Claims by the military that “smart” weapons are precision instruments that allow the waging of war with little risk to civilians are “totally absurd,” said Dominick Jenkins, a research affiliate at Cambridge University. He was speaking at a meeting in London last week convened by the Royal Society of Medicine’s catastrophes and conflict forum.
Although new discriminating weapons can be deployed within minutes from remote sites, their effectiveness and safety with respect to “collateral damage” depends entirely on the quality of intelligence and communication that underpins the decision to use them, the forum heard.
War waged at a distance increased the risk of mistakes, said Michael Clark, director of the International Policy Institute at King’s College, London, and raised questions about who takes legal and moral responsibility for its conduct.
Smart weapons have made war safer for the military but have put civilians at greater risk, said Richard Moyes, policy and research manager of Landmine Action. Health professionals and humanitarian organisations play a vital part in documenting war’s effects on health, in addition to exercising their professional skills, speakers emphasised.
Their impartial voice carries weight among the public and politicians, Mr Moyes said, as shown by the Lancet 's report of 100 000 excess civilian deaths in Iraq after the 2003 allied invasion (2004;364:1857–64) and Medact’s reports on the conflict’s longer term effects on health (www.medact.org).
The danger posed to civilians by cluster bombs was of particular concern. These bombs consist of a container full of smaller bombs that are released and scattered over a large area, breaking into fragments (submunitions).
Reports from non–governmental organisations such as Human Rights Watch have drawn attention to the devastating effect on civilians of the use of cluster bombs against military targets in urban areas, such as at Hilla in Iraq, where homes in the Nadir area were hit. No systematic attempt has been made, however, to count the number of immediate deaths and injuries in areas affected by this sort of bombing, the meeting heard. Similarly there has been no evaluation of the damage inflicted in areas littered by unexploded submunitions.
Estimates of the percentage of submunitions that fail to explode are largely carried out by the manufacturers, and their estimate of around 5% may be inaccurate. The extensive clean up operation in the Falklands Islands showed a failure rate of 10%, but some non–governmental organisations put the figure as high as 40%. Although these unexploded bombs are less dangerous than landmines, the danger they pose is still considerable, in particular to children who play with them.
Cluster bombs are not covered by the 1999 Ottawa Convention, which prohibits the use of landmines. The only legal constraint against their use, said Mr Moyes, was a vague prohibition under existing humanitarian law on any attack in which the damage to the civilian population outweighs any potential military advantage.
“Ultimately, it is the military that makes this judgment,” he said. The former UK defence secretary Geoff Hoon said that in Iraq the “right balance” had been struck between the two aspects.
The laws governing action in hostilities and armed conflict should be strengthened to deal specifically with cluster bombs, Mr Moyes said. One option would be to ban all devices that do not have a self neutralising capacity and to ban all use of cluster bombs in urban areas. Even if an outright ban was impossible, there should be an obligation on forces deploying cluster bombs to remove unexploded bombs quickly and warn people of the risks, he said.
The forum also considered the risk to civilians from the deployment of the new generation of nuclear weapons. The lack of agreement last May to extend the Nuclear Non–Proliferation Treaty (Medicine Conflict and Survival 21;274–82) and Iran’s intention to develop its nuclear technology has provoked widespread concern, it heard.
President Jacques Chirac’s threat last week of nuclear retaliation by France in response to state sponsored terrorism has increased concern and has “thrown into light Western hypocrisy over who should be allowed nuclear technologies,” said Dr Jenkins. “Although the West feels comfortable projecting nuclear force into the Middle East and China via Trident, we seem unable to countenance the boot being on the other foot.” A transcript of the meeting is available at.
