Dude, by that definition, water is a chemical weapon…
As I posted in the Pit thread version of this, here is the US Army’s response:
The problem here is that there are actually several debates that are being squeezed into one issue (intentionally, though not perhaps by the OP). The core is that the US shouldn’t be in Iraq and that any civilian deaths of Iraqi’s is unacceptable. Instead of being honest and posing that as the debate though, sensationalism is used. ‘The US used CHEMICAL WEAPONS against the Iraqi’s! They murdered Iraqi civilians with CHEMICAL WEAPONS!’ The attempt is to show the irony of the situation where the US would use ‘chemical weapons’ against civilians when that was what we were supposed to be going after Saddam for. The problem is…its propaganda. The folks serving this up (not talking about the OP here…s/he is just someone who swallows the propaganda whole) know that they won’t get much traction (save with the faithful) if they show the US killed civilians accidentally with bullets or artillary or dropped bombs on them.
Oh, everyone with any heart is going to be sad and upset and feel bad about it when it happens (least I know it tears my heart hearing back from my son about things happening over there)…but in war shit like that happens reguardless of intentions. Unless the US was willing to simply surrender to the insurgents anytime there was a possibility of civilians getting in the way, civilians will die when the US clashes with insurgents. And the fact that the insurgents deliberately choose to engage the US in and around civilians (not to mention the insurgents deliberately and directly target those very same civilians…or Saddam/insurgents actually using civilians as human type shields, forcing the US to inflict those casualties if we go after them) makes it even more difficult for the US to avoid civilian casualties.
This kind of propaganda is obviously effective though (and has been since the war started…and it gets more and more effective as this thing drags on)…they have got the Army defending the use of one of the weapons we consider conventional. Its served its purpose, pissed off a bunch of folks who are clueless, put the US/Army on the defensive (again), and maybe will have the long term effect of stripping these weapons from the US.
Of course, since the REAL issue isn’t really WP (or even chemical weapons) its kind of a slippery slope. No chemical weapons. Check. No nukes. Check. No incindiaries. Check. Oh wait. When folks are hit with high explosives they die too…and its a pretty horrible death. No high explosives. When folks are hit with a flame thrower its pretty gruesome…no flame throwers. Modern rifle bullets are incredibly destructive, killing or maiming even if you are hit in an arm or leg. Best get rid of those too. Have you seen what a fixed bayonet or a knife can do to someone?..
Parody? Maybe. But then maybe someone will tell me why getting killed with WP is preferable to being blown apart by a bomb or HE shell, having a building collapse on you, be blasted by a flame thrower…or hit by a bullet, having ones head chopped off with a sword, or stabbed with a knife.
-XT
Oh, I do. But you have to understand that “We had to destroy the village in order to save it” *is * a story.
False in that particular detail, yes, but that particular detail is actually irrelevant. The claim being made is that the US is using tactics that it would decry if used by others, that those tactics are as immoral as the strategy, that in order to liberate Iraq from the use of such tactics we are employing them themselves, that by doing so we are worsening the immediate situation and undercutting any ability we have left to help it. You could replace “white phosphorus” with “torture” and reach the same conclusions.
Fair enough, but that’s winning a round while conceding the match.
Quibbling over whether or not White Phosphorous is or isn’t a “chemical weapon” (or even which definition of “chemical weapon” to use) sidesteps the bigger question – namely, is the United States in favor of, or opposed to, melting the skin off children? (contains graphic photo)
Just count me as one of the anti-children-melting folks, thanks.
Don’t you understand ? It’s OK to melt kids, as long as you use the proper, approved tools to do it.
If you don’t like the idea of incendiary weapons, do something about it. And that detail is not irrelevant. If it were irrelevant, it would not be the headline. Thus, it is relevant.
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
“It is not.”
“Well, someone’s throwing rocks from off the cliff! And the sky is falling!”
“The rocks are bad, but the sky isn’t falling.”
“I made you listen! Look at the rocks!”
“… Yes, the rocks are bad. Why are you going on about the sky?”
“The sky’s not important!”
You see what I mean? Sure, WP is nasty. But… the sky isn’t falling, people are throwing rocks.
As far as incendiary weapons as legitimate tools of war, that might be an interesting debate, with a different OP. I suggest you start it.
But…but…you must want to melt the skins off children because you disagree!
