Attempts to clean up after last year's invasion are still continuing, writesLara Marlowe in Baghdad
The sound of gunfire patters across the fields near Baghdad airport; US soldiers doing target practice. Further away, there are other explosions, grenades or mortars in the Shia quarters where occupation forces are fighting with the followers of Sheikh Moqtada al-Sadr.
But here in the cluster bomb fields the atmosphere is one of quiet concentration as Iraqi teams, trained by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Help From Germany, painstakingly scour two 300,000 square metre plots, one metre at a time, for unexploded cluster bombs dropped during last year's invasion.
The unprecedented fighting in Baghdad has made 'Help's' Iraqi staff uneasy about their European bosses coming to work in four-wheel drive vehicles with big radio antennae; they could be mistaken for security contractors, like the four Americans who were lynched in Falluja last week.
'Help' is trying to restore some kind of normality to Iraq, even as the situation worsens. Like other NGOs, it keeps a distance from the occupying power. Most of its local staff were Iraqi army officers. "The first question our guys asked was: 'If the Americans say, 'There's something over there. Clear it for us,' do we have to do it?' The answer is no," says Frank McAreavey, 'Help's EOD (Explosives Ordnance Disposal) supervisor. "They don't want to be seen as US collaborators."
Mr McAreavey's father is from Whiterock Drive in Belfast, but he grew up in Germany, where he studied at the EOD school in Dresden. "We still have an unexploded ordnance problem in Germany, from the Second World War," he explains.
'Help' communicates with the US military through the Iraqi National Mine Action Authority. The NMAA estimates it will take 10 years to clear Iraq of unexploded ordnance.
Since late January, Mr McAreavey's teams have found 133 M43 cluster 'bomblets', 69 hand grenades and anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) shells and four rocket propelled grenades.
In a nearby plot started under the supervision of Frenchman Patrick Hirard this week, EOD specialists found two BLU 97 cluster bomblets in the first two hours. Each bomblet is lethal in a range of 100 metres.
Earlier, on the campus of Baghdad University, 'Help' found 400 AAA rounds and 50 RPGs. Unexploded ordnance provides the ingredients for the roadside bombs used against Coalition Forces. It's relatively easy to attach a fuse and detonator to an old artillery shell to make a bomb. To protect themselves, US forces are trying to cut supplies of the PE-4 explosives and detonators which 'Help' need to explode the cluster bombs they find. At the same time, 'Help' teams know they are vulnerable to attack by insurgents who would like to steal their equipment.
Though cluster bombs are banned for use against civilians, more than 1,000 civilians were killed or injured by the nearly 13,000 cluster bombs dropped by US and British forces last year, according to Human Rights Watch. The weapons often result in amputation wounds, and saturate their victims' bodies with tiny pieces of shrapnel. Each BU 97 bomb releases 202 bomblets. The M42 model contains 450 bomblets.
The cluster bomb fields which 'Help' is clearing in south Baghdad are in an agricultural zone, just a few hundred metres from civilian dwellings. "Usually 20 per cent don't explode," says Patrick Hirard. "Here the ground was soft and muddy, so an even higher percentage didn't go off." The BU 97 is especially dangerous, with three fuses and a white parachute and bright yellow container that attract children. In Afghanistan, children have mistaken the yellow containers for yellow food packages, also dropped by the Americans; 35 per cent of cluster bomb victims are under the age of five.
Since the war, cluster bombs have claimed three lives and maimed three other people in Mr McAreavey's M42 field alone. A farmer found one of the bomblets and tossed it into a ditch. Three of his small sons were killed when they threw stones at it.
Ahmad Sabri lives in a shack on the M42 field. His home was destroyed in last year's bombing. Then US soldiers asked him to guide them around the area, helping them to find unexploded cluster bombs. "One of the Americans was carrying a cluster bomb and it exploded," Sabri recalls. "He lost a leg and was wounded in the head. I lost my right arm. My neighbour Ali Talal lost his left eye." Mr Sabri says he agreed to help the Americans to protect his own children from the cluster bombs.
"The children were so shocked after I lost my arm that they barely leave the house to play now," he says. "I blame the Americans a little. They have satellites and smart bombs. They don't need to hurt civilians. I didn't ask for compensation for my arm. There are thousands of people queuing, and I couldn't face it." Norwegian People's Aid and Handicap International are also defusing unexploded ordnance in Iraq. A Danish group stopped work when its office in Basra was attacked.
Mr Hirard shows me how to dispose of a cluster bomb. Wearing flak jackets and helmets with visors, we follow a wire 200 metres out into the BU 97 field where the yellow container was uncovered. The two-man team keep the box holding sticks of malleable PE-4 explosives at least a metre from the box of detonators. Hirard unwraps a PE-4 bar which he moulds like putty; on its own, it poses no danger. One detonator, if clumsily handled, can blow a hand off.
An Iraqi assistant places the doughy lump on top of the cluster bomb, attaches a detonator to the end of the wire and inserts the silver detonator tip into the PE-4. This is the most dangerous moment; Hirard saw three of his colleagues killed in Chad when a detonator exploded. We hurry back along the wire line, taking shelter behind a pile of rocks. The cluster bomb disintegrates in a plume of smoke, one infinitesimal advance in the Sisyphean quest to make Iraq safer.
