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Georgia Used Cluster Bombs in August War, Too (Updated)

Separating fact from fiction isn’t easy, in wartime. Take Human Rights Watch’s recent "discovery" that Russia used cluster bombs during its Georgia campaign. Much was made of this by some media types who took it as evidence for a black-and-white situation of evil Russians versus righteous Georgians. But it turns out the Russians were not […]

Georgia_cluster_2Separating fact from fiction isn't easy, in wartime. Take Human Rights Watch's recent "discovery" that Russia used cluster bombs during its Georgia campaign.

Much was made of this by some media types who took it as evidence for a black-and-white situation of evil Russians versus righteous Georgians. But it turns out the Russians were not the only ones using cluster bombs. Human Rights Watch is still sticking by its identification of Russian PTAB submunitions (pictured). But now, the group has issued a clarification on a second type of munition used in Georgia:

Human Rights Watch researchers in Shindisi on August 20 found unexploded cluster submunitions, commonly known as Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICMs), and initially identified them as Russian. However, those submunitions were later identified by the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment (NDRE), based on Human Rights Watch’s photographs, as M85 DPICMs, which have not been reported to be part of Russia’s arsenal.

The NDRE is a center of expertise on munitions which advises the Norwegian government. So if the offending bomblets weren't Russia's, whose were they? Not, seemingly, Georgia's:

On August 31, the government of Georgia informed Human Rights Watch that it had a stockpile of ground rocket-launched cluster munitions that have M85 submunitions. The Georgian government described them as being a different type of M85 submunition than those found by Human Rights Watch and stated that these were the only cluster munitions in the Georgian arsenal.

The M85 is manufactured by Israel and has a notably high failure rate, leaving dangerous unexploded bomblets, according to anti-mine organization No More Landmines:

In an area in Southern Lebanon 3 sample sites where M85s had been deployed were analysed and, rather than finding a failure rate of less than 1%, the three sites had failures of 9.6%, 11.5% and 12.2%.

That seemed to be about it, with both Russian and Georgian cluster bombs apparently found but denied. But the situation changed the next day, as another HRW press release revealed:

The Georgian government said it used cluster munitions during the August 2008 armed conflict with Russia, Human Rights Watch said today. In a letter to Human Rights Watch, the Georgian Defense Ministry stated that cluster rockets were “used against Russian military equipment and armament marching from Roki tunnel to Dzara road [sic],” but that they “were never used against civilians, civilian targets and civilian populated or nearby areas.”

Propaganda is an essential part of warfare, and portraying the other side as ruthless and inhumane while denying any wrongdoing by your own side is pretty routine stuff for modern "Information Warriors," as they like to style themselves. While the Georgians are admitting to attacks on military targets, they're not claiming those bomblets found in the village of Shindisi. Still, that's one step ahead of the Russians, who, according to HRW, aren’t admitting to using cluster bombs at all. Thousands of years after it was first noted by an ancient Greek dramatist, truth is still the first casualty of war.

UPDATE: Commenter Helena Cobban challenges the idea that the weapons shown above are Russian, referring to a site that claims:

"The diameter of the object in the photo is only roughly half the 325 mm diameter an RBU-250 has. The fin configuration of the debris HRW shows is inconsistent with a gravity bomb, but consistent with a tube launched missile like the ones used in Georgia's GRADAL system."

This is not the view of HRW or the NDRE, but clearly the argument is not over yet.

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