Did the US Use "Willy Pete" to Burn Civilians in Fallujah?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/7/05 at 5:15pm

Italian television station RAI to allege tomorrow that US forces used the banned chemical weapon White Phosphorus ("Willy Pete") and Napalm to take Fallujah.

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The documentary - 'Fallujah - the hidden massacre' - uses witness accounts from former US soldiers, Fallujah residents, video footage and photographs, to support its claim that contrary to US State Department denials, white phosphorous was used indiscriminately on the city, causing terrible injuries to civilians, including women and children.

"I heard the order being issued to be careful because white phosphorous was being used on Fallujah. In military slang this is known as Willy Pete. Phosphorous burns bodies, melting the flesh right down to the bone," says one former US solider, interviewed by the documentary's director, Sigfrido Ranucci.

"I saw the burned bodies of women and children. The phosophorous explodes and forms a plume. Who ever is within a 150 metre radius has no hope," the former soldier adds.

"A rain of fire came down on the city, and people targeted by the different coloured substances began to burn. We found people dead, with strange injuries, with their clothes intact," a biologist from Fallujah, Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji tells Ranucci....

The use of white phosophorous and Napalm is prohibited by UN conventions. Moroever, the United States signed up to the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997.
IRAQ: ITALIAN TV ALLEGES U.S. USED CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN FALLUJAH

[papalovesmambo]

Posted: 11/7/05 at 5:19pm

i wonder if this came from the same sources as the niger docs? coincidence that this comes out as that story is breaking, no?

Updated On: 11/7/05 at 05:19 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/7/05 at 5:24pm

God help the USA if this is true.

[lildogs]

Posted: 11/7/05 at 5:26pm

We need the help even if it isn't...

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 11/7/05 at 6:47pm

I saw this earlier but could not bring myself to post it - hoping against hope that it is not true.

The fact that I might even consider it to be true is disturbing enough.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 11/7/05 at 10:19pm

JMJ - let's hope this is not true.

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 11/7/05 at 10:57pm

I am watching Victory in the Pacific on American Experience on PBS - such a different war and a different time, but the same War ethics should apply.

[son_of_a_gunn_25]

Posted: 11/8/05 at 12:28am

Updated On: 1/3/09 at 12:28 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/8/05 at 4:57pm

The story hits the Christian Science Monitor.
Did the US military use chemical weapons in Iraq?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/9/05 at 11:53pm

The US government's reply: Phosphorus 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.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 11/9/05 at 11:56pm

Hunter, at the DailyKos, has this reply/analysis. Snippet:

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There is some confusion over whether the United States was a signatory to the Do Not Melt The Skin Off Of Children part of the Geneva conventions, and whether or not that means we are permitted to melt the skin off of children, or merely are silent on the whole issue of melting the skin off of children.

But all that aside, there are very good reasons, even in a time of war, not to melt the skin off of children.

* First, because the insurgency will inevitably be hardened by tales of American forces melting the skin off of children.

* Second, because the civilian population will harbor considerable resentment towards Americans for melting the skin off of their children.

* Third, BECAUSE IT F*CKING MELTS THE SKIN OFF OF CHILDREN.
Melting the Skin Off of Children [GRAPHIC]

[brdlwyr]

Posted: 11/9/05 at 11:56pm

PJ - I have not done any research. Is that a plausable explanation?