and no one really knows but what to do with unexploded ordnance what we call you x. in a case like that. among the most enduring legacies of modern warfare is unexploded ordinance you x. zero the grenades shells and bombs that fail to detonate during combat you act so remains on the battlefield long after the battle often hidden by vegetation or covered by soil as weapons continue to grow more lethal casualties of war are no longer confined to combatants nor to that your ration of armed conflict one example is the cluster bomb a hollow shell that ejects multiple smaller sub missions called be used or bomblets . up to a third of these bomb lists can fail to detonate on impact effectively becoming

land mines. and. not all unexploded ordinance is accidental eighty two nations are contaminated with land mines land mines that kill or maim fifteen to twenty thousand civilians per year in afghanistan there are ten to twelve landmine casualties each day the issue of landmines is a critical one in afghanistan and there are two ways that you can tell if they are they are present the first is of course if the grass hasn't been grazed if the grass is tall and standing and there's no it evidence that it's been eaten there are probably landmines in the shepherds are keeping their animals away but the second when the local people find land mines they tend to paint rocks and they paint them red on one side and white on the other and on the red side is where the

land mines are located. ok they're like ok. the problem is when you have a landslide or a flood which washes through a landmine area first of all the land mines are actually picked up and distributed across other areas and second the rocks become obviously mixed in jumbled up so we've been in a situation before we were driving down a road we came across a creek bed where flashflood actually washed landmines across the road so it was a major security risk and we couldn't actually move beyond the road until we got some mine clearance people to come in. touch the boy seeing these children and listen to them so it's part of the way it is great but if we're just going to be favored for their low cost and long charity land mines were laid heavily by both sides during the cambodian vietnamese war today the u.n. estimates that ten million mines remain in cambodian soil. i had occasion to visit

a non-parent a few years ago and it was probably the most depressing. seen. that i've ever encountered someone there were countless cambodian men with their legs blown off above the knee who were scooting through the dirt begging in the marketplace. and they were for the most part mine victims. war is not healthy for anybody the combatants or the people who are caught up in it recent studies in iraq and mortality come up with a range of excess mortality in the tens of thousands. of children

of particularly fond of which the effects of or in a number for states. one of the most disturbing studies that indicate c. impact of war on children it was a team of experts from have it which went to iraq in the bike it's the one thousand nine hundred call for the study chain estimated that the war and the sanctions that followed resulted in existence of fifty to seventy thousand iraqi children whose children were trying to latch numbers from simple infectious disease such as china for its cholera hepatitis it said check and the reason for that was a deliberate decision that was taken in the ninety ninety one war to just roy iraq's electricity generating capacity and without electricity sanitation water purification it's kind happened says children who are dying of academics of infectious to say so. it would not take very long just

a matter of weeks for washington d.c. or new york city to become pretty unlivable and if we didn't have electricity for water purification if we didn't have gasoline for our sanitation trucks to remove the garbage we would be overrun by rats and other vermin our water would be country tammany we would develop cholera and dysentery and typhus we would have plague and we have forgotten all of this especially when we go out and destroy the infrastructure of other countries. mushers the same island fair is claiming hundreds of them a real. hero a currency in crisis and an unknown future but is there a silver lining. bringing

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play. if you've been cold stoled your thirteen years of it so why is the mainstream media been so silent about the cuban five case in the us that are sounding the trumpet or bill richardson's fight for an american held in cuba. you know where the she would be enemy. because it really that black and white a decade after nine eleven we'll explore the era of analyst wars we are now in and the axis of evil all thanks to the so-called war on terror. and speaking of the bush era axis of evil iran is now celebrating the launch of its first nuclear power plant thanks to the help from russia we'll have a report from the grand opening of the blue shared nuclear plant but not everyone

is so happy about it. this is the bill that will produce its work all girls are trying to read. this is the bill that will help our economy. with a crisis and a crisis that just won't go away so with his entourage of american workers in tow obama sends his new jobs bill to congress with a major bank announcing major layoffs and with such ball the tile markets are developed economies on the brink of collapse. good evening it's monday september twelfth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm more in the stor in your watching r.t. now one country celebration turns out to be another's condemnation the blues share nuclear plant in iran is now on the grid the plant was completed with russia's help the first nuclear power plant in iran they're celebrating but the head of the u.n.

