LEGACY OF THE BOMBS
December 2001 752
Colgan: Twenty kilometres out of Kabul, another village, another field. A team from the British de-mining outfit Halo is on the hunt for the deadly legacy of the American air strikes.
23:30
Gannon: The villagers have been collecting them for us. Very nice of them. It's too dangerous to move them again.
Colgan: The Americans bombed here to pave the way for the Northern Alliance advance as the Taliban retreated, but long after the soldiers have gone the bombs remain. Each cluster bomb contains 202 individual bombs, with a failure rate of up to 30 per cent. There are thousands of these yellow cylinders lying around.
23:53
BOB GANNON: One of the children from the village had picked up one of the cluster munitions and threw it down the hill and they exploded down the bottom of the hill. Fortunately the child was up here and he wasn't injured, but had he thrown it on the same level as himself he would have been either seriously injured or dead.
24:14
Colgan: Had that same set of cluster bombs actually injured anybody else?
24:30
BOB GANNON: Yes, there's been a death just further up the road, another cluster strike.
24:34
Colgan: Children, adults, the de-miners themselves - the leftovers from the fighting are still claiming lives.
24:38
Two more young lives have been altered forever. On this day, 11-year-old Sharif and his friend 9-year-old Norodin. They were playing with an unexploded shell when it detonated. Both boys suffered horrendous injuries. Norodin's mother has been waiting outside. Long after the bombing has stopped, yet another family is shattered by this war.DR GINO STRADA: I think people should come here and see all the families that have been destroyed by this bombing campaign, families that in many instances were not even
24:49
Dr. Strada aware of what had happened two months before in New York.
25:30
Colgan: Emergency is an Italian non-government medical aid group. Dr Gino Strada and fellow surgeon Dr Marco Garatti, have been taking an average of five new cases of landmine or bomb injuries every day since the air strikes began. But in total they've had hundreds of war causalities.
25:34
Sharif survived the blast, but not intact.
DR MARCO GARATTI: It was a bad injury, because we lost one hand and he had a perforation of a colon, so he had an abdominal lesion, the hand is lost and he had a bad, bad fracture of tibia.
25:55
Colgan: When we talk about the loss of his limb, he's grief-stricken.
DR GINO STRADA: The majority of mine victims, once again, are children. That's why personally as a doctor, I feel that the use of these landmines as well as the use of cluster bombs, is nothing else but an act of terror, which in my opinion, is not very much different from those who kill civilians everywhere in the world. So this is another act of terror that doesn't repair the previous one, it just adds more sufferings and more killings and this is absolutely crazy, I think.
26:31
DR ROBERT CHANDLER: Those cluster bombs are used as a way for us to try and use technology as a substitute for people, otherwise we would have had to send a lot more people over there, we'd have a lot more dead Americans, we'd have a lot more dead allies as a result of it.
27:04
Colgan: Half a world away, retired air force colonel Robert Chandler maintains the United States has done everything in its power to minimise civilian casualties. 27:21
DR ROBERT CHANDLER: And it's been made possible by technology that gives precision strike capabilities and also the discipline of the special forces and the other military people that are in Afghanistan.
27:31
Colgan: It's not simply the bombing and ground fighting that has led to all these injuries. More than 20 years of war has indoctrinated Afghans with a sense of violence. Three of these women have been shot, caught in crossfire during fights between fellow Afghans.
27:44
DR MARCO GARATTI: I operated on one small child three days ago. He was 9 years old and he was trying to steal something probably, and he was shot with a Kalashnikov, a through and through bullet, complete disaster and he died. 28:00
Munition dump Colgan: Rockets, mortars, grenades, bombs, landmines - the debris left behind by this war is staggering. The United States has promised to send a military liaison officer to help the de-mining teams locate the unexploded ordinance, but for now, they're working in the dark.
28:22
YUSUF HASSAN: This is an enormous problem, because there are areas that are safe to return back in terms of the fighting, but are unsafe to return to because of the number of, the unknown number of unexploded ordinances that are scattered around. They litter the countryside.
28:43
Colgan: So at this point in time, how much do you know about how many bombs were dropped and where they were dropped?
YUSUF HASSAN: Absolutely nothing.
Colgan: Four million Afghans have fled to neighbouring countries during the years of civil war and another 1.4 million have run from the fighting of the last six months. They're now trying to return. There are parts of Kabul that haven't been just bombed, they've been decimated. Yet Afghans are already flocking back to their city of ruins, trying to find somewhere to live. In the past two weeks alone, more than 10,000 people have returned to Kabul.
29:09
Those who can't make it back to their homes are waiting in camps, many of them in the north where the fighting is still going on and winter has hit with a vengeance.YUSUF HASSAN: The health conditions have deteriorated
29:40
Yusuf Hassan: the numbers have increased, many people are sleeping out in the open and it's getting very, very cold. Children are already beginning to die because they're freezing to death, they're hungry and although assistance is now going in now, for some of the people who are in there, it is too late.
29:52
Colgan: While politicians talk of rebuilding the country, people's homes and fields must first be made safe. The de-mining teams will slowly but systematically try and clean up the hubris of war.
30:12
While the coalition talks of collateral damage and successful outcomes, children here will be taught how to survive until it's safe.
30:40
DR ROBERT CHANDLER: There may be areas that are with cluster bombs, there may be a large number of mines that were put into place by the Taliban. As in any war, there needs to be a major clean-up.
DR GINO STRADA: You know, it's always the same story. I'm sure that next time, somebody will go to the TV and explain the next war will be a war with no victims, a very intelligent war. I wish those who press the button have the same intelligence as the bombs, because to me they look even more stupid than the bombs.
