http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0, ... 42,00.html The Pentagon has admitted white phosphorus was used at Falluja against insurgents. Protocol three of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCCW) prohibits its use against civilians and military targets located within a concentration of civilians, but the US has only ratified protocols one and two.
Pentagon officials maintain that white phosphorus is not banned by any treaty that the US has signed, and cites its use to "flush out" enemy fighters as consistent with the principle of proportionality governing the use of all weapons.
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, told the BBC that 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". However, US officials - including the ambassador to Britain, Robert Tuttle - at first denied that US forces had used it as a weapon.
The charge that it was used in an area with a high civilian concentration (the city of Falluja) remains the central controversy, regardless of the legal issues.
Claims that civilians were found burned to the bone had swirled around Falluja since the fighting, but were this month taken up by a documentary on the Italian television channel RAI. One former US solider, interviewed by director Sigfrido Ranucci said he saw "the burned bodies of women and children".
The Iraqi government is to investigate the use of white phosphorus at Falluja to try to determine whether civilians were injured or killed.
The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.
--Albert Einstein, My First Impression of the U.S.A., 1921
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EST (
Lifespring) '83
Salesmanship Club '84-'86
Straight, Inc. '86-'88
