Chemical Weapons FOUND in Iraq - White Phosphorous

Here is the definition of "chemical weapons" from Geneva Conventions:
http://www.genevaconventions.org/

chemical weapons

Prohibited under the 1925 Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:23 pm Post subject: use of

Here's the article that got me started on this. I heard about the Italian news report elsewhere but haven't seen it myself.
Gordon

U.S. Used Chemical Weapons In Iraq

Veteran admits: Bodies melted away before us.

Shocking revelation RAI News 24.

White phosphorous used on the civilian populace: This is how the US "took" Fallujah. New napalm formula also used.

11/07/05 "La Repubblica" -- -- ROME. In soldier slang they call it Willy Pete. The technical name is white phosphorus. In theory its purpose is to illumine enemy positions in the dark. In practice, it was used as a chemical weapon in the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. And it was used not only against enemy combatants and guerrillas, but again innocent civilians. The Americans are responsible for a massacre using unconventional weapons, the identical charge for which Saddam Hussein stands accused. An investigation by RAI News 24, the all-news Italian satellite television channel, has pulled the veil from one of the most carefully concealed mysteries from the front in the entire US military campaign in Iraq.

full article:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10901.htm
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:27 pm Post subject: Second news source

Here is a British news report.
Gordon

US Criticized for Use of Phosphorus in Fallujah Raids
By Andrew Buncombe
The Independent UK

Wednesday 09 November 2005

Washington - A leading campaign group has demanded an urgent inquiry into a report that US troops indiscriminately used a controversial incendiary weapon during the battle for Fallujah. Photographic evidence gathered from the aftermath of the battle suggests that women and children were killed by horrific burns caused by the white phosphorus shells dropped by US forces.

The Pentagon has always admitted it used phosphorus during last year's assault on the city, which US commanders said was an insurgent stronghold. But they claimed they used the brightly burning shells "very sparingly" and only to illuminate combat areas...

full article:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110905S.shtml
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Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 11:36 pm Post subject: WP use

This just released, today I think, a report from military personnel involved in the Fulluja campaign describing the use of WP in "shake and bake" missions. Using WP with delay fuses to "flush them out" and HE (high explosives) to "take them out". Doesn't sound like illumination to me...

full article in PDF format (~1 MB)
http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/Previous_Editions/05/mar-apr05/PAGE24-30.pdf
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:47 pm Post subject: more scorn for the U.S.

Noted.

George Monbiot
Tuesday November 15, 2005
The Guardian

Did US troops use chemical weapons in Falluja? The answer is yes. The proof is not to be found in the documentary broadcast on Italian TV last week, which has generated gigabytes of hype on the internet. It's a turkey, whose evidence that white phosphorus was fired at Iraqi troops is flimsy and circumstantial. But the bloggers debating it found the smoking gun...

full article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1642832,00.html
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:50 pm Post subject: where is the press?

Do you notice that there is amost no mainstream news coverage of this?
Gordon
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:05 pm Post subject: SNAFU cover up

More damning evidence. I've heard this before. I believe I hear that large quantities of soil were removed from around the Bagdad Airport in the early days of the war.
Gordon

"...He said he saw bulldozers push soil into piles and load it on to trucks to carry away. In certain areas where the military used "special munitions" he said 200 sq m of soil was being removed from each blast site..."

full article:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111505J.shtml
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Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 7:12 pm Post subject: and another

Yet another rendition of the inhumane use of WP.
Gordon

from GlobalSecurity.org

White Phosphorus (WP)
White Phosphorus (WP), known as Willy Pete, is used for signaling, screening, and incendiary purposes. White Phosphorus can be used to destroy the enemy's equipment or to limit his vision. It is used against vehicles, petroleum, oils and lubricants (POL) and ammunition storage areas, and enemy observers. WP can be used as an aid in target location and navigation. It is usually dispersed by explosive munitions. It can be fired with fuze time to obtain an airburst. White phosphorus was used most often during World War II in military formulations for smoke screens, marker shells, incendiaries, hand grenades, smoke markers, colored flares, and tracer bullets.

The Battle of Fallujah was conducted from 8 to 20 November 2004 with the last fire mission on 17 November. The battle was fought by an Army, Marine and Iraqi force of about 15,000 under the I Marine Expeditionary Force (IMEF). US forces found WP to be useful in the Battle of Fallujah. "WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired “shake and bake” missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. ... We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions."

White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory. Smokes and obscurants comprise a category of materials that are not used militarily as direct chemical agents. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol II of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects...

full article:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm
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Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2005 7:47 pm Post subject: the rules

Just like what it says in the Geneva Conventions - WP is for illumination, smoke generation and possibly range finding - not against humans, not as a "potent psycological weapon", and not in "shake and bake" missions.
Gordon

US Army rules say: 'Don't use WP against people'
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 19 November 2005
The debate over the use of white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah took a new twist when it emerged the US Army teaches senior officers it is against the "laws of war" to fire the incendiary weapon at human targets.

