Iraq’s alleged chemicals led a war to break
Then in Fallujah to ‘shake-and-bake’
As the world watched bemused
White phosphorus was used
By the U.S., now this news surely takes the cake!
The Pentagon has acknowledged using incendiary white-phosphorus munitions in a 2004 offensive against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Fallujah and defended their use as legal, amid concerns by arms control advocates. Read the reports here & here
The UN Convention bans the use of incendiary weapons against civilans, not against humans. See for yourself: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/515?OpenDocument
ReplyDeleteOf course any deliberate engagement or targeting of civilians is
already a war crime. so that the US has not signed this one is not of especial import except to say that we aren’t bound by it expressly.
White Phosphorus is not banned.
It also isn’t a chemical weapon. We are signtory to the Chemical Weapons Convention which defines chemical weapons. See here: http://www.opcw.org/html/db/cwc/eng/cwc_frameset.html
So it isn’t a chemical weapon and it isn’t banned.
Indiscriminate use is. The stories circulating do not support that
contention. See here: http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/04/11/military/iraq/19_30_504_10...
Cpl. Bogert received the coordinates for the targets and recorded them on a map. This is proper procedure. He’s receiving coordinates from a Forward Observer, indirect fire weapons never see their targets, the FOs do. The coordinates are plotted so that it is known what was ordered where. There is also a verification that takes place in the call for indirect fire to avoid problems with numerical transposition or other mistakes.