Five-Year Review: State Party Iraq ratified the convention on 14 May 2013. Iraq has participated in all of the convention’s meetings. In its initial transparency report for the convention provided in June 2014, Iraq confirmed that it no longer uses, produces, transfers, or stockpiles cluster munitions. It is not retaining any cluster munitions for research or training.

Policy

The Republic of Iraq signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions on 12 November 2009, ratified on 14 May 2013, and the convention entered into force for the country on 1 November 2013.

It is not known if specific legislative measures will be undertaken to implement the Convention on Cluster Munitions.[1] It has reported its 2012 ratification law under national implementation measures for the convention.[2]

Iraq submitted its initial Article 7 transparency report for the convention in June 2014 and provided an annual updated report on 29 April 2015.[3]

Iraq participated in some meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but attended both the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008 and the Oslo Signing Conference in December 2008 as an observer.[4] At the Oslo Signing Conference, Iraq pledged to sign the convention as soon as possible after completing national and constitutional processes.[5] It subsequently signed the convention at the UN in New York in November 2009.

Iraq engages in the work of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It has participated in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention, including the Fifth Meeting of States Parties in San Jose, Costa Rica in September 2014, where it made several statements. Iraq has attended all the convention’s intersessional meetings in Geneva, including in June 2015.

At the UN General Assembly (UNGA) First Committee on Disarmament and International Security in October 2014, Iraq expressed concern at the negative impact cluster munitions have on civilian populations.[6] Iraq voted in favor of two UNGA resolutions in 2013 that condemned the use of cluster munitions in Syria.[7] The Iraqi Alliance for Disability and other civil society groups continue to campaign in support of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Iraq is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It acceded to the Convention on Conventional Weapons on 24 September 2014.

Production and transfer

In its initial Article 7 report provided on 27 June 2014, Iraq declared that it does not produce cluster munitions.[8] Previously, in 2011, Iraq informed the Monitor that “There are no facilities that produce cluster munitions in Iraq.”[9]

Prior to 2003, Iraq produced two types of cluster bombs: the NAAMAN-250 and NAAMAN-500.[10] It was also involved in joint development of the M87 Orkan cluster munition rocket (known in Iraq as Ababil) with Yugoslavia.[11] In the past, Iraq imported ASTROS cluster munition rockets from Brazil.[12] In 1996, Jane’s Information Group listed Iraq as possessing KMG-U dispensers (which deploy submunitions) and CB-470, RBK-250, RBK-250-275, and RBK-500 cluster bombs.[13] A type of rocket-delivered dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunition of Chinese origin, called Type-81, was cleared in Iraq in 2003 by American deminers and the United States (US) military’s unexploded ordnance identification guide lists the Chinese 250kg Type-2 dispenser as present in Iraq.[14]

Stockpiling and destruction

In its Article 7 reports, Iraq has declared that it does not stockpile any cluster munitions.[15]

Photographs published by the official media office in Kirkuk in January 2015 show forces of the Islamic State (IS) unearthing at least 34 BKF cartridges containing AO-2.5RT submunitions that had been buried in the ground.[16] The exact date, location, and circumstances of this discovery are unclear, but it indicates that burial was used a method to dispose of stocks in Iraq in the past.

Iraq is not retaining any cluster munitions for research or training purposes. It has reported a small quantity of inert submunitions that have no explosive content.[17]

Use

Iraq may have used cluster munitions in the past. According to one source, Iraq used air-dropped cluster bombs against Iranian troops in 1984.[18]

Coalition forces used large numbers of cluster munitions in Iraq in 1991 and 2003. The US, France, and the United Kingdom (UK) dropped 61,000 cluster bombs containing some 20 million submunitions on Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. The number of cluster munitions delivered by surface-launched artillery and rocket systems is not known, but an estimated 30 million or more DPICM submunitions were used in the 1991 conflict.[19] During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US and UK used nearly 13,000 cluster munitions containing an estimated 1.8 million to 2 million submunitions.[20]