NBC Nightly News (2/28/22) depicts cluster bombs dropped by Russia on Ukraine, which it falsely claimed have not been used by the United States since 1991.
NBC Nightly News (2/28/22) falsely reported that the United States has not used cluster bombs since 1991—when in fact the US has employed the weapons as recently as 2009, and has even more recently sold them to allied countries that have dropped them.
Cluster bombs are munitions that include numerous small explosive devices that land separately; the bomblets frequently explode long after they land, with devastating effects on civilians.
In the report, NBC correspondent Matt Bradley described possible war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, and noted that Russia appears to be using cluster bombs there. After quoting Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch (“We think that cluster munitions should never be used at all”), Bradley added:
They’re banned by 110 countries, though not by Russia or the US. Still, the US hasn’t used them since the first Gulf War, over 30 years ago. They’re used by the Russians in Ukraine, another sign of this war’s growing savagery.
This claim is inaccurate. Since the 1990–91 Gulf War, the US has dropped cluster bombs on Bosnia (1995), Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001–02) and Iraq (2003), according to the Landmine & Cluster Munition Monitor. The last reported US use of cluster munitions was against Yemen in 2009. (Before the Gulf War, the US used cluster bombs in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Grenada, Lebanon, Libya and Iran.)
Moreover, the US has refused to join the 123 countries that have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions that bans the use, production, transfer or stockpiling of these weapons. In 2017, the Trump administration canceled a plan to end the US military’s use of most cluster munitions, saying they are a “vital military capability” (Washington Post, 11/30/17). In 2019, the US abstained from a UN vote endorsing the ban.
The US military was buying cluster bombs until 2007, and US armsmakers were building them for foreign sale as late as 2016. According to a 2015 Human Rights Watch report (5/3/15), credible evidence indicated that the Saudi-led coalition used US-made and -supplied cluster munitions in airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen.
The New York Times (9/3/15) corrected the record on US cluster bomb sales in response to this 2015 FAIR Action Alert (9/3/15).
In 2015, following a FAIR Action Alert (9/3/15), the New York Times corrected a report that inaccurately claimed that the US was following the provisions of the Convention on Cluster Munitions, despite manufacturing and selling them.
Because these weapons release smaller bombs, they can’t be fired precisely and put civilians at a devastating risk. Additionally, when the smaller bomblets don’t detonate, they can pose postwar risk to civilians as de facto landmines. A 2003 Human Rights Watch report (3/03) estimated 14% of these bomblets are “duds” that put civilians at a grave risk.
Leftover bombs the US dropped during the Vietnam War in Laos are still being removed by humanitarian groups. The HALO Trust reports that about 20,000 people—40% of them children—have been killed or injured by dormant cluster bombs or other unexploded items since the war ended.
NBC described Russia’s use of these bombs as “savagery”—a word corporate media rarely if ever applied to the US’s use of these same weapons. In 2003, US TV news did no in-depth reporting on the US’s use of cluster bombs during the Iraq War (FAIR.org, 5/6/03). In 2011, FAIR (4/16/11) criticized the New York Times (4/15/11) for describing cluster bombs used by Libya’s Col. Moammar Gadhafi as “indiscriminate weapons” that “place civilians at grave risk,” while at the same time falsely claiming that the US only used them “in battlefield situations.”
ACTION ALERT:
Please tell NBC to correct its misstatement that the US hasn’t used cluster bombs since 1991.
CONTACT:
You can send messages to NBC Nightly News at nightly@nbcuni.com (or via Twitter: @NBCNightlyNews).
Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.
This is what I said:
While I wish you were correct that the US was actively working to eliminate cluster bombs which have extreme consequences for civilians long after wars end, unfortunately, the US last used cluster bombs in 2009 in Yemen. We also continued to supply other countries with cluster bombs until as late as 2016.
Yes, Russia needs to end the use of these deadly weapons, but the US also needs to get on board with banning the weapons, rather than failing to enforce — and endorse— the ban (a stance reinforced as recently as our 2019 abstention from a UN vote on the issue.)
Please correct Matt Bradley’s error from the Nightly News Report in reporting that the US had not used cluster bombs since 1991.
“I’m shocked that NBC would state that the United States hasn’t used cluster bombs since 1991, a gross error. We have used them repeatedly since then in many of our little wars and as recently as 2009.
You love to invoke Martin Luther King every chance you get, but you never cite his anti-war statements. He said in 1967 that the “United States was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” It was true then, and it’s true today. We’re probably the biggest exporter of horrific weapons in the world; we have nearly 800 military bases around the world; and among many previous examples of the US’ contempt for “civilian lives,” we’re helping Saudi Arabia right now murder civilians in Yemen.