nuclear agency the watchdog says he is increasingly concerned about new intelligence on iran's nuclear program with this new plant come. online and reportedly this opening could still does may some of the usual suspects in the united states and israel in europe who are suspicious of iran's ultimate nuclear intentions but are those fears and founded we'll hear from ivan eland about that but first a guy has all the details about the new plan from iran. this is a truly historic day for iran as its first nuclear power plants and bush era is joining the national energy grid it's going to start operating at thirty five to forty percent of its capacity that is the blight thirty five to forty percent of energy and it's going to reach the hundred percent potential within the next couple of months now this is something that has been in the making for barry a long time this is a joint russia iran venture russia's adam story expert has been vigorously helping

the rhenium side of in the construction of this nuclear power plant specially since the one nine hundred ninety eight the opening of the plant has been attended by russia's energy minister small school and also by the head of story expert both of whom have underlines the importance also ensure for both countries now russia's energy minister has said that all of seriously of course conducted by russia and iran should be some to synchronize with international standards to gether would only rate incompetence when through difficulties and problems building the shared plans and together we can be proud to the results the attention of the whole world i'm sure racially in operating the station and developing now the nuclear energy projects will be distinguished by the atmosphere we created well brooke and together you have to remember that this is the first nuclear power plant in the middle east so we should never underestimate its importance it's absolutely integral to iran you know russia is going to supply the fuel for the power plants and it's also going to discard all the fuel and this is going to continue for the

next three years so russian engineers and specialists will stay at the plant will stay in iran for the next couple of years but then afterwards they will slowly hand it over to the remaining inside and then by two thousand and fifteen the plant will should become fully operated by iran on its own like we said this is a very important venture for both iran and russia and of the there is a lot of hope for this power plant which is which has just become operational in bush here in iran. so much hoping to give us a sense of what all of this means for the future if you're wrong on the international stage i spoke to senior fellow at the independent institute ivan eland i asked and most of that hope but western criticism you one criticism to start things off i asked him to clarify some misconceptions that are sometimes overlooked in the mainstream media coverage of this mainly the difference between producing nuclear energy and developing nuclear weapons here's what he had to say.

well one could lead to the other but in this case this reactor is a light water reactor so there's less proliferation danger meaning there's less of a chance that they can use it for nuclear weapons the other thing is that russia is selling the fuel and then taking the spent fuel and a lot of times the spent fuel can be. used to being fuel and so that's an added safeguard in this case so i think you know people who say that this is a proliferation risk there might be a little bit but it's not it's not a it's not that much of one i think ok so you're saying that for example when the u.n. nuclear watchdog comes out and says that it's concerned about iran's nuclear intentions when their plane goes online are you saying these fears are unfounded no i think there's some. foundation to the fears that iran is seeking a nuclear weapon i'm not sure that this reactor were given that much help in any time they get a expertise that sort of

a political ration risk comes when you take the fuel and you can make a bomb with it the iranians have done uranium fuel they have centrifuges going this particular reactor as long as they send the reprocess plutonium back i think they'll be fine or at least it'll be a lower risk so i think there is a proliferation danger from iran but i'm not sure that this reactor. adds to that very much so so there's not the fears over this reactor and this plan all right now in fact yes in fact if we if the international community wanted to do something they could allow iran to have these types of reactors and maybe that would get them encourage them to forego the bomb making but we don't know for sure that they're after a bomb but there are some indications and there's a lot of fear among western countries and also the international atomic energy watchdogs that they are ok now with this plant. to iran as promised to play by the

books with a you when and let them inspect it that's just one example since so they've agreed to play by the rules why is that not enough well iran has been secretive about some facilities not this one but other ones and that's what leads to the suspicion so i say if they would check try to channel iran into more peaceful nuclear activities like this where you have the fuel coming in and going out and russia. and also the international inspectors monitoring it perhaps there is no guarantee of this because iran is in a bad neighborhood basically because israel with nuclear weapons is other countries that are clearly trying to get nuclear weapons. there's other countries that are big and important turkey. you know other countries and they have the saudi problem the arab problem so you could see were in there of course the us. there's been some

talk of taking out the iranian regime by in the us so iran does have some incentives to try to go after weapons. ivan eland senior fellow at the independent institute and speaking of iran iran was part of the axis of evil that george w. bush named after nine eleven but did this have anything to do with al qaida or with nine eleven ten years later our reporter guy answer to can took a look at the record and how history played out let's watch. if somebody gives a war on terror like the deadliest here is attack could history you know whether she would be enemy that's that's clear but the american sentiment quickly and including nations that had nothing to do with nine eleven they were defined by george bush as the axis of evil some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since september eleventh. but we know their true nature north korea is

