Use by US forces in Iraq
In April 2004, during the First Battle of Fallujah, Darrin Mortenson of California's North County Times reported that US forces had used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon while "never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused". Embedded with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, Mortenson described a Marine mortar team using a mixture of white phosphorus and high explosives to shell a cluster of buildings where Iraqi insurgents had been spotted throughout the week.[13][14] In November 2004, during the Second Battle of Fallujah, Washington Post reporters embedded with Task Force 2-2, Regimental Combat Team 7 stated that they witnessed artillery guns firing white phosphorus projectiles.[15] The March/April 2005 issue of an official Army publication called Field Artillery Magazine reported that "White phosphorus proved to be an effective and versatile munition and a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes. ... We fired 'shake and bake' missions at the insurgents using W.P. [white phosphorus] to flush them out and H.E. [high explosives] to take them out".[16][17]
The US Embassy in Rome denied that US troops had used white phosphorus as a weapon. In November 2005, the US ambassador to the United Kingdom, Robert Tuttle, wrote to The Independent also denying that the United States used white phosphorus as a weapon in Fallujah. However, on 15 November 2005, US Department of Defence spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable confirmed to the BBC that US forces had used white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon there. The documentary Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre, produced by RAI TV, said that Iraqi civilians, including women and children, had died of burns caused by white phosphorus during the assault on Fallujah, but this was denied by Venable. Venable also stated "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."[18][19]
On 22 November 2005, the Iraqi government stated it would investigate the use of white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah.[20] On 30 November 2005, General Peter Pace stated that white phosphorus munitions were a "legitimate tool of the military" used to illuminate targets and create smokescreens, saying "It is not a chemical weapon. It is an incendiary. And it is well within the law of war to use those weapons as they're being used, for marking and for screening". Professor Paul Rodgers from the University of Bradford department of peace studies said that white phosphorus would probably fall into the category of chemical weapons if it was used directly against people. George Monbiot stated that he believed the firing of white phosphorus by US forces directly at the combatants in Fallujah in order to flush them out so they could then be killed was in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention and,
therefore, a war crime.[16][18][21]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whit...orus_munitions
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