Former defense official says IDF did not tell gov't of cluster bomb use during Lebanon war

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"A former Israeli defense official says the Israeli military used cluster bombs for two weeks during the 2006 Lebanon war without telling the Israeli government.

Hagai Alon, an adviser to then-Defense Minister Amir Peretz, says the
government only learned of the cluster bomb use when European countries raised the issue after the war. Alon spoke on Israel Radio on Saturday.

An Israeli inquiry into the war found that Israel did not violate
international law by dropping cluster bombs. But it raised questions about the army's use of the weapons, noting a lack of operational discipline, oversight and control.

"We recommend that on this matter there be a re-evaluation of the rules and principles that apply to the army in using cluster bombs," said the report, published in January.

Alon said that during the war, the government was not told by the military that it was using cluster bombs. "We didn't know, we weren't informed, that during the last two weeks, the (army) was using cluster bombs," Alon said, referring to the political leadership.

No one received permission for this. No one would have received permission for this, Alon added."

more

[bemildred]

1. An interesting development.

If true, this raises questions about whether the government really has command authority over the military.

If false, we have the government using the military as a scapegoat.

[azurnoir]

8. Has an Apocalypse Now feel about it

"just who's in charge here"?

[bemildred]

9. "Ain't you?"

LOL. Yeah, I can see that. Not home to the "reality based" community, any of it.

[peacetalksforall]

2. Didn't break any laws? There are no laws within Israel about

miilitary brass running the show? For God's sake!

[LeftishBrit]

3. Blimey...

Hard to say who's telling the truth here, and why it didn't emerge earlier. If this *is* true, there will be a lot of heads rolling.

Cluster bombs IMO are one of the most immoral weapons and should be banned everywhere.

[Scurrilous]

4. U.S. aims to reduce cluster bomb casualties

<snip>

"The U.S. military will continue to use cluster bombs but will try to reduce the number of civilian casualties by redesigning them so there are fewer ordnances that detonate long after the weapon is fired, officials said Wednesday.

The new policy requires that by 2018 the United States use only a new style of cluster bomb -- one with a 99 percent detonation rate for the hundreds of bomblets released from each of the scatter-style weapons.

A cluster bomb, when dropped from an aircraft or missile, releases hundreds of smaller explosives each the size of a grenade. When the bomblets detonate, they send shrapnel over an area about the size of a football field.

A number of the bomblets have remained undetonated until handled or stepped on by civilians -- often children. In 2006, the top United Nations aid official called Israel's use of cluster bombs in the last three days of that summer's war with Hezbollah "immoral."

The U.N. said that 100,000 deadly bomblets dropped in 2006 were still lying unexploded across areas of southern Lebanon, where they are maiming and killing people.

Under the new U.S. policy, cluster bombs in its arsenal will be destroyed if they don't meet the 99 percent requirement.

In addition, the Department of Defense will begin disposing of excess cluster bombs in its inventory "as soon as possible," according to a Pentagon statement released Wednesday.

The policy change comes as international pressure builds for a ban on cluster bombs."

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[azurnoir]

5. yeah sounds like

we'll kill 'em now, rather then later, the easier to claim they were all "combatants" that way part is silent.

Our military never fails to astound.

[number6]

6. cluster bombs are a terror weapon

:nuke: :nuke:

[bemildred]

7. Exactly. Sort of like aerial mines. nt

[LeftishBrit]

10. Yes. And yet they're still in use, and our countries used them in 2003. Sickening.

www.clusterbombs.org.uk

[subsuelo]

11. Suppose Hamas or Hezb used cluster bombs on Israeli neighborhoods

I can only imagine what U.S. politicians might be screaming endlessly about in front of the cameras.

But since the bombs were dropped on Lebanese people, what do we hear?

Not a word.