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Vilifying Israel's Use of 2,000-Pound Bombs Only Ends Up Costing More Lives

(Newsweek) John Spencer - Last week, Israel very likely killed the long-time head of Hamas's military, Mohammed Deif, with multiple 2,000-pound bombs. President Joe Biden has been blocking shipments of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel, saying, "They cannot be used in Gaza or any other populated area without causing great human tragedy and damage." To be sure, the war in Gaza has been incredibly destructive, and thousands of Palestinians have tragically been killed. The numbers are as high as they are because Hamas has cynically dug itself in beneath densely populated areas. Israel has used its 2,000-pound bombs against military targets in bunkers and tunnels, even while knowing that there would be unavoidable civilian casualties - just as the U.S. has done in its past wars. Some claim that the U.S. has rarely used 2,000-pound bombs. That's simply not true. During the first Gulf war, the U.S. dropped more than 16,000 2,000-pound bombs on Iraqi targets. During the opening month of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it dropped more than 5,000 of these bombs in Baghdad, a city of over 5 million residents. The U.S. dropped four of the bombs on one building in a residential neighborhood after receiving intelligence reports that senior Iraqi officials, possibly including Saddam Hussein and his two sons, were there. A human rights advocacy coalition has sought to have all bombs, missiles, artillery, and mortars banned from use in any urban area, even if a military was able to evacuate all the civilians from the area. As a scholar of urban warfare, I have concluded and presented to the UN that banning bombs and artillery in urban warfare would perversely result in more destruction, not less. Restrictions on the use of bombs in cities sucks the fight into cities from rural areas. If the attacking army is deprived of those weapons, defenders engage in protracted block-by-block street fights that lead to mass destruction and thousands of lost lives. Without bombs or artillery, urban battles become bloody sieges that drag out the war. In the 1945 Battle of Manila, Gen. Douglas MacArthur banned the U.S. Army from using bombs for fear of destroying the city and killing civilians. Nevertheless, 100,000 civilians perished and most of the city was destroyed to defeat a Japanese force not even half the size of Hamas in Gaza. The writer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point.
2024-07-21 00:00:00
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