Chemical weapons found in Iraq

[DrSmellThis]

Here is the direct video link (45MB). It works for me to right-click and open in a new window. Be forewarned; it is very disturbing:

http://videos.informationclearinghouse.info/fallujah_ING.wmv

US 'uses incendiary arms' in Iraq

Italian state TV, Rai, has broadcast a documentary accusing the US military of using white phosphorus bombs against civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja. Rai says this amounts to the illegal use of chemical arms, though the bombs are considered incendiary devices.

Eyewitnesses and ex-US soldiers say the weapon was used in built-up areas in the insurgent-held city.

The US military denies this, but admits using white phosphorus bombs in Iraq to illuminate battlefields.

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

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

Transmission of the documentary comes a day after the arrival of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani on a five-day official visit to Italy.

It also coincides with the first anniversary of the US-led assault on Falluja, which displaced most of the city's 300,000 population and left many of its buildings destroyed.

The documentary was shown on Rai's rolling news channel, with a warning that the some of the footage was disturbing.

The future of the 3,000-strong Italian peacekeeping contingent in Iraq is the subject of a political tug-of-war, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome.

'Destroyed evidence'

The documentary begins with formerly classified footage of the Americans using napalm bombs during the Vietnam war.

It then shows a series of photographs from Falluja of corpses with the flesh burnt off but clothes still intact - which it says is consistent with the effects of white phosphorus on humans.

Jeff Englehart, described as a former US soldier who served in Falluja, tells of how he heard orders for white phosphorus to be deployed over military radio - and saw the results.

"Burned bodies, burned women, burned children; white phosphorus kills indiscriminately... When it makes contact with skin, then it's absolutely irreversible damage, burning flesh to the bone," he says.

Last December, the US state department issued a denial of what it called "widespread myths" about the use of illegal weapons in Falluja.

"Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. US forces have used them very sparingly in Falluja, for illumination purposes. They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters," the US statement said.

However, the Rai film also alleges that Washington has systematically attempted to destroy filmed evidence of the alleged use of white phosphorus on civilians in Falluja.

Italian public opinion has been consistently against the war and the Rai documentary can only reinforce calls for a pullout of Italian soldiers as soon as possible, our correspondent says.

Both the Italian government and opposition leaders are talking about a phased withdrawal in 2006.

President Talabani and the US say the continued presence of multi-national forces in Iraq is essential.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/4417024.stm

Published: 2005/11/08 14:21:45 GMT

[koolking1]

I took a look at it yesterday, very compelling. Someone sent the video to the NY Times with an email, the Times responded "this is about Vietnam, we don't have time for it". The originator sent back another email. "The first few minutes are about Vietnam, shall I assume you don't really dig into matters thoroughly?" The Times responded, "assume nothing, now go away".

I emailed and sent a copy to CBS, no response.

The last couple of nights there's been a feature on the program after the news, entertainment hollywood or some such thing. They are featuring two horribly thin twin sisters suffering from anorexia (sp?).

A Canadian reports that we are not seeing all the news anymore. He gets both USA and Canadian TV and states that we are being lied to on a daily basis. Usually, lies by omission.

We are doomed to being lied to daily. What fun.

[tim929]

Actual memo from the Executive Editor of CBS:
We cant have this Falluja crap getting out on our network.It might upset the herd and cause people to not watch prime time programming and start writing letters to thier congressman or something.Keep the herd in the dark and roll the Chrismas advertising earlyer this year.

I made that up...but its very,very close to the truth.On a side note...the use of white phosphorus ordinance on troops has been outlawed since 1918.Interestingly,every millitary in the world,including ours has happily ignored that because dammit...its effective.The French used it quite liberaly in South East Asia (Viet Nam) and in Algeria durring the insurection there in the fities.The Brits used it in the Falklands...oh hell...Im not going to list them all here but suffice it to say that "Willy Pete" or "Whisky Pete" is here to stay.

[koolking1]

"US Army Admits Use of White Phosphorus as Weapon
by Steven D
Wed Nov 09, 2005 at 02:48:58 PM PDT
(From the diaries. Let's see them deny this shit now -- kos)

That's right. Not from Al Jazheera, or Al Arabiya, but the US fucking Army, in their very own publication, from the (WARNING: pdf file) March edition of Field Artillery Magazine in an article entitled "The Fight for Fallujah":

"WP [i.e., white phosphorus rounds] 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."