a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction while starving its citizens. iran aggressively pursue these weapons and exports terror while an unelected few repressed the iranian people's hope for freedom. do you reckon to any to punish hostility toward america and to support terror two years after nine eleven the u.s. invaded iraq on the grounds that he had weapons of mass destruction and was doing business with all kinds of grounds which proved to be far. hundred the sounds of iraqi civilians have died since the invasion they used a moment in in the wake of nine eleven to divert from afghanistan a real target should have been our real target and go to iraq but also with the low hanging fruit in north korea was far more dangerous just too difficult hundred thousand as a good development on both sides so would be destroyed iran was too difficult seventy million people not fractured right the iraqis and the sunni and shia and

christian and other and put the motive behind invading iraq some talk will iraq right now is sitting on probably two hundred billion barrels maybe three hundred billion barrels that's iraq's own or report now he plans to be a thirteen million barrels per day production capacity in seven years that surpasses saudi arabia now you know i dick cheney went to war with others blame america's don't find oil as the world's policeman driving idea behind it is that it has a monex ability the idea is that the world is going to be more secure place overall if there is a unocal or world a sole remaining superpower much of what has happened post nine eleven in the name of responding to nine eleven has been a pretext and terrorism was no longer the only reason for landing in washington than in the list the us had even more far reaching plans on the table former vice

president dick cheney says he encouraged the bush administration to bomb syria at one time because of his alleged nuclear weapons program a move which experts say would have had disastrous effect on the region president obama was elected on hope that he would and the endless wars. overseas which most americans are opposed to but he continues and adds one more another we reach nation media and this time in the name of removing an evil dictator. some worry syria could be next we have a an executive power that is beyond any trick by the people by the congress or by the courts for war we can go towards a drop of we're going we've reached the point now where the presence of the united states can kill people for purposes any time he or she feels the need since nine eleven america's war on terror has crossed many borders from pakistan to yemen

and other countries the chase for a handful of terrorists has turned the lives of entire nations outfight down we're talking about hundreds of thousands of innocent lives taken by the decade of constant war and many worry that a tragedy as great as nine eleven has served as a pretext for an even greater tragedy one that has no end in sight i'm going to shock our reporting from washington r.t. . and joining us for more in our alley studio is russ baker he's founder and editor in chief of who what why dot com want to talk a little bit more about this so just looking back did nine eleven you think mark a new era where the u.s. could go after countries in the name of terrorism as sponsors even when they had nothing to do with al qaida or a terrorist threat to the u.s. . they clearly did first of all we had a group with which dick cheney was connected called the project for the new american century and prior to two thousand and one they had proclaimed the need to

project much greater american military might around the world but said that it wouldn't be possible without the equivalent of another pearl harbor whether that was just a lucky guess or something more we don't know but the fact of the matter is that the moment after the nine eleven attacks bush began already trying to divert attention away from afghanistan where they were harboring al qaeda to. iraq and even donald rumsfeld the secretary of defense was perplexed by this and has said so is it based in reality has it ever been because saudi arabia is an ally and evidence has come out that saudi arabia would have had some kind of a role supporting the hijackers or involved in nine eleven they've never been named as the axis of evil. correct it's

a very selective naming libya is an interesting situation because and we've done quite a bit of reporting on this on who what why dot com taking a careful look at the origins of the uprising in libya and we found that basically khadafi has been very very cooperative with the west for a number of years but with the arab spring there was some sort of the terminations made that they could do better i think that it's not just the united states it's the french and the italians all of these countries the russians the chinese everybody is looking for resources or looking for minerals there's a mad scramble all over the world and so in order to justify when you're doing it in a military way such as the united states and nato is doing it they've got to have a good p.r. spin on it they've got to get the american people behind it in the american people are not going to get behind something where they just call it a raw resource grab so terms like axis of evil are very very handy indeed so it's

resources what you think this all boils down to to find and politicians will find any way to spin the message from a p.r. standpoint what are its terrorism or protecting civilians but especially the through line here is that it comes after resources well sure i mean it always has been it's not fair to single out the united states in that respect all countries are chiefly concerned about power and resources and maintaining their their standard of living and so forth and that that's the reality but of course you can never say that you you can't go on television and say we're in libya with seven thousand bombing runs because they're sitting on one of the world's best supplies of sweet crude you just can't say that but every country needs resource and not every country has and other countries take up man. that's true and we've got to find another way of meeting our needs obviously

