United States used weapons of mass destruction in Iraq


 * "At intervals, white phosphorus rounds would illuminate entire sections of the city, showering down balls of orange flame and leaving behind smoky jellyfish-shaped silhouettes." --Newsweek, November 22, 2004.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - In the November 8, 2004, Operation Phantom Fury, the U.S.-led assault on Fallujah, "[s]ome artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns," the Washington Post reported November 10, 2004.

On Wednesday, November 16, 2005, the Pentagon "acknowledged using incendiary white-phosphorus munitions in a 2004 offensive against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Falluja and defended their use as legal, amid concerns by arms control advocates," Reuters reported November 16, 2005. "Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. military had not used the highly flammable weapons against civilians."

"Shake 'n' Bake"
The California counties of San Diego and Riverside North County Times reported April 10, 2004, on the "siege" of Fallujah, during which Jonathan Millikin, 21, from Reno, Nevada grabbed "a white phosphorus round from a nearby ammo can" and held it over the firing tube before dropping it in ...


 * "The boom kicked dust around the pit as [the soldiers] 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."

The "Fight for Fallujah"
The following comes from the November 9, 2005, Daily Kos:


 * "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 [high explosive]. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out." --Field Artillery Magazine, March/April 2005.


 * "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'," Steve D. wrote.


 * "... 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." --Mark Kraft, Altercation, MSNBC, November 9, 2005.

See Digital Globe Maps of Al Fallujah September 15, 2002, and November 5, 2004 for views of the city before the November 2004 assault. Global Security also has numerous Digital Globe aerial view Maps of Al Fallujah dating from 2002 and November 4 and 5, 2004, and Troop Movements November 9, November 10, November 14, 2004.

Related SourceWatch Resources

 * Depleted Uranium
 * enemy combatant
 * Geneva Conventions
 * Legal Arguments for Avoiding the Jurisdiction of the Geneva Conventions
 * Operation Iraqi Freedom: Iraqi casualties
 * The Cheney-Rumsfeld Cabal Deception
 * United States as a rogue nation
 * war crime
 * War Crimes Against the Civilians of Iraq
 * weapons of mass destruction

Websites

 * Electronic Iraq Project website.
 * Iraqi Body Count.net website.

Definition

 * "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in the Wikipedia (stems from "blanket bombing" in Guernica, Spain, in 1937).

Photographs

 * U.S. Army Redstone Technical Test Center, Redstone Arsenal. Scroll down to second row of pictures and the one described as "White phosphorous obscurant" shows the "smoky jellyfish-shaped silhouettes" described in Newsweek, November 22, 2004.

Documents & Publications

 * Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Protocol III: Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons, Geneva, October 10, 1980.
 * John Emsley, The 13th Element: The Sordid Tale of Murder, Fire, and Phosphorus, John Wiley & Sons: New York, Chichester, England, 2000, ISBN 0-471-39455-6. Published in UK as The Shocking History of Phosphorus: A Biography of the Devil’s Element, Macmillan Publishers, Ltd.: London, England, 2000, ISBN 0-333-76638-5.
 * "The Fight for Fallujah" in Field Artillery, March/April 2005 (pp. 22-28).

Napalm

 * MK77 750lb Napalm . MK78 500lb Napalm . MK79 1000lb Napalm, Global Security.

1995

 * "The 'Scope' of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Role of Its Schedules" (Working Paper), Preparatory Commission for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (Australia), July 25, 1995.

2001

 * William M. Arkin, "America Cluster Bombs Iraq," Washington Post (GlobalSecurity.org), February 26, 2001.
 * Michael Taylor, "Military Says Goodbye to Napalm. Pentagon recycles remaining stock of a notorious weapon," San Francisco Chronicle, April 4, 2001.

2003

 * "U.S. secret weapons in Iraq war. Microwave bursts, incendiary bombs to target bio-chem arsenal," WorldNetDaily, February 20, 2003: "The offensive weapon of choice against Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological weapons stockpiles may be what the Pentagon is calling 'agent defeat weapons,' or ADW. ... ADWs burn up the chemical and biological weapons once they are found and even serve to deactivate the ashes with chlorine and acid cleaners once the burning stops."
 * Lindsay Murdoch, "'Dead bodies are everywhere'," Sydney Morning Herald, March 22, 2003.
 * James W. Crawley, "Officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops. Results are 'remarkably similar' to using napalm," San Diego Union-Tribune (GlobalSecurity.org), August 5, 2003.
 * "U.S. Admits Using Napalm Bombs In Iraq: Report," Islam Online, August 10, 2003.