Steven D's diary :: ::
In other words the claim by the US Government that White Phosphorus was used only for illumination at Fallujah had been pre-emptively debunked by the Army. Indeed, the article goes on to make clear that soldiers would have liked to have saved more WP rounds to use for "lethal missions."

However, as Mark Kraft, an emailer to Eric Alterman's blog, Altercation, points out today, the Field Artillery Magazine article fails to inform its audience that

. . . there is no way you can use white phosphorus like that without forming a deadly chemical cloud that kills everything within a tenth of a mile in all directions from where it hits. Obviously, the effect of such deadly clouds weren't just psychological in nature.

Furthermore, (from a link provided by Mr. Kraft, thank you very much) testimony about the use of these "shake and bake" techniques of WP usage are detailed in an account by an embedded Journalist regarding the April 2004 attacks on Fallujah by the Marines:


Fighting from a distance

After pounding parts of the city for days, many Marines say the recent combat escalated into more than they had planned for, but not more than they could handle.

"It's a war," said Cpl. Nicholas Bogert, 22, of Morris, N.Y.

Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused.

"We had all this SASO (security and stabilization operations) training back home," he said. "And then this turns into a real goddamned war."

Just as his team started to eat a breakfast of packaged rations Saturday, Bogert got a fire mission over the radio.

"Stand by!" he yelled, sending Lance Cpls. Jonathan Alexander and Jonathan Millikin scrambling to their feet.

Shake 'n' bake

Joking and rousting each other like boys just seconds before, the men were instantly all business. With fellow Marines between them and their targets, a lot was at stake.

Bogert received coordinates of the target, plotted them on a map and called out the settings for the gun they call "Sarah Lee."

Millikin, 21, from Reno, Nev., and Alexander, 23, from Wetumpka, Ala., quickly made the adjustments. They are good at what they do.

"Gun up!" Millikin yelled when they finished a few seconds later, grabbing a white phosphorus round from a nearby ammo can and holding it over the tube.

"Fire!" Bogert yelled, as Millikin dropped it.

The boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call "shake 'n' bake" into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week.

They say they have never seen what they've hit, nor did they talk about it as they dusted off their breakfast and continued their hilarious routine of personal insults and name-calling.

So who you gonna believe? The US Department of Defense or the US Army and the US Marine Corps? Decisions, decisions . . . "

[Mtnjim]

See!! George Bush was right all along!!

Uh! Wait, I don't think he meant us!!:think:

[DrSmellThis]

One thing to keep in mind about the video is that neither Whisky Pete nor napalm burns skin without burning clothes. Basically, fire is fire and everything it touches should get burned. So I don't know what that's about (the little girl with the unscathed dress). It's possible, therefore, that the video images do not all represent WP/napalm victims.

That anomaly, of course, in no way discounts the other reports and admissions by the army, defense department and Iraqis that white phosphorous ordnance is being used.

This is how we spread democracy and win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis? Not to state the obvious, but that is disgusting beyond belief. This is against existing military policy of targeting civilians, even if we didn't sign the damned treaty banning the stuff.

[belgareth]

I was wondering about that too. There is something very wrong with the video but haven't been able to find out much yet. Not a lot of info readily available.

On the other hand, WP are nasty weapons! I'm going to discount much of the video for now but using those weapons on people is not what I want us to be doing. Since the military is admitting it, there's no doubt they are using those weapons. Once again, I think we need more information but it sure looks bad from here.

[koolking1]

yourself. Torture, nasty weapons if not defined as chemical weapons, imprisoning without legal protections. This is a dangerous road we're on.

[belgareth]

Add to that deception, repression, loss of civil rights at home etc. We've been going down this road a long while now. When are we the people going to get the idea and throw the nasty bastards out of government? Every facet of our government is inundated with lies and abuse.

[tim929]

Okay,this was indeed a very disturbing video.After doing alittle research,I discover that...

Use of white phosphorus is not specifically banned by any treaty, however the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Conventional_Weapons) (Protocol III) prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against civilian populations or by air attack against military forces that are located within concentrations of civilians.(2) The United States is among the nations that are parties to the convention but have not signed protocol III. (I am only guessing to say that may of our European counterparts also didnt sign on to that either.They talk alot but when the chips are down they are just as self motivated as we are.)

