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Deja Moo
Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA
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Four months have passed since I first posted this topic, and to my knowledge the msp has yet to report on the use of a "napalm-like" weapon in Iraq. Witnesses have been coming forward to attest that white phosphorus was used in the attack on Fallujah, indescriminately killing civilians as well as insurgents. The Truthout url provided below also has a link to a documentary video.
The use of the incendiary substance on civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997. Is there anyone here that could find justification in using white phosphorus on Fallujah's civilians, as we did in Viet Nam?
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110805Z.shtml
Quote:
US Forces 'Used Chemical Weapons' during Assault on City of Fallujah
By Peter Popham
[bold]The Independent UK[/b]
Tuesday 08 November 2005
Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.
Ever since the assault, which went unreported by any Western journalists, rumours have swirled that the Americans used chemical weapons on the city.
On 10 November last year, the Islam Online website wrote: "US troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein's alleged gassing of the Kurds in 1988."
The website quoted insurgent sources as saying: "The US occupation troops are gassing resistance fighters and confronting them with internationally banned chemical weapons."
In December the US government formally denied the reports, describing them as "widespread myths". "Some news accounts have claimed that US forces have used 'outlawed' phosphorus shells in Fallujah," the USinfo website said. "Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. US forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes.
"They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters."
But now new information has surfaced, including hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack, which provides graphic proof that phosphorus shells were widely deployed in the city as a weapon.
In a documentary to be broadcast by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, this morning, a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah says: "I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it's known as Willy Pete."
"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for."
Photographs on the website of RaiTG24, the broadcaster's 24-hours news channel, www.rainews24.it, show exactly what the former soldier means. Provided by the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, dozens of high-quality, colour close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells.
A biologist in Fallujah, Mohamad Tareq, interviewed for the film, says: "A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-coloured substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact."
The documentary, entitled "Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre," also provides what it claims is clinching evidence that incendiary bombs known as Mark 77, a new, improved form of napalm, was used in the attack on Fallujah, in breach of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980, which only allows its use against military targets.
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Fowarded by the same friend from the original post:
Quote:
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.
A US veteran of the Iraq war told RAI New correspondent Sigfrido Ranucci this:
I received the order use caution because we had used white phosphorus on
Fallujah. In military slang it is called 'Willy Pete'. Phosphorus burns the
human body on contact--it even melts it right down to the bone.
RAI News 24's investigative story, Fallujah, The Concealed Massacre, will be
broadcast tomorrow on RAI-3 and will contain not only eye-witness accounts by
US military personnel but those from Fallujah residents. A rain of fire
descended on the city. People who were exposed to those multicolored substance
began to burn. We found people with bizarre wounds-their bodies burned but
their clothes intact, relates Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji, a biologist and
Fallujah resident.
I gathered accounts of the use of phosphorus and napalm from a few Fallujah
refugees whom I met before being kidnapped, says Manifesto reporter Giuliana
Sgrena, who was kidnapped in Fallujah last February, in a recorded interview.
I wanted to get the story out, but my kidnappers would not permit it.
RAI News 24 will broadcast video and photographs taken in the Iraqi city
during and after the November 2004 bombardment which prove that the US
military, contrary to statements in a December 9 communiqué from the US
Department of State, did not use phosphorus to illuminate enemy positions
(which would have been legitimate) but instend dropped white phosphorus
indiscriminately and in massive quantities on the city's neighborhoods.
In the investigative story, produced by Maurizio Torrealta, dramatic footage
is shown revealing the effects of the bombardment on civilians, women and
children, some of whom were surprised in their sleep.
The investigation will also broadcast documentary proof of the use in Iraq of
a new napalm formula called MK77. The use of the incendiary substance on
civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is
forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997
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