-XT
From Globalsecurity.org, a respected source of non-political information about military matters:
"White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory. Smokes and obscurants comprise a category of materials that are not used militarily as direct chemical agents. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol II of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects. "
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm
I have no clue whatsoever if this weapon was used indescriminately. But I do understand that there is a chance that, if it is being used against legitimate military targets, that civilians could be unintentionally killed. What with all the bullets, rockets, and bombs being used in Fallujah at that time, I’m not sure you can say that the civilians were not in danger until WP was used.
To those who really, truly believe that WP is a horrible weapon for what it did to the children and other civilians who were apparently killed by it, I have a serious question: do you believe there is any legitimate use for WP? Or napalm? Are you saying that these weapons should never be used even against military targets far removed from civilians? Or are you saying that WP should not have been used in this particular situation?
Until this bruhaha became public, I had always associated military use of “willie pete” with nighttime illumination.
There’s another important part to my question: “Are you saying that these weapons should never be used even against military targets far removed from civilians? Or are you saying that WP should not have been used in this particular situation?”
Iraq is not Iwo Jima. What applies in a situation of actual war does not apply in an insurgency. It isn’t direct, “pure” war, it is war that takes primarily in a civilan setting. One doesn’t precede a raid on a crack house with an artillery barrage.
The “hearts and minds” factor doesn’t enter into it when dealing with a panzergruppen on the plains of Europe. It is a major factor in situations like this tub o’ shit. We are forced to accept constraints that don’t apply in a strictly military engagement. Is that difficult, costly, and agonizing? Hugh Betcha, that why sane people avoid such situations. Precisely the problem, you may recall, so many of us railed about before this shitstorm got rolling. You will further recall we were ignored. (Biggest problem with being a pessimist is being proven right…again and again and again…)
It doesn’t matter whether you or I or Billy Bob think WP is a weapon that ought not be used in whatever context. What matters is how Iraqis react. Its not about killing the ones who hate us, its about the ones who don’t hate us yet!Any action which creates more enemies than it neutralizes is way, way past stupid.
And the US Armed Forces themselves confirm that WP is illegal when used against any persons as a chemical weapon:
“The US army knows that its use as a weapon is illegal. In the Battle Book, published by the US Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, my correspondent David Traynier found the following sentence: “It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.””
The article goes on to quote the US military as saying that the use of WP by Saddam Hussein was using a chemical weapon:
“Last night the blogger Gabriele Zamparini found a declassified document from the US department of defence, dated April 1991, and titled “Possible use of phosphorus chemical”. “During the brutal crackdown that followed the Kurdish uprising,” it alleges, “Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorus (WP) chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil … and Dohuk provinces, Iraq. The WP chemical was delivered by artillery rounds and helicopter gunships … These reports of possible WP chemical weapon attacks spread quickly … hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled from these two areas.” The Pentagon is in no doubt, in other words, that white phosphorus is an illegal chemical weapon.”"
So there you are, according to US military forces WP is a chemical weapon and it is illegal to use it against people as a weapon when it relies on its chemical properties.
But WP is not a chemical weapon.
Apparently the US thought it was when Saddam Hussein was using it- see reference above:
“Last night the blogger Gabriele Zamparini found a declassified document from the US department of defence, dated April 1991, and titled “Possible use of phosphorus chemical”. “During the brutal crackdown that followed the Kurdish uprising,” it alleges, “Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorus (WP) chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil … and Dohuk provinces, Iraq. The WP chemical was delivered by artillery rounds and helicopter gunships … These reports of possible WP chemical weapon attacks spread quickly … hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled from these two areas.” The Pentagon is in no doubt, in other words, that white phosphorus is an illegal chemical weapon.”"
I’m stunned, pjen, that you missed the most interesting part of the article:
Is there any reason that you didn’t mention this?
And one more link for you on whether or not WP is a chemical weapon:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4442988.stm
So, we’re back to page one. There’s no evidence (as so well stated by your cite) that the US military was using it as a toxic weapon; the use of WP as an incindiary and an obscurant is consistent with international law, and the best you can muster in in terms of evidence that WP is, in fact, a CW, is only passing references in two military papers. I bet I can find as many cites for it being against the law of war to use 50 caliber machine guns against personnel, which is an oft-reported but inaccurate myth.