As for the burning flesh but not the clothes.When a white phosphorous device explodes,the result is a shower of extremely hot particles of burning phosphorus.Those particles are usualy not terribly big,many being about as big as the keys on your key board.Larger particles may be as big as an oreo cookie(sorry,Im having a snack.)Those particles will produce intense burning at the point of impact and very quickly burn thier way deeper and deeper into soft tissues until they have burned themselves out.The result on clothing would look alot like a big cigarette burn,but the results on tissue are horrible.White phosphorus is also extremely toxic.Concentrations of as little as 50 MG in the blood stream are usualy fatal.

The gasses produced by white phosphorus are also toxic and in high consentrations result in the same thing that house fire victems suffer.Smoke inhilation.

The tissue damage that was displayed on the video is very severe,and would indicate a level of burning that would in fact burn the clothes as well as the wearer.This I can only speculate about.How long had those corpses been sitting in the sun?I know a couple guys who were in Falluja who indicated that many bodies spent a week or more decaying in 100+ degree temperatures.Did decomposition play a roll in the severity of what was seen?That would seem to explain alot.

And...just to be a jerk...I feel the need to throw this in here on the end.I am by no means a fan of this war,or any other for that matter.But sometimes war becomes an unfortunate nessesity(not this time.)When a war becomes nessesary,it is also nessesary for civilians to recognize a very harsh reality of war.A reality that makes me less and less a fan of the practice the older I get.But the sad fact is that civilian casualties are,and always will be a reality of war.All the smart bombs and technological gadgets in the world will not end the bleeding and suffering of the innocent.The innocent will,for as long as wars will be fought,bear the worst of what armed combat has to offer.And it is for this reason that Americans need to do two things.First,out of compassion for the innocent,make the practice far more difficult to engage in as a matter of practice.Even In the United States,our leaders have far to much control and far to little respect for the dogs of war who's leashes they are entrusted with.Second,when a war DOES becom nessesary...and at some point it will,gauranteed...get the hell out of the way and let the millitary do what ever is nessesary to bring hostilities to a very rapid end.And turn a blind eye to the innocent.The softness for them,while nobel and compationate,has no place in a practice that is at its core,the most brutal activity that any two groups can participate in.Worse yet,in the name of compassion we often prolong hostilities,and hence the suffering rather than simply get the job done and get back to the task of rebuilding a country.

We have seen the unfortunate consequences of having a weak resolve in Iraq.In the first war in 1991,we held back for "political reasons" and in the interest of minimizing civilian casualties.Over the time between the wars,sanctions and thier effects on the poulation and the infrastructure had the same net result of a millitary incursion into the city of Bagdad it self would have had.And...we got to go back and try and finish the job anyway.How cute.Americans and thier distaste for all things millitary have created a world of protracted suffering in the interest of human rights.After WWII,the rebuilding of Japan and Germany was in full swing almost imediately and europe and asia today have reaped many many times the cost of defeat in the bennefits of peace.And that is a big part of what creates peace,success! In Iraq however,thier defeat in 1991 gave them no such comfort.They suffered under Sadams iron fist and went wthout as a result of sanctions,only to be reinvaded more than a decade later.And instead of taking a good severe beating and being pacified long enough to be rebuilt,the wishy washy bleeding hearts want to make sure that opperations are conducted in the most ploiticaly correct fassion,lest we offend someone.Offending people in war is sort of...well...part of the game.What sort of idiot would step into the boxing ring and periodicly stop fighting to make sure his opponents feelings werent hurt?

War is an ugly,nasty and distasteful buisiness.I have seen the aftermath of it just enough to know that to go to war is to sell ones soul.But if ya gotta go...then for the sake of the innocent get it done quickly,crush even the slightest resistance,and THEN worry about playing mister nice guy.

That,unfortunately,is one of the reasons behind the use of white phosphorous munitions.Unfortunatly,not everyong is on the same page over there or over here.

[ohmmmm]

Yep, the chemical doesn't destroy the clothes because it reacts to water and flesh. Its a chemical burn not a fire like we are used to.... It becomes a mist when exploded in a building or in a low-lying area and can burn someone from the inside out as it gets into the lungs... You can't put the fire out with water... rolling in mud is the best way, but it will continue to burn some still. Basically, its a horror beyond belief....

