AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined on the telephone from northern Iraq by Sean Sutton of the Mines Advisory Group. Mines and unexploded munitions have killed 52 people and injured 63 in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk over the past — well, just the last week. The Daily Mirror of London is reporting most of the victims are children. Iraq is being reminded once again that long after the combat fighting ends, the killing continues. Over the past week, the mine-clearing charity Mines Advisory Group has removed 30 truckloads of explosives — that is, 11,000 mines, plus 200,000 bombs and missiles. But it’s estimated that 10 million mines remain lying in Iraq over the past war-torn decade.

Sean Sutton, can you tell us where you are?

SEAN SUTTON: I’m presently just on the outskirts of Kirkuk.

AMY GOODMAN: Describe the geography in terms of landmines.

SEAN SUTTON: Well, there is a widespread problem. We’ve still yet to find out exactly what areas are contaminated. But we can pretty much gather that wherever there’s former military positions, there will be protected minefield belts. And so, that’s just about all the cities in the sort of the northern area where we’re working. In that sort of Kifri, Kirkuk, Mosul areas, there is a vast landmine problem. That’s unquestionable.

AMY GOODMAN: During the bombing, we were doing a number of pieces on, for example, Hillah, where cluster bombs — where the U.S. military had dropped cluster bombs. When those cluster bombs go unexploded, are they, in a sense, landmines also?

SEAN SUTTON: Well, they’re actually quite different in the sense that landmines are designed to be victim-activated. Cluster bombs, like other unexploded ordnance, is a problem because of their failure to detonate as planned, but they are particularly sensitive, which is why there’s such a stigma attached to the weapon. And they have been used widely, especially around Mosul. And our teams are, as we speak, clearing cluster bombs of a variety of kinds.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe what a landmine looks like, what a cluster bomb looks like? How can people right now know where they’re walking and where they are?

SEAN SUTTON: Well, the cluster bombs, one of the most common ones is a bright yellow cylindrical container, sort of canister about the size of a sort of packet of biscuits, with a small parachute attached. And the problem with those, with their bright colors, is that they can often be quite attractive to children. You also get smaller, sort of bright, sort of silver-colored ones and sort of larger disk-shaped cluster bombs.

Landmines, there’s quite a variety. There’s sort of bounding fragmentation mines, which are sort of quite large with a sort of spiked top. And then there’s some different pressure mines for anti-personnel and the larger ones for anti-tank. But, obviously, these you don’t usually see. They sort of lie under the ground. But we’ve got teams going out all over the place that are sort of making people aware of the dangers and certain indications that would suggest that the area might be mined, such as near a military position, dead animals. There’s also mine marking signs, which we put up, and also local signs, like piles of rocks, painted areas on the edge of the roads, that sort of thing. So, it’s really critical that the message gets out that some areas are potentially dangerous, and people should take necessary precautions.

But one of the biggest problems here is the vast amounts of unexploded ordnance that is in stockpiles in all the cities, certainly all the ones where we’re working in the north here. When the Iraqi government troops pulled back from areas, they brought back lots and lots of ordnance and prepared military positions around the outskirts, as well as inside the towns and cities. Then, when the war was over, the troops left and then left behind these vast amounts of unexploded bombs. And I’ve been — sort of spent the last 15 years in conflict and former conflict zones, and I’ve never seen anything like this. In the last week we’ve cleared, in Kirkuk alone, nearly half a million items.

And the thing is, children are picking these things up and prizing opens certain parts of them, particularly the boosters, and getting gunpowder and cordite, and making sort of big flashes for fun and genies. And that’s partly why the accident rate here is so high. As you’ve mentioned at the beginning, in Kirkuk alone, over a five-day period, there were 52 deaths and 62 — 63 injuries. And those are largely from children. And considering Kirkuk, about 15 people were killed in the war. It explains that sort of surviving the peace can be a lot more difficult and painful than actually surviving the war.

AMY GOODMAN: Sean Sutton is speaking to us from northern Iraq, near Kirkuk. He’s with the Mines Advisory Group, which is based in Britain. How does what you’re seeing in northern Iraq right now, both the landmines and the cluster bombs, the concentration of them, compare to places around the world?

SEAN SUTTON: It’s very extreme, certainly with the unexploded ordnance scenario. But that is — with the right resources, that’s relatively easy to deal with, with trained teams. It’s a matter of taking all the bombs away and blowing them up. At least you can see them and, through working with the community, find out where they are. But they are literally stockpiled in schools, in sort of open areas in the center of towns, in sort of government buildings, all over the place.

Then the next problem is the landmines, which is going to be a much more long-term problem as far as dealing with it and providing the solutions. And really, we have to prioritize the work. We can’t clear all the landmines, but we can certainly clear the areas that are most needed by communities as they sort of come back and start to farm their land. But the big deal, as far as this is concerned, is resources being made available to do this crucial work. And at present, they simply aren’t.

AMY GOODMAN: What companies make landmines? What companies make cluster bombs?

SEAN SUTTON: Sorry?

AMY GOODMAN: What companies make landmines and cluster bombs?

SEAN SUTTON: Well, the cluster bombs that are here are dropped by — the ones in the north here that I’ve come across are all U.S. cluster bombs. In the southern areas, I think British forces have also dropped cluster bombs. They are comparatively — compared to landmines, they’re much easier to deal with, with the right training, because you can see them and find them on the surface. And you basically blow them up where you find them.

The landmines are made in former Soviet Union countries, China, all over the world, in fact. There’s also ones from former — other former Eastern Bloc countries.

