BB FANS

US used white phosphorus in Iraq

The Pentagon has confirmed that US troops used white phosphorus during last year's offensive in the northern Iraqi city of Falluja.

"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC - though not against civilians, he said.

The US earlier denied it had been used in Falluja at all.

Col Venable denied that the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - constituted a banned chemical weapon.


White phosphorus is an incendiary weapon, not a chemical weapon
Col Barry Venable
Pentagon spokesman
US military interview

Washington is not a signatory of an international treaty restricting the use of white phosphorus devices.

Col Venable said a statement by the US state department that white phosphorus had not been used was based on "poor information".

The BBC's defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial has been a public relations disaster for the US military.

'Incendiary'

The US-led assault on Falluja - a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency west of Baghdad - displaced most of the city's 300,000 population and left many of its buildings destroyed.

Col Venable told the BBC's PM radio programme that the US army used white phosphorus incendiary munitions "primarily as obscurants, for smokescreens or target marking in some cases".

"However it is an incendiary weapon and may be used against enemy combatants."


WHITE PHOSPHORUS
Spontaneously flammable chemical used for battlefield illumination
Contact with particles causes burning of skin and flesh
Use of incendiary weapons prohibited for attacking civilians (Protocol III of Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons)
Protocol III not signed by US

Rai interview

And he said it had been used in Falluja, but it was "conventional munition", not a chemical weapon.

It is not "outlawed or illegal", Col Venable said.

"When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on and you wish to get them out of those positions, one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round or rounds into the position because the combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives," he said.

'Particularly nasty'

White phosphorus is highly flammable and ignites on contact with oxygen. If the substance hits someone's body, it will burn until deprived of oxygen.

Globalsecurity.org, a defence website, says: "Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful... These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears... it could burn right down to the bone."

A spokesman at the UK Ministry of Defence said the use of white phosphorus was permitted in battle in cases where there were no civilians near the target area.

But Professor Paul Rodgers of the University of Bradford department of peace studies said white phosphorus could be considered a chemical weapon if deliberately aimed at civilians.

He told PM: "It is not counted under the chemical weapons convention in its normal use but, although it is a matter of legal niceties, it probably does fall into the category of chemical weapons if it is used for this kind of purpose directly against people."

When the Rai documentary revealing the use of white phosphorus in Iraq was broadcast on 8 November, it sparked fury among Italian anti-war protesters, who demonstrated outside the US embassy in Rome. bbc

The US are the good guys remember(sic), they're allowed to have WMD or chemical weapons.

The short video in the url underneath captures one moment in the battle for Fallujah, it's not gory(but is disturbing)it shows how a gung ho attitude completely dehumanises someone...particularly the aww dude comment at the end.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BUN410A.html

Very disturbing. As you say the satisfied 'aw dude' comment but also the fact that the only info the other voice seems to have to go on is ' numerous individuals in the road, want me to take those out?' and 'take 'em' the rapid and 'oh so carefully' considered response.

Those people could have been anyone. They could have easily been children being evacuated for example. Neither pilot nor controller had a single clue about the identity of these people (I don't suppose we'll ever know now) either.

With an attitude like that I'm not surprised that so many people were killed by 'friendly fire'.

Very disturbing.

the aww dude comment at the end sounds to me like a very nervous reaction to what had just taken place. We don't even know for sure if it wasn't edited in. Its possible surely? I wouldn't really want to comment much but often these things can be very out of context with no knowledge of prior or post information. For all we know the guy that did that could be plagued with the trauma of it for the rest of his life. People in war time situations rarely come out unscathed no matter what and are often asked to perform disgusting jobs which we would rather not know about.

Its all horrible business in the end.

It'd be interesting to see what came out of the inquiry as it was a good 18 months ago now.

yep. I think the main thing is we know so little of what actually goes on and are only fed what 'they' want us to know.

My neoconservite brother inlaw in America tells me to tell my partner [who is Iranian] that they will be nuking Iran when they have finished the job in Iraq. I believe the news that is dripping out of Irag at the moment is only the tip of the iceberg.

The demonisation of Iran has started which is kinda worrying, think a strike on their nuclear facilities is more likely than a full scale war though.

I read the neocon manifesto when it came out, at the time they thought it would be an age before they actually reached power but they got in through the back door with George W Bush.

Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney all signed up to it and it makes for disturbing reading..I'll try digging out the url of the neocon agenda later...it's completely unbiased from us non believers because it was written and signed by them!!

This from usenet...some see it as just plain boring but it's far from that if you see what they actually want.

THE NEOCON MANIFESTO

1. Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a
new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet
Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat to the order of that
posed by the former Soviet Union. This is a dominant
consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy
and requires we endeavour to prove any hostile power from
dominating a region whose resources would, under
consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global
power.

2. The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish
and protect a new order that holds promise of convincing
potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater
role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their
LEGITIMATE interests. In non-defense areas, we must account
sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial
nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership
or seeking to overrun the established political or economic
order. WE MUST MAINTAIN THE MECHANISMS FOR DETERRING
COMPETITORS FROM EVEN ASPIRING TO A LARGER REGIONAL OR
GLOBAL ROLE.

3. Like the coalition that opposed Iraqi aggression, we
should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies,
often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted, and in
many cases carrying out only general agreement over the
objectives to be accomplished. Nevertheless, the sense that
the world order is ultimately backed by the U.S. will be an
important stabilizing factor.

4. While the U.S. cannot become the world's policeman, by
assuming responsibility for righting every wrong, we will
retain the preeminent responsibility for addressing
SELECTIVELY those wrongs which threaten not only our
interests, but those of our allies or friends, or which
would seriously unsettle international relations.

5. We continue to recognize that collectively the
conventional forces of the states formerly comprising the
Soviet Union retain the most military potential in all of
Eurasia, and we do not dismiss the risks to stability in
Europe from a nationalist backlash in Russia or efforts to
reincorporate into Russia the newly independent republics of
Ukraine, Belarus, and possibly others ... We must, however,
be mindful that democratic change in Russia is now
irreversible, and that despite its current travails, Russia
will remain the strongest military power in Eurasia and the
only power in the world with the capacity of destroying the
United States.

6. In the Middle East and Southeast Asia, our overall
objective is to remain the predominant power in the region
and preserve the U.S. and Western access to the region's
oil.

This document was prepared primarily by Paul Wolfowitz. It
was leaked to the New York Times in 1992-93. There was a
firestorm of controversy, and the document was redrafted in
more politically correct language.

Why are people surprised the US is using such things, again?

Two words...

Hiroshima...Nagasaki.
-----
Civilian targets, both nuked by the yanks. Need anyone say more? Frankly, if some lunatic fringe group ever nuked a couple of American cities within the next decade or two, would it be too daring to say 'Cosmic Karma'?

It remains astonishing the utter hypocrisy of some Governments.

*even the UK Govt' today admitted to using the same phosphorus, although they used the lame excuse of saying it was for a 'smoke screen'. Make of that statement, what you will.

Calrissian: 4, 8, 16, 23, 24, 42

It is the people who don't believe this stuff goes on that worries me Calrissian