31:02
Reporter: Jill Colgan
December 2001 752
Colgan: Twenty kilometres out of Kabul, another village, another field. A team from the British de-mining outfit Halo is on the hunt for the deadly legacy of the American air strikes.
23:30
Gannon: The villagers have been collecting them for us. Very nice of them. It's too dangerous to move them again.
Colgan: The Americans bombed here to pave the way for the Northern Alliance advance as the Taliban retreated, but long after the soldiers have gone the bombs remain. Each cluster bomb contains 202 individual bombs, with a failure rate of up to 30 per cent. There are thousands of these yellow cylinders lying around.
23:53
BOB GANNON: One of the children from the village had picked up one of the cluster munitions and threw it down the hill and they exploded down the bottom of the hill. Fortunately the child was up here and he wasn't injured, but had he thrown it on the same level as himself he would have been either seriously injured or dead.
24:14
Colgan: Had that same set of cluster bombs actually injured anybody else?
24:30
BOB GANNON: Yes, there's been a death just further up the road, another cluster strike.
24:34
Colgan: Children, adults, the de-miners themselves - the leftovers from the fighting are still claiming lives.
24:38
Two more young lives have been altered forever. On this day, 11-year-old Sharif and his friend 9-year-old Norodin. They were playing with an unexploded shell when it detonated. Both boys suffered horrendous injuries. Norodin's mother has been waiting outside. Long after the bombing has stopped, yet another family is shattered by this war.DR GINO STRADA: I think people should come here and see all the families that have been destroyed by this bombing campaign, families that in many instances were not even
24:49
Dr. Strada aware of what had happened two months before in New York.
25:30
Colgan: Emergency is an Italian non-government medical aid group. Dr Gino Strada and fellow surgeon Dr Marco Garatti, have been taking an average of five new cases of landmine or bomb injuries every day since the air strikes began. But in total they've had hundreds of war causalities.
25:34
Sharif survived the blast, but not intact.
DR MARCO GARATTI: It was a bad injury, because we lost one hand and he had a perforation of a colon, so he had an abdominal lesion, the hand is lost and he had a bad, bad fracture of tibia.
25:55
Colgan: When we talk about the loss of his limb, he's grief-stricken.
DR GINO STRADA: The majority of mine victims, once again, are children. That's why personally as a doctor, I feel that the use of these landmines as well as the use of cluster bombs, is nothing else but an act of terror, which in my opinion, is not very much different from those who kill civilians everywhere in the world. So this is another act of terror that doesn't repair the previous one, it just adds more sufferings and more killings and this is absolutely crazy, I think.
26:31
DR ROBERT CHANDLER: Those cluster bombs are used as a way for us to try and use technology as a substitute for people, otherwise we would have had to send a lot more people over there, we'd have a lot more dead Americans, we'd have a lot more dead allies as a result of it.
27:04
Colgan: Half a world away, retired air force colonel Robert Chandler maintains the United States has done everything in its power to minimise civilian casualties. 27:21
DR ROBERT CHANDLER: And it's been made possible by technology that gives precision strike capabilities and also the discipline of the special forces and the other military people that are in Afghanistan.
27:31
Colgan: It's not simply the bombing and ground fighting that has led to all these injuries. More than 20 years of war has indoctrinated Afghans with a sense of violence. Three of these women have been shot, caught in crossfire during fights between fellow Afghans.
27:44
DR MARCO GARATTI: I operated on one small child three days ago. He was 9 years old and he was trying to steal something probably, and he was shot with a Kalashnikov, a through and through bullet, complete disaster and he died. 28:00
Munition dump Colgan: Rockets, mortars, grenades, bombs, landmines - the debris left behind by this war is staggering. The United States has promised to send a military liaison officer to help the de-mining teams locate the unexploded ordinance, but for now, they're working in the dark.
28:22
YUSUF HASSAN: This is an enormous problem, because there are areas that are safe to return back in terms of the fighting, but are unsafe to return to because of the number of, the unknown number of unexploded ordinances that are scattered around. They litter the countryside.
28:43
Colgan: So at this point in time, how much do you know about how many bombs were dropped and where they were dropped?
YUSUF HASSAN: Absolutely nothing.
Colgan: Four million Afghans have fled to neighbouring countries during the years of civil war and another 1.4 million have run from the fighting of the last six months. They're now trying to return. There are parts of Kabul that haven't been just bombed, they've been decimated. Yet Afghans are already flocking back to their city of ruins, trying to find somewhere to live. In the past two weeks alone, more than 10,000 people have returned to Kabul.
29:09
Those who can't make it back to their homes are waiting in camps, many of them in the north where the fighting is still going on and winter has hit with a vengeance.YUSUF HASSAN: The health conditions have deteriorated
29:40
Yusuf Hassan: the numbers have increased, many people are sleeping out in the open and it's getting very, very cold. Children are already beginning to die because they're freezing to death, they're hungry and although assistance is now going in now, for some of the people who are in there, it is too late.
29:52
Colgan: While politicians talk of rebuilding the country, people's homes and fields must first be made safe. The de-mining teams will slowly but systematically try and clean up the hubris of war.
30:12
While the coalition talks of collateral damage and successful outcomes, children here will be taught how to survive until it's safe.
30:40
DR ROBERT CHANDLER: There may be areas that are with cluster bombs, there may be a large number of mines that were put into place by the Taliban. As in any war, there needs to be a major clean-up.
DR GINO STRADA: You know, it's always the same story. I'm sure that next time, somebody will go to the TV and explain the next war will be a war with no victims, a very intelligent war. I wish those who press the button have the same intelligence as the bombs, because to me they look even more stupid than the bombs.
31:02
Reporter: Jill Colgan