2004

 * Dahr Jamail, "'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah," Inter Press Service (TruthOut), February 26, 2004.
 * Darrin Mortenson, "Violence subsides for Marines in Fallujah," North County times, April 10, 2004.
 * Jason E. Levy, "TTPs for the 60mm mortar section," Infantry Magazine, May-June 2004.
 * Mike Ingram, "Inside Fallujah: An insightful report on US atrocities against Iraqi civillians," WSWS, June 2, 2004.
 * "No Longer Unknowable: Falluja's April Civilian Toll is 600," Iraq Body Count (IBC) (InformationClearingHouse), October 26, 2004.
 * Tony Karon, "The Grim Calculations of Retaking Fallujah," Time, November 8, 2004: "Capturing the city could mean a Sunni election boycott, but leaving it in rebel hands would also jeopardize the poll."
 * Jackie Spinner, Karl Vick and Omar Fekeiki, "U.S. Forces Battle Into Heart of Fallujah. Units Meet Scattered Resistance; Attacks Continue Elsewhere," Washington Post, November 10, 2004.
 * "U.S. drives into heart of Fallujah. Army, Marines face rockets and bombs in battle to take insurgents' stronghold," San Francisco Chronicle, November 10, 2004.
 * "US Troops Reportedly Gassing Fallujah," Islam Online, November 10, 2004.
 * "US Troops Reportedly Gassing Fallujah," AriannaOnline, November 11, 2004.
 * News Release: "Iraq: Fears of serious violations of the rules of war in Falluja," Amnesty International, November 12, 2004.
 * Helen Thomas, "Attack on Fallujah can't be justified," Hearst Newspapers (published in Seattle Post-Intelligencer) (Common Dreams), November 12, 2004.
 * Pepe Escobar, "A thousand Fallujahs," Asia Times, November 12, 2004.
 * Giuliana Sgrena, "The death throes of Fallujah," il manifesto, November 13, 2004: "Fallujah is a ghost town: there is no water, electricity or medical supplies - and precious little food. Yet US forces and interim Prime Minister Allawi are preventing the humanitarian organisations from bringing in aid."
 * Press Release: Situation of civilians in Falluja, Iraq, United Nations, November 14, 2004.
 * Dexter Filkins and James Glanz, "Fallujah invasion complete. GIs, Iraqis flush remaining rebels; Mosul violence grows," New York Times (San Francisco Chronicle), November 15, 2004.
 * "Operation Phantom Fury," The Pnut House, November 15, 2004.
 * Jeannie Shawl, "UN rights commissioner calls for probe into Fallujah violations" Jurist, November 16, 2004.
 * "Falluja women, children in mass grave," Aljazeera, November 21, 2004.
 * Babak Dehghanpisheh, "Fallujah - 'This Ain't Over Yet'," Newsweek, November 22, 2004: "Operation Phantom Fury lived up to its name as American soldiers stormed Fallujah. On the ground with the Marines."
 * Giuliana Sgrena, "Napalm Raid on Falluja? 73 charred bodies -- women and children -- were found," il manifesto, November 23, 2004.
 * "US Denies Gassing Fallujah," Islam Online, November 25, 2004.
 * "U.S. uses napalm gas in Fallujah – Witnesses," Aljazeerah (and sister site Islam Online), November 28, 2004.
 * Paul Gilfeather, "Fallujah Napalmed," Sunday Mirror (UK) (From the Wilderness), November 28, 2004.
 * Dahr Jamail, "International weapons conventions in Iran, Iraq," Iraq Dispatches, November 29, 2005.
 * Fintan Dunne, "Fallujah's 9/11: U.S. Used Weapons of Mass Destruction," BreakForNews.com, November 29, 2004.
 * Mike Whitney, "Firebombing Falluja," ZMag, December 1, 2004.
 * Pepe Escobar, "From Guernica to Fallujah," Asia Times, December 2, 2004.
 * Sam Hamod, "Iraq: The U.S. Wrong All the Way," Aljazeerah, December 3, 2004.
 * "Did the U.S. Use 'Illegal' Weapons in Fallujah? Media allegations claim the U.S. used outlawed weapons during combat in Iraq," U.S. Department of State, December 9, 2004; updated November 10, 2005.
 * Dahr Jamail, "An Eyewitness Account of Fallujah," The Ester Republic (Iraq Dispatches), December 16, 2004.

