Web Exclusives | Editor Matthew Rothschild | The Progressive magazine
Something awful happened in Hilla this week, a town one hour south of Baghdad. U.S. attacks hit a bus and several homes, killing 52 civilians and injuring 240 more, the chief of surgery at the hospital in Hilla told the Times.

Here is a section from that April 3 Times report, by Tyler Hicks with John F. Burns: "Reporters had no difficulty confirming that there had been scores of civilian casualties-the dead evident in the procession of coffins, and in the torn and twisted bodies that overcrowded the shelves of the large refrigerator in the hospital's front garden, the wounded filling every ward, many of them eager to give their account of how they had come under American fire."

The Times reported that some of the ordnance apparently included a cluster bomb.

Human Rights Watch confirms that "U.S. ground forces in Iraq are using cluster munitions," and it condemns their use. The group says they have a "very high failure rate," which creates "immediate and long-term dangers for civilians and friendly soldiers. . . When these munitions fail to explode on impact as designed, they become hazardous explosive 'duds,' functioning like volatile, indiscriminate anti-personnel mines."
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