Did the US army use "chemical weapons" during Fallujah assault?

[evil_twin]

Link from the Independent Online.

US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah

By Peter Popham
Published: 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.

Meanwhile, five US soldiers from the elite 75th Ranger Regiment have been charged with kicking and punching detainees in Iraq.

The news came as a suicide car bomber killed four American soldiers at a checkpoint south of Baghdad yesterday.

[Arnfinn Madsen]

It is important to battle the development/ spreading of WMDs like chemical weapons, since it may get into the hand of rogue states not hesitating to use them.

[Il_Mostro]

And here is the TV program that is being aired tonight on Italian TV, or so am I told.

It's 45 MB large and about 28 minutes long, in english and not for the faint of heart I'm told. I have not seen it yet so I don't know anything about it.

http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/in...llujah_ING.wmv

But you don't understand. Whatever the United States does, by definition, is right. We can use chemical weapons to burn civilians because our goal is peace.

I call total<font color="red"> Bu**Sh**</font>!

[bobman0330]

Well, if the insurgents called it a chemical weapon, i guess it must be true. You know, lead is a chemical too... all guns must be chemical weapons. Ah-ha, so Saddam did have WMDs after all!

[jt1]

The Italian press, probably, shouldn't be trusted. Only the BBC can be trusted with charges this explosive. Until they report it, I'm not buying it.

I doubt it's top brass policy to use chemical weapons. Even Rumsfeld is smart enough to avoid that PR nightmare, especially, if using them is just helpful rather than necessary. Well, actually, Rumsfeld is the guy who chose not to guard the Syrian border and never once expected that the Sunnis would rebel (what an idiot!...how could an experienced government policy maker not know to guard the border of a terrorist authoritarian nation that would have every motive to see the Iraq democratization process implode, or that the Sunnis might be jealous of their lost privliges and that Al Qaida would exploit that). I take that back; no amount of incompetence is past this guy.

[Autocratic]

[ QUOTE ]
I call total<font color="red"> Bu**Sh**</font>!

[/ QUOTE ]

If the U.S. says they were used at least to some extent, and there are pictures/videos, you're going to have to do better than that.

[canis582]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, if the insurgents called it a chemical weapon, i guess it must be true. You know, lead is a chemical too... all guns must be chemical weapons. Ah-ha, so Saddam did have WMDs after all!

[/ QUOTE ]
Nice Rush Limbaugh logic.

Folks, this is white phosphorus, it melts flesh down to the bone. We were dropping it indiscriminately on civilians. Check out the pics of women and children who died terrible, painful deaths from it.

[bobman0330]

[ QUOTE ]

Nice Rush Limbaugh logic.


[/ QUOTE ]

Good god this is annoying.

[ QUOTE ]

Folks, this is white phosphorus, it melts flesh down to the bone. We were dropping it indiscriminately on civilians. Check out the pics of women and children who died terrible, painful deaths from it.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is ridiculous. It's tragic if any of this is true and civilians were killed in a more painful manner than usual. It's not exactly a new story that civilians die in a war though.

Saying that it was dropped indisicriminately on civilians is almost certainly a blatant lie.

Saying that white phosphorous is a chemical weapon is also a lie. No one is stupid enough to fail to understand this. So I think we're left with deliberate distortion on the part of the OP.