Editing Geoff Hoon (section)

===Comments on cluster bombs===
Shortly after the US/UK led invasion of Iraq began in 2003, following an admission by the Ministry of Defence that Britain had dropped 50 airborne cluster bombs in the south of Iraq and left behind up to 800 unexploded bomblets, it was put to Hoon in a Radio 4 interview that an Iraqi mother of a child killed by these [[cluster bombs]] would not thank the British Army. He replied "One day they might." Hoon continued, "I accept that in the short term the consequences are terrible. No one minimises those and I'm not seeking to do so," he said. "But what I am saying is that this is a country that has been brutalised for decades by this appalling regime and that the restoration of that country to its own people, the possibility of their deciding for themselves their future ... and indeed the way in which they go about their lives, ultimately, yes, that will be a better place for people in Iraq."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hoon-is-cruel--for-claims-on-cluster-bombs-claims-593447.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090226020729/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hoon-is-cruel--for-claims-on-cluster-bombs-claims-593447.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=26 February 2009 |title= Hoon is 'cruel' for claims on cluster bombs By Paul Waugh and Ben Russell |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |date=5 April 2003 | location=London | access-date=3 May 2010}}</ref>