[it's finally in the mainstream US press] today's papers Soft Money Shuffle By Brian Montopoli Posted Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003, at 1:25 AM PT
USA Today goes above-the-fold with a story, four months in the making, which heavily criticizes the U.S. military for going to war "with stockpiles of weapons known to endanger civilians and its own soldiers." The weapons in question are cluster bombs, and the piece details how unexploded "bomblets"--large quantities of small explosives that are packed into bombs, rockets or artillery shells--often end up scattered on city streets, where they can be, and often are, inadvertently detonated. The U.S. military used more than 10,000 cluster bombs during the war, killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians. Unexploded bomblets have also killed or injured at least eight U.S. troops.