A section from an instruction manual used by the US Army Command and General Staff School (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, makes clear that white phosphorus (WP) can be used to produce a smoke screen. But it adds: "It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets."

full article:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article327926.ece
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Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2005 1:10 pm Post subject: from bad to worse

I didn't think it could get much worse. I was wrong.
Gordon

Behind the Phosphorus Clouds Are War Crimes within War Crimes
By George Monbiot
The Guardian UK

Tuesday 22 November 2005

...The marines can scarcely deny that they know what these weapons do. An article published in the Gazette in 2000 details the effects of their use by the Russians in Grozny. Thermobaric, or "fuel-air" weapons, it says, form a cloud of volatile gases or finely powdered explosives. "This cloud is then ignited and the subsequent fireball sears the surrounding area while consuming the oxygen in this area. The lack of oxygen creates an enormous overpressure ... Personnel under the cloud are literally crushed to death. Outside the cloud area, the blast wave travels at some 3,000 metres per second ... As a result, a fuel-air explosive can have the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon without residual radiation ... Those personnel caught directly under the aerosol cloud will die from the flame or overpressure. For those on the periphery of the strike, the injuries can be severe. Burns, broken bones, contusions from flying debris and blindness may result. Further, the crushing injuries from the overpressure can create air embolism within blood vessels, concussions, multiple internal haemorrhages in the liver and spleen, collapsed lungs, rupture of the eardrums and displacement of the eyes from their sockets." It is hard to see how you could use these weapons in Falluja without killing civilians.

This looks to me like a convincing explanation of the damage done to Falluja, a city in which between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians might have been taking refuge. It could also explain the civilian casualties shown in the film. So the question has now widened: is there any crime the coalition forces have not committed in Iraq?

full article:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112305L.shtml
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Posted: Thu Nov 24, 2005 3:30 pm Post subject: hypocricy

same crap, different day.
Gordon

US Intelligence Classified White Phosphorus as 'Chemical Weapon'
By Peter Popham and Anne Penketh
The Independent UK

Wednesday 23 November 2005

The Italian journalist who launched the controversy over the American use of white phosphorus (WP) as a weapon of war in the Fallujah siege has accused the Americans of hypocrisy.

Sigfrido Ranucci, who made the documentary for the RAI television channel aired two weeks ago, said that a US intelligence assessment had characterised WP after the first Gulf War as a "chemical weapon..."

full article:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/112305Q.shtml
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"All established conventions?" What kind of bull is that? It is AGAINST Geneva conventions to use chemical weapons on ccmbatants OR civilians!!! White phosphorous is a chemical weapon when employed against people. This guy is just plain stupid. I can't believe it.
Gordon

From the LA Times

"We don't use munitions of any kind against innocent civilians," Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said during a news conference. "In accordance with all established conventions, [white phosphorus] can be used against enemy combatants."

full article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-phosphorus28nov28,0,6777069.story?coll=la-home-headlines
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Posted: Wed Jan 04, 2006 8:07 pm Post subject: perspective

Here's a WP review from a doctors perspective:
Grodon

Unlike napalm, which in Vietnam left villagers and enemies alike with massive burns all over their bodies, white phosphorus burns down to the bone.

Le The Thrung, a Vietnamese doctor studying white phosphorus burns in 1969, describes its effects on the skin: “[b]urning phosphorus produces 800-1,000 degrees centigrade heat. Scattered phosphorus particles go on consuming themselves and deepen burn wounds.” Next, chemical compounds “create a chemical burn, like an acid, drawing water from the cells. This process generates great pain in the nervous system.” Finally, white phosphorus compounds oxygenate and penetrate “the blood stream and white blood cells in the dermis, subdermis, and deeper skin layers.” This creates what he calls an “organic toxicity [that] blocks off all blood circulation with the burn area.”

It wasn’t just medical professionals noting the brutal effects of white phosphorus. A U.S. serviceperson, at the height of the Vietnam War, remarked, “We sure are pleased with those backroom boys at Dow. The original product wasn’t so hot—if the gooks were quick they could scrape it off. So the boys started adding polystyrene—now it sticks like (removed) to a blanket. But then if the gooks jumped under water it stopped burning, so they started adding Willy Peter so’s to make it burn better. It’ll even burn under water now. And one drop is enough; it’ll keep on burning right down to the bone so they die anyway from phosphorus poisoning.”

This is what our military and political leaders currently define as a “potent psychological weapon?” These are the actions that citizens of empire are to support and legitimize, even if tacitly, in the name of spreading democracy and securing our own nebulous borders?

full article:
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Jan2006/mayer0106.html
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