1991 RELICS HAUNT 2003 COMBATANTS

One of the biggest dangers facing U.S. soldiers in Gulf War II: unexploded bombs and mines, leftover from Gulf War I and other Iraqi conflicts.
Millions of mines have been planted in Iraq over the past 20 years, the Washington Times says. "As many as 2,500 people have been killed by mines in the Kurdish region since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Mines caused 81 of the 1,364 total U.S. casualties" in that conflict.
U.S. bombs, still live a dozen years later, are also a major problem. "Perhaps the most dangerous ones," the paper reports, "are the individual bomblets packed into cluster bombs dropped by American and allied planes during the Persian Gulf war. Because of their small size, they easily can go unnoticed. Tens of thousands of such bombs were dropped in the 1991 Gulf war."