In November 2004, during Operation Phantom Fury (the second major assault on Fallujah), Washington Post reporters embedded with Task Force 2-2, Regimental Combat Team 7, wrote on November 9, 2004 that "Some artillery guns fired white phosphorus (WP) rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water." [4] A Material Safety Data Sheet on white phosphorus [5] states that white(yellow) phosphorus fires are to be fought with "Water spray, wet sand."
This claim was also confirmed by members of the US military itself in the March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery, a journal published by the US Department of Defense. The article, titled "TF 2-2 in FSE AAR: Indirect Fires in the Battle for Fallujah":
"WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breaches 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. We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."[6]
Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, a documentary film by Sigfrido Ranucci diffused on Italy's RaiNews24 on November 8, 2005, claimed that the U.S. military killed civilians in Fallujah using white phosphorus and MK-77 (modernized napalm). The documentary included numerous photographs of charred bodies, claiming they showed fatal wounds caused by white phosphorus. The documentary also includes footage which purported to be of white phosphorus being fired from helicopters over Fallujah. It also quoted journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had been in Fallujah, as a testimony. [7] Giuliana Sgrena quoted by the November 8, 2005 RAI documentary "And then I had collected just before going to interview the city refugees testimonies from other inhabitants from Fallujah about the use of guns and white phosphorus. In particular, some women had tried to enter their homes, and they had found a certain dust spread all over the house. The Americans themselves had told them to clean the houses with detergents, because that dust was very dangerous. In fact, they had some effect on their bodies, leading some very strange things."
On November 15, 2005, Dept. of Defense spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Venable confirmed to the BBC that white phosphorus had been used as an incendiary antipersonnel weapon in Fallujah:
"Yes, it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants. When you have enemy forces that are in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on and you wish to get them out of those positions, one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position because the combined effects of the fire and smoke - and in some case the terror brought about by the explosion on the ground - will drive them out of the holes so that you can kill them with high explosives."[8]
Initially denied.
Now confirmed with the proviso that it was "only used on insurgents".
Although the evidence seems to deny this.
Yer insane.
Be Well.