Viewers would never know these facts watching NBC. Shame on you.”
Ken Hemphill
Glen Mills, PA
Yeah, I’d remembered Hills high-fivinh Huma Abedin about dumping old cluster munitions on Yemen, so to speak. First time I’d seen ANY coverage of Israeli (on Gaza) or us (Panama, Slavic republics… heck, EVERYWHERE, back to Vietnam) was on evening news) so speciously oblivious old yuppies watching Comcast or AT&T, pretending to be SHOCKED at despicable monsters like her, Kerry, Rice or Albright vaporizing thousands of innocent human beings into burned ground meat with their babies, apartment block and MSNBC or Amy Goodman all rip & reading Bell¿ngcat, Atlantic Council, Canary Mission, CAP or CIA PR handouts (yep, funded by Ukranian nazi oilgarchs) is just another reason, everyone HATES petit bourgeois yuppie Liberals? They hypocritically get OFF watching THEIR tap dollars at work? At least, Amy blames Assad & Putin?
https://providencedailydose.com/2008/02/21/hillary-and-the-arms-industry/
JUST SENT THIS:
Are you a Mockingbird Operative or what?
Matt Bradley,
Maybe you’re just too stupid to do a thorough investigation before deciding to open your mouth and utter falsehoods.
Even a little local station was able to do the research that your team couldn’t:
https://www.kob.com/news/explainer-what-danger-do-cluster-bombs-pose/6407454/
We’re supposed to be polite, Bradley. But I get it. The media propaganda is so outrageous I want to start eating Xanax.
NPR and CNN (as well as other mainstream media outlets) admittedly host the opinions of “former” Israeli public relations officials and CIA analysts for coverage of international issues related to military campaigns.
“Errors” produced and offered by television personalities (without later correction), simply do not deserve to be treated as honest mistakes, but actually addressed as intentional disinformation being disseminated in hopes of swaying U.S. public opinion.
Even Anderson Cooper has openly admitted that he was trained by the CIA.B
The US political support of Israel and Israel’s ongoing war crimes against the Palestinians is beyond disgusting. The 24-7 news reporting by all major, mainstream media outlets on Ukraine is allowing them cover for not reporting on the the certain war crimes being committed by Israel in Israel-Palestine.
The smokescreen offered by the mainstream media in the United States of America, has provided cover for dozens of unjustifiable coups, invasions, and CIA-organized overthrows of democratically-elected, constitutional governments around the world, during the past 150 years.
SEE: https://www.democracynow.org/2004/3/5/how_to_overthrow_a_government_pt
Behind the smokescreen, a business-as-usual status quo in which the Saudis, United Arab Emirates, and Israeli government are free to kill innocent civilians at will… is far more disgusting than the atrocities currently being used as an international distraction in Ukraine.
Hey Fairness $.. oops! sorry!… Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting!!.. sent a nice message to our pals at NBC… got added to windows stuff.. anyhoo… Dang!… read your stuff all the effin’ time… kudos to stepping on toes with the WP & the NYTimes.. and all these guys… Kudos to Olivia Riggio to this article… DAMN!!… Nailed it!.. ok bye
FAIR should add that Israel dropped 3 million cluster bomblets on south Lebanon, almost all civilian areas, during its last assault there.
I believe you but need a source citation before sharing the information with others.
I’d bet $100 that their are more unexplodes U.S. made cluster bombs lying around the earth than all of the other countries combined. Us selling cluster bombs to the Saudis to maim Yemenis AFTER 2014 is our most unconscionable act of all. We don’t drop them, just profit from them.
Amerikkka, the largest purveyor of death in the world, is not in a position to be judgmental.
Important story. Thanks FAIR for responsible news reporting.
Mr. Blair M. Phillips
Canada
Retired
A month’s gone by and they still haven’t corrected their error? That is disgusting. Disinformation
During the Vietnam War, North Vietnam placed their air defense guns and missile launching systems on a series of roads that went over irrigation dykes. They complained that the 500 lb bombs that the US dropped to target the air defense systems were warcrimes because they could damage the dykes and cause flooding. That was the Communist lie that Jane Fonda went to North Vietnam to help publicize. The fact is, military assets do not gain protection from being located close to protected structures. Rather, protected structures like churches or flood control dykes, according to the Geneva Convention lose their protection if military assets are located near them. Still, in response to that propaganda campaign, the US developed cluster bombs that would have small enough charges so that they would not damage the flood control dykes.
Of course, now it is claimed that when military assets are positioned close to noncombatant civilians, that the clusterbombs might hurt the civilians. Once again, the civilians would only be protected if there were no military assets located close to them.