US admits to chemical weapons use in Nov 2004 attack on Falluja

The Pentagon has just admitted that it used white phosphorous as incendary chemical weapon in it's attacks against insurgents in Falluja last November. It has vigorous denied repeated eyewitness accounts until this week's announcment. The weapon use was captured by an Italian documentary team.

• U.S. admits using phosphorus as weapon in iraq, 11/16
• US defends use of white phosphorus weapons in iraq, Reuters, 11/16
• UK used white phosphorus in iraq, BBC
• US forces used 'chemical weapon' in iraq, The Independent

A U.S. State Department release from last December categorically denied the use of illegal weapons in Falluja. It has been amended this week:

Finally, some news accounts have claimed that U.S. forces have used "outlawed" phosphorous shells in Fallujah. Phosphorous shells are not outlawed. U.S. 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.

[November 10, 2005 note: We have learned that some of the information we were provided in the above paragraph is incorrect. White phosphorous shells, which produce smoke, were used in Fallujah not for illumination but for screening purposes, i.e., obscuring troop movements and, according to an article, "The Fight for Fallujah," in the March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery magazine, "as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes …." The article states that U.S. forces used white phosphorous rounds to flush out enemy fighters so that they could then be killed with high explosive rounds.]

More on the history of white phosphorous as a weapon can be found on Wikipedia's white phsophorus entry. The BBC has also compiled a fact sheet on phosphorous. Eighty countries have signed Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons, which bans its use as an incendaiary weapon against civilitan populations. The United States has refused to sign the treaty and is officially exempt.

According to some news accounts, while "white phos" is a chemical and a weapon (that burns flesh in a quite gruesome way), it is not technically considered a "chemical weapon." Such Orwellian distinctions seem a little too esoteric for us here at Nonviolence.org.