AMY GOODMAN: Paul McCartney has called for a ban on cluster bombs. He is releasing a new album with David Bowie, Cat Stevens and other artists. All the profits will go to aiding charities that help children in Iraq. How significant is that, when a celebrity of the stature of McCartney does this?

SEAN SUTTON: I think it’s significant. I think that the focus should very much be on getting rid of these things and clearing them up. I think that, certainly, MAG’s position on this, on the legal issue of the use of cluster bombs, is very much along the lines with the International Red Cross, which is that there should be a moratorium on the use of them. They should only be used for particular military targets away from habited areas. It’s very difficult to actually ban cluster bombs, because they’re a very effective weapon, unfortunately. But the problem is that they do fail, that all weapons fail, and all weapons are a problem after war.

AMY GOODMAN: Who’s stopping the ban of the —

SEAN SUTTON: I would say that we should ban cluster bombs.

AMY GOODMAN: Who’s stopping the ban of the bomb —

SEAN SUTTON: I’m sorry?

AMY GOODMAN: Who is stopping the ban of the bombs, or a moratorium on the bombs?

SEAN SUTTON: Well, no one is stopping that. That’s actually happened and is going through, as far as international law is concerned. I think that forces have tried to sort of minimize their use. Those early days, for organizations like us, as far as finding out how much they’ve been used — so far, I have seen one village that was hit, that was a frontline position. And the people returned home to find cluster bombs littering their gardens and their houses partly destroyed. But it had been a military position. Most of the other areas, in fact, all the other areas, are in quite remote parts where there’s military positions.

I wouldn’t advocate their use, but I think that, legally, it would be a very difficult thing to do to ban cluster bombs, as opposed to landmines, which are fundamentally different in that landmines are designed to be activated by their victim. Cluster bombs are not designed to be that, to do that. So, I would also say, if you’re going to advocate — if you’re going to ban cluster bombs, I’d also ban all the other weapons that are causing all the problems here. Most of the problems here are being caused by unexploded rockets, grenades, mortars and tank shells. Cluster bombs are certainly a problem, but they’re a small part of the overall problem.

AMY GOODMAN: We are talking to Sean Sutton of the Mines Advisory Group. He’s in northern Iraq. Kathy Kelly, on the line with us, she has just come out of Iraq, and she’s in Amman, Jordan. Kathy, as you listen to Sean’s description, do you have final thoughts, as you come out of Iraq now, after seven, eight months there?

KATHY KELLY: Well, again, I want to stress that a generation of Iraqi children has been betrayed and failed by very powerfully elites all around the world. And I know that the peace movement, the antiwar movement came close to approaching the critical mass that so many of us have dreamed of, have envisioned, as a way to stop and deter the buildup, the use or the storage of weapons. And so, I hope that Sean’s vision that the — not only the cluster bombs, but the rockets, the mortars, the tanks, all of the ways that people think change can be accomplished through resorting to force rather than resorting to diplomacy and negotiation and peacemaking — I hope that that dream and that vision won’t also be a casualty of this war. It’s my hope that the antiwar movement will regroup and recommit. And, you know, Dellinger, David Dellinger, once said, quoting a friend, that “If what you propose will take a thousand years to accomplish, that’s all the more reason to begin this afternoon.”

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy, you have spent much of the last, well, years since the Gulf War, decade, going back and forth to Iraq, challenging the U.N.-U.S. sanctions. You stayed there through the bombing. What are your plans now?

KATHY KELLY: Well, we certainly won’t walk away from an effort to continue to be voices on behalf of Iraqi people. Ramzi Kysia and Cynthia Banas are in Iraq right now to be joined by three team members who will come in through Amman tonight. And yet, I think, in the United States, we in the Voices network want very, very much to commit ourselves also within the United States to confronting the war machine and to finding ways to do that that have to do with our everyday lifestyles. You know, as long as we think that our overconsumptive and wasteful lifestyles should be protected by
a murderous means of warmaking, then I think we won’t be able to approach establishing the conditions that would allow for justice and peace. So we have a lot of thinking to do, a lot of education and outreach. Certainly, we need to continue to develop a focus always in parallel with concerns of average and ordinary Iraqis. But we’re looking to that antiwar movement to remain galvanized.

AMY GOODMAN: And to those who say, “But Saddam Hussein has been toppled, a man who has killed thousands of his own people,” your response?

KATHY KELLY: Yes, he was toppled, but we cannot let history become eclipsed. He was put in place through powerful forces that included U.S. interests. He was maintained through the arduous years of oppression and ruthless
mob kind of activity. He was maintained, I believe, because the United States wanted him just where he was, crippled externally and strengthened internally.

And I think that we have to hold up the mirror and look at ourselves in that mirror as being people who had no problem accepting the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. Anytime that we feel dismay and a sense of bewilderment because of the looting and the thieving and the outbreak of mindless destruction that occurred immediately following the U.S. occupation and the crumbling of the regime of Saddam Hussein, I think that that same kind of mindless destruction goes on every day in our society. When you look at the way we treat our planet, environmentally, we don’t think twice about bringing the planet into ruination. And I think that the same lack — utter lack of concern for innocent human lives characterized U.S. policy all throughout the miserable decades since Saddam Hussein came into power.

AMY GOODMAN: Kathy Kelly, thank you very much for being with us, speaking from Amman —

KATHY KELLY: Thanks, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: — just out of Iraq. Look forward to seeing you when you come back to the United States. She is the founder of Voices in the Wilderness. You’re listening to Democracy Now! When we come back, the use of animals by the military. Stay with us.