканского синдрома", в частности заболевания военнослужащих лейкемией.
Источник: сайт РБК
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER! ЗНАНИЕ - СИЛА!
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CANBERRA - An Australian FA/18 Hornet pilot has refused an American command to bomb a target in Iraq in the first conflict between the different rules governing the way the two allies make war. ...
"The crew's decision reflects the ADF's strong commitment to the laws of armed conflict and its support of the Government's targeting policy, right down to the lowest levels."
The rules under which Australians are fighting in Iraq are governed by Australian and international law, the 1949 Geneva Convention, and additional 1977 protocols that the US has not signed. A range of weapons in the American arsenal - such as landmines and cluster bombs - are banned by Australia, and Canberra has emphasised that its forces will refuse to attack civilian targets, including key bridges, dams and other vital infrastructure of the kind bombed by the US in the 1991 Gulf War.
... Brigadier Hannan said the final choice of whether or not to attack was a decision made by "ordinary young Australians, often in a split second, that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives".
US ground forces in Iraq are using cluster munitions with a very high failure rate that create immediate and long-term dangers for civilians and soldiers, according to a human rights group.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that, when such munitions failed to explode on impact as designed, they became like volatile, indiscriminate anti-personnel landmines.
HRW argued that while the use of cluster munitions by US forces had not been confirmed by the military, it was evident from television images and stories from reporters embedded with US units that artillery projectiles and rockets containing large numbers of cluster munitions were being used.
"The United States should not be using these weapons," said Steve Goose, executive director of HRW's arms division.
"Iraqi civilians will be paying the price with their lives and limbs for many years."
