Last week, after pressure from bloggers led to pressure on the media which led to pressure on the government, the Pentagon admitted it used White Phosphorous as a weapon in Iraq. However the Pentagon (and many others) said that WP was not a chemical weapon.
I’ve seen long and passionate analysis about how and why it shouldn’t be considered a chemical weapon. A truly horrific weapon, which melts the skin off of human beings, but not technically a “chemical weapon”.
Except that the Pentagon itself has previously classified WP as a chemical weapon:
The controversy over the American use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in Fallujah deepened yesterday when it was revealed that a US intelligence assessment had characterised WP as a “chemical weapon”.
The Italian journalist who sparked the controversy, Sigfrido Ranucci, told a press conference in Rome that while a colleague was browsing American Defence Department websites he had stumbled on a declassified intelligence report from the first Gulf War.
The irony is so painful it draws blood. When Evil Tyrant(TM) Saddam Hussein uses WP, then it’s a chemical weapon. When the United States does, then it’s a “standard munition”. Incredible.
You can read the declassified DOD page here for yourself, including this passage:
IRAQI FORCES LOYAL TO PRESIDENT SADDAM ((HUSSEIN)) MAY HAVE POSSIBLY USED WHITE PHOSPHOROUS (WP) CHEMICAL WEAPONS AGAINST KURDISH REBELS AND THE POPULACE IN ERBIL (GEOCOORD:3412N/04401E) (VICINITY OF IRANIAN BORDER) AND DOHUK (GEOCOORD:3652N/04301E) (VICINITY OF IRAQI BORDER) PROVINCES, IRAQ. THE WP CHEMICAL WAS DELIVERED BY ARTILLERY ROUNDS AND HELICOPTER GUNSHIPS
So let’s review:
- Saddam uses WP? It’s classified as a chemical weapon
- U.S. uses WP in Fallujah and elsewhere? Originally denied by Pentagon and gov’t
- Bloggers discover documentation of its use and RAI Italian channel produces horrifying documentary on its use? Pentagon admits its use
- Pentagon and “experts” all say its NOT a chemical weapon
Rinse lather and repeat.
I guess the “character” of the commander-in-chief ordering the use of WP against civilians is now the determining factor on whether or not WP is a chemical weapon, eh?
Peace
Bush had better hope not, or he’ll be standing trial for war crimes faster than you can say “Multilateral pre-emptive retaliation”.
Here’s hoping!
Hey Soj,
as a US veteran and someone proficient in mortars, there is one distinction between the chemical and legitimate uses of WP: if it is used for a smokescreen, etc., it is a legitimate weapon; if it is used on personnel, it is a banned chemical weapon. It’s very simple. Since the evidence so far has shown that it was used not only on enemy personnel but also civilians in Falluja, it is a chemical weapon (by use) and therefore a warcrime that needs to be be taken to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. There is an analogy with the .50 Cal machinegun. We’re told to shoot at “equipment” rather than people because the .50 cal round is so devastating that it is really horrible once it hits the human body. Of course enemy soldiers wear “equipment” – therefore if you shoot at the “equipment” you are not technically guilty of a war-crime.
Now you and I both know that they were shooting WP at people, and that it is a warcrime. But once in court, all sorts of legal protections take over, like the “shooting at equipment” analogy. All we can hope for is that the evidence is so strong that the technicalities will not override a jury. Let’s hope so.
But technically speaking (which counts in a court of law) the US did not use chemical weapons.
Thanks JD for the more detailed explanation.
The truth is that this admin has gone to great lengths to split hairs on what is and what is not a war crime. Whether or not WP is a war crime and whether or not captured Talibs are POW’s under the Geneva Conventions and whether or not water boarding is torture and whether or not Jose Padilla needs his constitutional rights…
Sickening how they push the envelope.
Pax
I agree with you 100%
All this technical legal bullshit that bushco comes up w/to justify his crap really pisses me off! And those assholes use a word, phrase whatever to justify anything and people who could benefit from social programs are seeing them reduced or dealing w/a case worker who either gives them the wrong paperwork or refuses to fill out the correct one!
