[Reader-list] The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it

[Rana Dasgupta]

The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it

Now 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
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.

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."

Article continues
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.