2005

 * Dahr Jamail, "Odd Happenings In Fallujah," Dahrjamailiraq.com (Counter Currents), January 19, 2005.
 * Dahr Jamail, "Stories from Fallujah," Iraq Dispatches, February 8, 2005.
 * Chris Floyd, "Ring of Fire: The Fallujah Inferno," Empire Burlesque, March 1, 2005. Includes lengthy list of related citations.
 * "U.S. used banned weapons in Fallujah – Health ministry," Aljazeera, March 3, 2005.
 * William Pitt, "Another Journalist Deliberately Targeted?" TruthOut, March 6, 2005.
 * "Weapons of Mass Destruction Employed by US to Imolate Falluja: White Phosphorus is a Chemical Weapon," Albasrah.net, March 7, 2005.
 * Nick Welsh, "Diving Into falluja. To Hell and Back with S.B. Documentary-Maker Mark Manning," Independent (UK), March 17, 2005.
 * Eman Ahmed Khammas, "Back to Fallujah: Tents on Rubbles," Brussels Tribunal (uruknet), March 23, 2005.
 * Report on the current situation in the city of Fallujah. Presented to the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights For the period of 1st January to 25th March 2005, Studies Center of Human Rights and Democracy, March 26, 2005.
 * "Did BBC ignore weapons claim?" BBC, April 14, 2005.
 * Mike Whitney, "You Call This Normal? The New York Times in Fallujah," Counter Punch, April 18, 2005.
 * "Fire Bombs in Iraq: Napalm By Any Other Name," Political Affairs Magazine, April 18, 2005; pdf version.
 * Jonathan Steele and Dahr Jamail, "This is our Guernica," Guardian Unlimited (UK) (TruthOut), April 27, 2005.
 * Mark Feehan, "Meet 'Willy Pete'," Non Sum Dignus, April 30, 2005.
 * "Falluja-The day After," Information Clearing House, posted June 2, 2005. 18-minute 20 second video: "This video has been recorded in Falluja in early January, 2005, when the city was reopened to civilians after the American attack of November 8th, 2004."
 * Joe Carr, "Falluhah, Iraq: An unnatural disaster," CPTnet, June 3, 2005.
 * Dahr Jamail, "The failed siege of Fallujah," Asia Times, June 3, 2005.
 * Colin Brown, "US Lied to Britain over Use of Napalm in Iraq War," Independent (UK) (TruthOut), June 17, 2005.
 * "Downing Street: The Fires of Hell," The Heretik, June 18, 2005. Includes links to numerous accounts.
 * Doug Thompson, "Time to Impeach a War Criminal," Capitol Hill Blue, June 20, 2005.
 * David Enders, "'We Regard Falluja As a Large Prison'. A reporter returns to the city, where violence and destruction remain part of everyday life," Mother Jones (InformationClearingHouse), July 29, 2005.
 * Larry Everest, "Nothing Good Can Come from U.S. Occupation," rwor.org, September 25, 2005. Also see "History of US and UK Intervention in Iraq," TruthOut, 2005.
 * Duke Skorich, "Update On Chemical Weapon Use," Northland Liberal, November 7, 2005. Video link on page.
 * Peter Popham, "US forces 'used chemical weapons' during assault on city of Fallujah," Independent (UK), November 8, 2005; also posted by Common Dreams.
 * "U.S. used chemical weapons in Fallujah," Aljazeera, November 8, 2005.
 * "US 'uses incendiary arms' in Iraq," BBC, November 8, 2005.
 * Phil Stewart, "US denies using white phosphorus on Iraqi civilians," Reuters (Yahoo! News), November 8, 2005.
 * "U.S. Broadcast Exclusive - 'Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre' on the U.S. Use of Napalm-Like White Phosphorus Bombs," Democracy Now!, November 8, 2005.
 * Greg Sampson, "US military accused of illegally using chemical weapons against Iraqis," Jurist, November 8, 2005.
 * "U.S. Army publication confirms United States used incendiary weapon in Falluja," The Raw Story, November 9, 2005.
 * Gabriele Zamparini, "BBC and Fallujah: War Crimes, Lies and Omertà," Live Journal, November 9, 2005.
 * Christopher G. Anderson, "US denies using white phosphorus in Iraq, admits using napalm-like substance," Jurist, November 10, 2005.
 * "UN warns on Iraq environment fate. Derelict factories, military scrapyards and battle sites across Iraq pose a threat to the environment and to public health, the United Nations has said," BBC, November 10, 2005: "Narmin Othman, Iraq's environment minister, said that some 311 sites were polluted by depleted uranium, the Associated Press reported."
 * "U.S. Army publication confirms United States used incendiary weapon in Falluja," The Raw Story, November 10, 2005.
 * Mark Rothschild, "Who's Misinforming Whom About White Phosphorus?" Opinion Journal, November 11, 2005.