[DrSmellThis]

Yep, the chemical doesn't destroy the clothes because it reacts to water and flesh. Its a chemical burn not a fire like we are used to.... It becomes a mist when exploded in a building or in a low-lying area and can burn someone from the inside out as it gets into the lungs... You can't put the fire out with water... rolling in mud is the best way, but it will continue to burn some still. Basically, its a horror beyond belief....We need a straight answer on this.

[tim929]

Well...as I recal,those are some of the things I learned about white phosphorus years ago as a part of my millitary training.White phosphorus is a very nasty weapon and it does cause chemical burns and the skin.We didnt realy study the effects on clothing too much because if a person was wounded by a WP round the rel focus was on how to treat the person,not the clothes.But it does stand to reson that WP will damage flesh without damaging the clothing to a simmilar extent.

It is also an incendiary weapon,so the large burning fragments will start fires quite easily.Much the same as magnesium flares or thermite.The difference is that WP can also be used for screening because it produces huge quantities of thick,white smoke.

[DrSmellThis]

So has the video and discussion of it been elevated back to plausibility?

[tim929]

It is extremely plausable that what the video displayed was in part or in whole the result of white phosphorus munitions.It is also plausable that some,most or all of the effects that were seen on some of those bodies was the result of over exposure to the sun and decomposition.Some of those bodies were encrusted with maggots.Maggots dont show up right away.They take a few days.Do I believe that WP weapons have been used in Iraq? Absolutly.Do I believe that there is a campaign of deliberate violence against innocent civilians? not very likely.

As I said befor in this thread,civilians or "innocents" will always bear the brunt of the suffering in ANY war.Period.Its a fact of war.Its what makes war so incredibly distasteful.Its one of the resons that durring Sadams reign of terror that he instructed his millitary to park serface to air missiles and thier radar control units close to sensative targets like grade schools and playgrounds.That way,if allied aircraft went after them the civilian casualties would be so staggering to western weak kneed bleeding hearts that the outcry would cause us to give up and go away.

This is why the only way to properly fight a war is with absolutly overwhelming force.Get it over quick,crush even the slightest resistance and then get to the business of rebuilding.By trying to be "merciful" and minimize our millitary "foot print" we only protract an already terrible situation and end up doing more harm over the long term.We have many years of bombing and then not bombing Hanoi in Viet Nam to hold up as an example.Had we simply wiped it off the face of the earth,the North Vietnamese would have been forced to the bagaining table much much sooner.Instead we waited until opperation Linebacker II in 1972-3 to carpet bomb them into submission and it worked.

I hate war and I realy hate this one.First because it wasnt nessesary to go in the first place and second becasue instead of pounding them into submission we are worried about hurting thier feelings.Until we grab the bull by the horns and smack the opposition into submission,these sorts of atrocities will continue to occure well into the forseeable future.Expect amny many more incedents like this one to unfold as millitary commanders gradualy increase their application of force until they are left with nothing but annihilation as a weapon.

As we protract this little cluster f**k in the interests of political whims,the civilian casualties will continue to mount.And as they do,there will be more and more civilains turning against us and forcing us to do more of the same.Our millitary is NOT a political device.It exists for two reasons and two reasons ONLY...to kill people and break things.Let them do the job in the most time expedient manner possible so we can get the hell out as soon as possible.

[DrSmellThis]

The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about itNow we know napalm and phosphorus bombs have been dropped on Iraqis, why have the hawks failed to speak out?

George Monbiot
Tuesday November 15, 2005
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. The first account they unearthed in a magazine published by the US army. In the March 2005 edition of Field Artillery, officers from the 2nd Infantry's fire support element boast about their role in the attack on Falluja in November last year: "White Phosphorous. 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 [high explosive]. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."

The second, in California's North County Times, was by a reporter embedded with the marines in the April 2004 siege of Falluja. "'Gun up!' Millikin yelled ... grabbing a white phosphorus round from a nearby ammo can and holding it over the tube. 'Fire!' Bogert yelled, as Millikin dropped it. The boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call 'shake'n'bake' into... buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week."