I never relied on the RAI program. I relied on the statements from US forces that they had used WP in a direct attack on individuals. The RAI program was trying to prove that the WP had been used on civilians. I was merely pointing out that WP had been used as a means of attacking people and that this was using a chemical weapon.
Looks like the US govt thought WP was a chemical weapon in 1991 when it suited them however.
What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If the US thought WP was a chemical weapon in 1991 then there is no reason why they should not accept that it was a chemical weapon in 2004. The only thing that has changed is the country using the weapon- and that was the point of my original post.
Repeating the OP:
" Chemical Weapons found in Iraq…
…trouble is, they are in the possession of and being used by US Forces:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/internati...1643679,00.html
White Phospherus shells were used as anti-personnel weapons.
This could be in contravention of the rules on Chemical Weapons- the very rules we accused Saddam Hussein of contravening.
How culpable are US forces in this? What sanctions should the US face?"
How Culpable is the US:
I would say that the US is being found culpable by reasoned international opinion of dancing around the rules of war ( we didn’t sign…, it isn’t really a chemical weapon…, we didn’t use it like that… etc.). This has been a live issue in many European news outlets over the past few days.
What Sanctions should it face:
A gradual erosion of any menaingful support from the Coalition of the Conned, and a gradual withdrawal of moral and practical support from Operation Iraqi F***up. The Italians are going soon and the Brits will be gone in a year.
In the article cited George Monbiot goes on to expose furthe rpotential war crimes in Falluja:
"But we shouldn’t forget that the use of chemical weapons was a war crime within a war crime within a war crime. Both the invasion of Iraq and the assault on Falluja were illegal acts of aggression. Before attacking the city, the marines stopped men “of fighting age” from leaving. Many women and children stayed: the Guardian’s correspondent estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians were left. The marines treated Falluja as if its only inhabitants were fighters. They levelled thousands of buildings, illegally denied access to the Iraqi Red Crescent and, according to the UN’s special rapporteur, used “hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population”.
I have been reading accounts of the assault published in the Marine Corps Gazette. The soldiers appear to have believed everything the US government told them. One article claims that “the absence of civilians meant the marines could employ blast weapons prior to entering houses that had become pillboxes, not homes”. Another said that “there were less than 500 civilians remaining in the city”. It continued: “The heroics [of the marines] will be the subject of many articles and books … The real key to this tactical victory rested in the spirit of the warriors who courageously fought the battle. They deserve all of the credit for liberating Falluja.”
But buried in this hogwash is a grave revelation. An assault weapon the marines were using had been armed with warheads containing “about 35% thermobaric novel explosive (NE) and 65% standard high explosive”. They deployed it “to cause the roof to collapse and crush the insurgents fortified inside interior rooms”. It was used repeatedly: “The expenditure of explosives clearing houses was enormous.”
The marines can scarcely deny that they know what these weapons do. An article published in the Gazette in 2000 details the effects of their use by the Russians in Grozny. Thermobaric, or “fuel-air” weapons, it says, form a cloud of volatile gases or finely powdered explosives. “This cloud is then ignited and the subsequent fireball sears the surrounding area while consuming the oxygen in this area. The lack of oxygen creates an enormous overpressure … Personnel under the cloud are literally crushed to death. Outside the cloud area, the blast wave travels at some 3,000 metres per second … As a result, a fuel-air explosive can have the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon without residual radiation … Those personnel caught directly under the aerosol cloud will die from the flame or overpressure. For those on the periphery of the strike, the injuries can be severe. Burns, broken bones, contusions from flying debris and blindness may result. Further, the crushing injuries from the overpressure can create air embolism within blood vessels, concussions, multiple internal haemorrhages in the liver and spleen, collapsed lungs, rupture of the eardrums and displacement of the eyes from their sockets.” It is hard to see how you could use these weapons in Falluja without killing civilians.
This looks to me like a convincing explanation of the damage done to Falluja, a city in which between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians might have been taking refuge. It could also explain the civilian casualties shown in the film. So the question has now widened: is there any crime the coalition forces have not committed in Iraq?""
This is now getting consideration in the media here and in the rest of Europe and steadily diminishing the US’s moral capital. Falluja will come to be seen as the Dresden of this war- a great untried and unpunished war crime.
Against this WP is a minor matter.
Yep, the Americans killed people in Iraq. Blew up the buildings they were in. Notify the media.