 * George Monbiot, "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?" Guardian (UK), November 15, 2005; also posted on AlterNet website.
 * Dahr Jamail, "'I treated people who had their skin melted'," Independent (UK), November 15, 2005.
 * Lauren Becker, "Pentagon acknowledges use of white phosphorus against Iraqi enemy fighters," Jurist, November 15, 2005.
 * Robert Burns, "Pentagon Used White Phosphorous in Iraq," Associated Press, November 15, 2005.
 * Will Dunham, "US defends use of white phosphorus," Reuters (Yahoo! News), November 16, 2005.
 * Domenico Stinellis, "Military denies incendiary material use on civilians," Associated Press (USA Today), November 16, 2005.
 * John Aravosis, "US denies using white phoshorus on civilians," AMERICAblog, November 16, 2005.
 * Wayne Uff, "The Torch of Liberty," Bad Attitudes, November 16, 2005.
 * Dave Lindorff, "Shake and Bake. Pentagon Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah," CounterPunch, November 16, 2005.
 * "UK follows US in admitting use of white phosphorus in Iraq," Islamic Republic News Agency, November 16, 2005.
 * "UK used white phosphorus in Iraq," BBC, November 16, 2005.
 * Jeannie Shawl, "Iraq investigating reports of US white phosphorus weapons," Jurist, November 16, 2005.
 * "Iraq probes US phosphorus weapons," BBC, November 16, 2005.
 * Paul Reynolds, "White phosphorus: weapon on the edge," BBC, November 16, 2005.
 * Andrew Buncombe, Kim Sengupta, and Colin Brown, "Incendiary Weapons: The Big White Lie. US finally admits using white phosphorus in Fallujah - and beyond. Iraqis investigate if civilians were targeted with deadly chemical," Independent (UK) (Common Dreams), November 17, 2005.
 * "Conventional Terror...," Baghdad Burning, November 17, 2005.
 * Bronwen Maddox, "Propaganda nightmare of chemical hypocrisy," London Times (UK), November 17, 2005.
 * Juan Cole, "The Skin is Peeling off the New Iraq: White Phosphorus and Torture," Informed Comment, November 17, 2005.
 * "UN Concerned About U.S. Use Of White Phosphorus In Iraq," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, November 17, 2005: "The United Nations today expressed concern about the possible effects on the local civilian population of the use of white phosphorous bombs by U.S. forces against insurgents in Iraq."
 * "Iraq probes white phosphorus use," CNN, November 17, 2005.
 * "US Use of White Phosphorus in Iraq Might Constitute a War Crime," Wikinews, November 17, 2005.
 * "Torture, phosphorus disclosures hurt U.S.-Iraqi image," Reuters (CNN), November 17, 2005.
 * Elizabeth Sullivan, "Phosphorus Tale Burns Pentagon," Cleveland Plain Dealer (Common Dreams), November 17, 2005.
 * "Pentagon Reverses Position and Admits U.S. Troops Used White Phosphorous Against Iraqis in Fallujah," Democracy Now!, November 17, 2005.
 * Mark Sappenfield, "Arms controversy in Iraq. Civilian fatalities in Fallujah raise concerns about US military's use of phosphorous munitions," Christian Science Monitor, November 18, 2005.
 * Scott Shane, "U.S. Is Slow to Respond to Phosphorus Charges," New York Times, November 21, 2005.
 * Nico, "Classified Pentagon Document Described White Phosphorus As 'Chemical Weapon'," Think Progress, November 21, 2005: "A formerly classified 1995 Pentagon intelligence document titled 'Possible Use of Phosphorous Chemical' describes the use of white phosphorus by Saddam Hussein on Kurdish fighters. ... In other words, the Pentagon does refer to white phosphorus rounds as chemical weapons — at least if they're used by our enemies."
 * George Monbiot, "Behind the phosphorus clouds are war crimes within war crimes. We now know the US also used thermobaric weapons in its assault on Falluja, where up to 50,000 civilians remained," Guardian (UK), November 22, 2005.
 * Peter Popham and Ann Penketh, "US intelligence classified white phosphorus as 'chemical weapon'," Independent (UK), November 23, 2005.
 * Frida Berrigan, "White Phosphorous Lies. Did the Pentagon use chemical weapons indiscriminately in Fallujah?" In These Times, November 23, 2005.
 * "Russian Parliament Condemns US Use of Phosphorous Bombs in Iraq," Mos News, November 24, 2005.
 * Ben Lowry, "Colonel Tim backs US on weapon," Belfast Telegraph (UK), November 24, 2005.
 * Editorial: "Shake and Bake," New York Times, November 29, 2005.
 * Greg Mitchell, "White Phosphorus, a California Embed, and 'The Times'," Editor & Publisher, November 29, 2005.