White phosphorus is not listed in the schedules of the Chemical Weapons Convention. It can be legally used as a flare to illuminate the battlefield, or to produce smoke to hide troop movements from the enemy. Like other unlisted substances, it may be deployed for "Military purposes... not dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare". But it becomes a chemical weapon as soon as it is used directly against people. A chemical weapon can be "any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm".

White phosphorus is fat-soluble and burns spontaneously on contact with the air. According to globalsecurity.org: "The burns usually are multiple, deep, and variable in size. The solid in the eye produces severe injury. The particles continue to burn unless deprived of atmospheric oxygen... If service members are hit by pieces of white phosphorus, it could burn right down to the bone." As it oxidises, it produces smoke composed of phosphorus pentoxide. According to the standard US industrial safety sheet, the smoke "releases heat on contact with moisture and will burn mucous surfaces... Contact... can cause severe eye burns and permanent damage."

Until last week, the US state department maintained that US forces used white phosphorus shells "very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes". They were fired "to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters". Confronted with the new evidence, on Thursday it changed its position. "We have learned that some of the information we were provided ... is incorrect. White phosphorous shells, which produce smoke, were used in Fallujah not for illumination but for screening purposes, ie obscuring troop movements and, according to... Field Artillery magazine, 'as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes...' The article states that US forces used white phosphorus rounds to flush out enemy fighters so that they could then be killed with high explosive rounds." The US government, in other words, appears to admit that white phosphorus was used in Falluja as a chemical weapon.

The invaders have been forced into a similar climbdown over the use of napalm in Iraq. In December 2004, the Labour MP Alice Mahon asked the British armed forces minister Adam Ingram "whether napalm or a similar substance has been used by the coalition in Iraq (a) during and (b) since the war". "No napalm," the minister replied, "has been used by coalition forces in Iraq either during the war-fighting phase or since."

This seemed odd to those who had been paying attention. There were widespread reports that in March 2003 US marines had dropped incendiary bombs around the bridges over the Tigris and the Saddam Canal on the way to Baghdad. The commander of Marine Air Group 11 admitted that "We napalmed both those approaches". Embedded journalists reported that napalm was dropped at Safwan Hill on the border with Kuwait. In August 2003 the Pentagon confirmed that the marines had dropped "mark 77 firebombs". Though the substance these contained was not napalm, its function, the Pentagon's information sheet said, was "remarkably similar". While napalm is made from petrol and polystyrene, the gel in the mark 77 is made from kerosene and polystyrene. I doubt it makes much difference to the people it lands on.

So in January this year, the MP Harry Cohen refined Mahon's question. He asked "whether mark 77 firebombs have been used by coalition forces". The US, the minister replied, has "confirmed to us that they have not used mark 77 firebombs, which are essentially napalm canisters, in Iraq at any time". The US government had lied to him. Mr Ingram had to retract his statements in a private letter to the MPs in June.

We were told that the war with Iraq was necessary for two reasons. Saddam Hussein possessed biological and chemical weapons and might one day use them against another nation. And the Iraqi people needed to be liberated from his oppressive regime, which had, among its other crimes, used chemical weapons to kill them. Tony Blair, Colin Powell, William Shawcross, David Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen, Ann Clwyd and many others referred, in making their case, to Saddam's gassing of the Kurds in Halabja in 1988. They accused those who opposed the war of caring nothing for the welfare of the Iraqis.

Given that they care so much, why has none of these hawks spoken out against the use of unconventional weapons by coalition forces? Ann Clwyd, the Labour MP who turned from peace campaigner to chief apologist for an illegal war, is, as far as I can discover, the only one of these armchair warriors to engage with the issue. In May this year, she wrote to the Guardian to assure us that reports that a "modern form of napalm" has been used by US forces "are completely without foundation. Coalition forces have not used napalm - either during operations in Falluja, or at any other time". How did she know? The foreign office minister told her. Before the invasion, Clwyd travelled through Iraq to investigate Saddam's crimes against his people. She told the Commons that what she found moved her to tears. After the invasion, she took the minister's word at face value, when a 30-second search on the internet could have told her it was bunkum. It makes you wonder whether she really gave a damn about the people for whom she claimed to be campaigning.

Saddam, facing a possible death sentence, is accused of mass murder, torture, false imprisonment and the use of chemical weapons. He is certainly guilty on all counts. So, it now seems, are those who overthrew him.

[DrSmellThis]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article327136.ece