a lot of that has to do with shifting away from fossil fuels to alternative sources of energy but again that's something else that the industries the united states are resisting well that's a whole other subject of competing because we've seen solar plants for example not be able to compete with china even with us as it is that's another conversation but i'm just curious looking present day ten years after this axis of evil conversation when terrorism was first used as the to justify war with any country even if they weren't involved as we talk about libya and if people look at syria and there's no threat to the united states but yet we've seen the u.s. get involved in libya has it gotten worse to where you don't even need a justification of a threat to the u.s. anymore to go to war. well certainly with libya they didn't have any kind of threat like that they actually played a new card which was the humanitarian card and they said we're going in there to

protect the people it will be in there for a very short period of time quickly that fell by the wayside and we even have the chief british generals actually coming right out and saying no it wasn't ever about that at all we wanted to remove saddam rather we wanted to remove gadhafi and that's what we're going to do so you know i mean they they keep bringing up these new i think it obama's case they had to go with the humanitarian argument because the other ones were not going to fly with this political base but i guess what i'm trying to get out in this is just a quick answer please but is this the same thing that we've always seen where you're saying this is a p.r. spin put it on to sell a war or is this a situation that's getting worse and we're less justification is needed for going to war for bombing people. oh absolutely less justification is needed every year and we can see that when we transition from a very hawkish republican president to a purportedly liberal democratic president who ends up doing the exact same thing

and it's an interesting point to make and i appreciate you being here to make it i was russ baker founder and editor in chief of who what why dot on. now meanwhile new mexico governor bill richardson has traveled to cuba he is there trying to free a u.s. government contractor who was jailed and have vanished his name is alan gross and richardson over the weekend was quoted saying he'll stay until he gets to meet with them now this was reported on by the mainstream media the mainstream media has covered richardson's trip to try to save they would report alan gross now in this reporting you may not have heard mention of some other people who are imprisoned the cuban five they're imprisoned in the u.s. they're cubans who claim to be in the u.s. monitoring terrorist groups and you claim they had an unfair trial and of the victims of miscarriages of justice but they are being there they've been there for thirteen years this marks an anniversary of their incarceration in prisons across

the u.s. if you haven't heard about them ever it may be because you don't see much about them on the mainstream media ever despite calls that this trial was a miscarriage of justice now former presidential candidate gloria is one who has made that call she joins us to talk about it. being i know you've got a lot on this we've heard about richardson's trip to cuba why do you think there's no message message do you think there should be a mention of the cuban five when there was reporting done on it well regardless of former governor richardson trip to cuba the cuban five have certainly deserved front page news in the united states because they are prisoners in the united states and victims of us aggression against cuba the five as you said were in william e. . actions the terrorist organization starting in the early one nine hundred ninety s. to protect lives to save people from terrorism and here we find that on september twelfth one thousand nine hundred the very day after september eleventh although it was

three years later they were arrested for defending cuba from terrorism and they have been in prison the recency hardly known to the american pie. we have said all along that once the american people know that they were protecting lives they never had weapons they only had their eyes and ears on this anti-terrorism mission people would demand the freedom of the cuban five why our story never gotten out i know you've even gotten for your requests that if they have showed negligence or or even a more direct role of the us government i think you have no knowledge in the us to a large degree because the us prosecuted them and the us held them on trial in miami this by numerous attempts by the defense to move the trial out of the one city where anyone related to cuba defending cuba would be seen in a most negative light and as you said several years after the trial of the cuban five which concluded in two thousand and one it turned out that the government was secretly paying quite

a number of prominent journalists in miami who were covering the case of the five from the very time of the arrest and even before hand in the most negative prejudicial and harmful way against the five now that is known after the trial so the national committee to free the cuban five of which i'm co-ordinator has been able to uncover a lot of information from the freedom of information acts but this past week this think department denied the liberation newspaper which is also an agent trying to get the foyer information from the government and disclosure of important information that would show misconduct by the government the state department tonight liberation newspaper expedited processing so the attorneys partnership for civil justice are in the middle of an important struggle for that information it's the right of the american people to have this information a struggle for information that year your.