Australian responsibility: cluster bomb carnage in Iraq

The daily Australian Defence Force briefings given to journalists during the invasion clearly state that the RAAF Hornets were giving direct air support to US ground forces along the battle route north to Baghdad. ADF media briefings on April 1 and April 4 are typical:

April 1: [Journalist] QUESTION: And the bombing on the outskirts, are we involved in the battle for Baghdad now?

GENERAL [ADF CHIEF PETER] COSGROVE: Well, we are, because we're supporting the forces which are directly confronting Iraqi divisions on the outskirts of Baghdad. We're supporting those forces. So, yes, the bombing missions our planes are doing are directly in support of military operations designed to step right up to Baghdad' [9].

And April 4: BRIGADIER MIKE HANNAN: 'Now the issue with them [Hornets] is that they've been flying in that southern area of Iraq supporting the Coalition forces that are fighting in that area and attacking those, particularly those Republican Guard, and other Iraqi forces operating in the south' [10].

In this area of Iraq, on the outskirts of Baghdad where the Hornets were providing direct support to US troops on the ground, scores of civilians were killed by cluster bomb munitions fired primarily by US ground troops. On 31 March, 48 people were killed, including many children, and more than 300 injured in a cluster bomb attack at al Hilla (also spelled Hillah, Hilya), 80 kilometres south of Baghdad. At least 250 Iraqis were killed and 500 wounded over 17 days from late March, most the victims of cluster bombs [11].

Roland Hugenin-Benjamin, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Iraq, described what happened in Hilla as 'a horror, dozens of severed bodies and scattered limbs' [11]. UK journalist Anton Antonowicz reported from a Hillah hospital:

Among the 168 patients I counted, not one was being treated for bullet wounds. All of them, men, women, children, bore the wounds of bomb shrapnel. It peppered their bodies. Blackened the skin. Smashed heads. Tore limbs. A doctor reported that 'All the injuries you see were caused by cluster bombs...The majority of the victims were children who died because they were outside' [12].