Free Republic

<p>WASHINGTON -- The US-led invasion of Iraq was one of the most humane military conflicts on record, although American and British forces could have avoided hundreds of civilian deaths if they had not used cluster bombs and if aircrews had relied on more-accurate bombing procedures, according to the first independent study of the war.</p>

NewsMax has obtained exclusive photographs proving that Iraq violated a U.N. Security Council ban on importing weapons. The photographs show a wide variety of imported weapons with production dates as recent as 2001. A U.S. military inspection team that visited an Iraqi air force munitions site in late September 2003 took the photographs. The site, located in the Suni triangle near Baghdad, has at least 13 concrete bunkers filled with missiles, bombs and bomb-fusing devices. U.S. military teams uncovered several examples of U.N. violations, including a number of French bomb fuses with a production date of "2001-Sep-5." The French-made...

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff defended the U.S. military's use of cluster bombs in Iraq, saying Friday that only 26 of the devices, which shower "bomblets" over a target, fell in civilian areas and that there was only one case of death or injury to a noncombatant. Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the nation's top military officer, did not provide details on that single case. His remarks came amid persistent reports from Baghdad that children and other civilians are being killed or maimed by bomblets that did not explode when they hit their initial targets but...

<p>BAGHDAD, Iraq  — Four U.S. soldiers on patrol were wounded Saturday when an Iraqi girl handed them an explosive and it blew up, American military officials said. They said they believed it was an accident.</p> <p>None of the injuries was life-threatening, said Col. Michael Linnington, commander of the 101st Airborne's 3rd Brigade, the wounded soldiers' unit.</p>

Iraq says US drops cluster bombs on Baghdad,14 die BAGHDAD, April 3 (Reuters) - Iraq's information minister accused U.S.-led forces of dropping cluster bombs on Baghdad on Thursday, killing 14 people and wounding 66. "This morning, these criminals dropped cluster bombs on the Douri residential area of Baghdad, and 14 people -- men, women and children -- were martyred and 66 were wounded," Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf told a news conference. U.S. and British commanders insist they would not drop cluster bombs, which are designed to kill troops over a wide area, in places where there are civilians present. 04/03/03 06:28...

<p>April 3, 2003 -- The U.S. Air Force unleashed a deadly new weapon during yesterday's onslaught against armored Republican Guard units - precision-guided cluster bombs that seek out and destroy dozens of combat vehicles in a single attack.</p> <p>B-52s carried six of the precision-guided bombs to the battlefield, where they were used to cut down a Republican Guard tank column as it advanced on approaching U.S. troops.</p>

US B-52s drop new cluster bombs on Iraqi tanks WASHINGTON, April 2 (Reuters) - U.S. B-52 bombers dropped six new precision-guided 1,000-pound (454 kg) "cluster" bombs on Wednesday on an Iraqi tank column defending Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The U.S. Central Command's air component command said the CBU-105 bombs, which each dispense a number of armor-destroying bomblets, were dropped for the first time ever "to stop an Iraqi tank column from continuing its route" toward American troops fighting the Iraqi Republican Guards. The release did not provide any battle damage assessment of the bombing in central Iraq or say...