Shocking Tally of Iraq Civilian Causalities

[Occhidiangela]

With did not sign the treaty, I meant the part that the US did not sign the part that bans the use of white phosphorus in combat.  (that is what I heard on the news here) So in that sense WP is not illegal no...although a lot of other countries wanted it to be.

[right][snapback]95047[/snapback][/right]

eppie

I want to thank you for highlighting this topic. I'll be frank with you, I am as puzzled as the author of the article below, and you, regarding why the forces in Fallujah used WP. With any amount of wind, the prospects for "collateral damage" (killing or injuring non combatants who you had no intention of harming during a fight) would seem to me rather high for that particular weapon. I wasn't there at the time, I had left a month prior, so I don't know what went into that choice of munitions. Given how incredibly tight the RoE was when I was there, and the extraordinary sensitivity to "collateral damage," something at the political level must have changed where a decision was made to accept higher risk of "collateral damage."

Christian Science Moniter of 18 Nov (see below) is a fairly objective piece. (That's rare.) The 1980 convention is related to the "ban land mines" idiocy. The people who use land mines irresponsibly (not surveyed or marked) are not the folks who sign treaties. That is why mines are such a menace, their irresponsible use. The professional forces are not the problem, since they survey and know where they lay mines. The treaty is an exercise is stupidity.

Furthermore, banning "incendiary devices" is an attempt to ban fire. I hope you understand how ludicrous a professional military man would find such a position, and the derision with which it was met by some in 1980. That said, I admire the hard work the Disarmament and Arms limitation committees pursue. Their motives are good, although I wonder sometimes at their ability to apply common sense to their work, given that war is bloody and brutal by its very nature.

To misquote Diablo: "Not even a treaty can save you from me!" :lol:

Here is the article, with a few comments

Christian Science Monitor November 18, 2005

Arms Controversy In Iraq

Civilian fatalities in Fallujah raise concerns about US military's use of phosphorous munitions.

By Mark Sappenfield, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON - The allegation that civilians in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004 were burned to death by the United States military's use of white phosphorous has highlighted a weapon that dates back to before World War I.

For decades, gunners on the battlefield have used white phosphorous rounds as a way to set enemy positions on fire - as well as to provide smoke to cover advancing troops. Although they involve a chemical process, white phosphorous rounds are not classified as chemical weapons, and they are seen among weapons experts as no more inherently sinister than any other conventional weapon.

Yet the claims made by an Italian television station - that women and children were found with melted skin despite the fact that their clothes were unharmed - are consistent with the action of white phosphorous, scientists say.

In an offensive that involved targeting insurgents who were hidden in a city of 500,000 inhabitants, the allegations - if true - do not prove or disprove military malfeasance.

(*Occhinote* This is misleading. There was a weeks long information effort, leaflets, radio broadcasts, etcetera, advising people to leave since the Marines were coming back (They'd been fighting there in March/April of 2004). A lot of people left, and as one Marine described Fallujah in Nov 2004, it was more ghost town than city. (See Defensetech.org, links to thermobaric weapons used in Fallujah, comments.) The city may have had half a million people in it before April 2004, but it is not a "city of half a million today." It wasn't when I was over there.

But they do raise the issue of the military's judgment. Because fires can burn out of control during a battle, the Convention on Conventional Weapons in 1980 banned the use of incendiary devices, like white phosphorous, in heavily populated areas. America, however, did not sign the agreement.

Note: Neither did Soviet Union, China . . . but it really isn't as simple as that one liner asserts. Some major nations reserved the right to continue using WP. For better or worse.

http://www.nawcwpns.navy.mil/~treaty/CCWC.html

While supporting states view the Ottawa Convention as establishing a new legal norm to address the serious humanitarian crisis caused by landmines, many countries, including the United States, Russia and China as well as states in regions of tension such as the Middle East and South Asia, remain outside the Ottawa Process.

The United States (has decided that it) must retain 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.

A review conference for CCCW will be held in 2001. It is anticipated that new initiatives restricting the use of cluster bombs, requiring self-destructing fusing for all exploding ordnance, and proposing new restrictions on landmines will be entertained by the conference.

Occhinote: The US signed on to some Protocols, and not others, etc. Likewise others. The statement "the US did not sign it" is incorrect in that it is incomplete.

In a war that has already brought grotesque evidence of prisoner abuse and is subject to conflicted opinions at home, the reports are another blow to the military and a reminder of the brutal nature of war - and they could heighten the question of whether the American public has the will to continue.

"The problem is war," says Ivan Oelrich, a weapons expert at the Federation of American Scientists here. "Appalling things happen in war, and that's the bigger issue."

This week, the Pentagon acknowledged that it used white phosphorous rounds against insurgents during the battle of Fallujah last November. To some, its use in the middle of a city - even if America didn't sign the 1980 conventional-weapons pact - is irresponsible.

"If white phosphorous [is to be] used as an incendiary, the military has to do so in a manner consistent with our obligations to not unnecessarily harm civilians," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association here. "The evidence available suggests that that may not have been done."

Pentagon officials insist that the weapon was not used against civilians. If civilians were indeed killed, as the Italian report alleges, the military will have to determine if the appropriate precautions were taken.

To determine the facts, some observers have called for an investigation, and the Iraqi Health Ministry has already started one of its own.

Yet regardless of what lies ahead, the report has the possibility of becoming to the Iraq war what the famous picture by Nick Ut was to the Vietnam War. In that black-and-white photograph, a young girl runs naked from a napalm attack in Vietnam.

"Obviously, napalm was not [intended] to bomb little girls," says Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. "But war is a chaotic affair."

Some experts find it curious that white phosphorous should be so demonized. While it can have terrible effects, it is not seen within the military world as more dangerous or cruel than any other weapon. "Every military uses white phosphorous," says Dr. Oelrich.

If it can be proved that a member of the US military knowingly used it against civilians, it would be a clear violation of international standards. But cries that equate America's use of white phosphorous with Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons strikes some as inappropriate.

"It's clear that the European media want to have a fight," says Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution here. "The instinct for America-bashing is not helpful."