UN denounces Israel cluster bombs
The UN's humanitarian chief has accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of cluster bombs in Lebanon.
UN clearance experts had so far found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites, Jan Egeland said.
Israel has repeated its previous insistence that munitions it uses in conflict comply with international law.
100,000 bomblets? So far? How many bomblets are in a bomb? How many bombs can Israeli fighter jets deliver? How many sorties would be required if every single bomb and bomblet failed to explode?
This story is begging to be exposed.
From the Federation of America Scientists:
CBU-87/B Combined Effects Munitions (CEM)
BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bomb (CEB)
The CBU-87 is a 1,000-pound, Combined Effects Munition (CEM) for attacking soft target areas with detonating bomblets. The CBU-87 CEM, an all-purpose, air-delivered cluster weapons system, consists of a SW-65 Tactical Munitions Dispenser (TMD) with an optional FZU-39 proximity sensor. The BLU-97/B Combined Effects Bomb (CEB), effective against armor, personnel and material, contains a shaped charge, scored steel casing and zirconium ring for anti-armor, fragmentation and incendiary capability. The bomblet case is made of scored steel designed to break into approximately 300 preformed ingrain fragments for defeating light armor and personnel. A total of 202 of these bomblets are loaded in each dispenser enabling a single payload attack against a variety and wide area coverage. The footprint for the CBU-87 is approximatel 200 meters by 400 meters. The body of the submunition is cylindrical in shape, approximately 20 centimeters long, and has a 6 centimeter diameter. It is bright yellow when new.
During Desert Storm the US Air Force dropped 10,035 CBU-87s. During Allied Force the
US dropped about 1,100 cluster bombs, and most of these were CBU-87s. The dud rate for a standard cluster was approximately five percent.
So 202 bomblets per bomb and a 5% dud rate. 100,000 bomblets found.
My calcs tell me the Israeli's would have to have dropped 9900+ CBU-87s. I don't think so.
2 comments:
Good work, Whit!
This is a reminder that we're still losing the propaganda war. Whether its faked photos, or a journalist's writings that contain no facts; its hard to get the truth out against such a deluge.
It was pointed out to me that artillery probably delivered most of these little bombs. Okay:
Artillery rounds deliver 82 bomblets per round and have a 14% failure rate.
100,000 bomblets discovered as of 8/31
If 100,000 represent 14% of total fired rounds then 100%=8711 rounds fired.
Taking 21 days as the duration of firing time, we extrapolate that 415 rounds per hour or one round was fired every 3.47 minutes.
If you stretch the duration period to 24 days, that means that one round was fired every 4 minutes.
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