/rant!!!!!!
When this story broke, I thought: There must be thousands of chemists who know all about this stuff.
But what we have is a complete media blackout.
So I went scurrying around the net to see what I could find out about the chemistry of phosporus. How it is shaping up: The element phosphorus, atomic number 15, lying beneath nitrogen on the Periodic Table, has two common forms, or isomers “red” and “white” (“tetramer”) (from their color) White is extremely flammable and ignites spontaneously at just above room temperature giving off great heat. Among the reaction products is phosphorous pentoxide, a white powder which does not burn but upon contact with water (or human flesh) spontaneously generates phosphoric acid, again giving off great heat. It is this second, chemical reaction with flesh that must be causing the flesh melting.
Thanks for a non-complicated explanation that I could understand!
The US also has “pain ray” weapons that use microwaves, these are presented as non-lethal torture devices that can be used on large numbers of people at once, so in addition to their phosphorus, they have also apparently devised a way to cook the victims from the inside out, without damaging cloth or other material.
But that is not what is melting the corpses.
The reason the clothes on the corpses are intact is that they are dry and phosphorous pentoxide is not reacting with the materials. Can’t tell you why, though.
The effects of microwaves does not seem much in the public literature. Again it is water that is key–the water absorbs them, which is why a microwave oven works–but I am less clear on the ability to penetrate. Shallow penetration would lead to flesh burns, while deep penetration would destroy brain function and bring death long before any cooking occurred.
I just can’t believe there is any splitting hairs on this issue… it’s burns and melts the skin off of people, the US military used it to "Shake and Bake" swaths of residential urban areas indiscriminately with the full knowledge there were still civilians in the area.
Can you imagine someone coming to your city and saying everyone out or you are dead? Then destroying 70 percent of it – killing hundreds? If you made the decision to get out – there was no where to go, no camps set up to hold you… and in order to get back in, you had to pass the Fallujah biometric ID scheme? This is not spreading freedom and these people have nothing to do with 9-11. It’s pretty clear.
RK – webmaster Empire Burlesque
Man it just gets uglier and uglier. What was the great need for White Phosphorous? Its out of control.
Genocide.
see “burns, chemical”
WP has been used in Shake and Bake since at least Vietnam. Besides they used to blast that flying saucer out of the ice in that movie, remember? Watch the skies, boys and girls.
The crime is NOT WP – see my diary Swamp Angel and WP. As one general put it, if you are in a fair fight you’re not trying hard enough. Does it really matter if you are killed in combat by a jagged piece of red hot metal slicing into your lungs, or a chunk of white hot WP that burns through your forhead? Shall we set a moral standard on what is an acceptable form of butchering your enemy? Get real. Combat is hell on earth and always has been. The line is after combat, torture of prisoners, or use of miltary forces on civilians. If you have on a uniform you are cannon fodder. And thank God for those who put themselves in that position to defend us. Cut the crap. WP is not a war crime. The crime is war. Starting a war that does not need to be fought is the crime. Not winning a war that is started is a crime. But blaming the soldiers whose asses are on the line for not fighting “fair” is a load of horse manure. Put your ass on the line and obey your artificial rules or shut up. You are commiting the same error the Vietnam protestors did – blaming the first victims of the war, our soldiers who were forced to sacrifice their lives, their limbs and their humanity because LBJ coulnd’t figure an “honorable” way to get out. The enemy is Bush, not our soldiers.
While I agree completely that the use of WP in Fallujah was horrific, the focus on whether it is or is not technically a chemical weapon distracts from the main point (the damage it causes and the apparent use against civilians). I especially don’t see the significance of this document. It isn’t a smoking gun, it is a low-level analyst transcribing a phone conversation between 2 foreign nationals referring to white phosphorus as a chemical weapon. This one reference doesn’t imply that the DoD has ever classified it as such. If we want to throw that charge around then we need alot more evidence.