White Phosphorus Use in Iraq - Use in Fallujah

Use in Fallujah

In April 2004, during the First Battle of Fallujah, after the fall of Saddam Hussein's government, Darrin Mortenson of the North County Times in California reported that white phosphorus was used as an incendiary weapon. 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 insurgents had been spotted throughout the week.

In November 2004, during the Second Battle of 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." Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

On November 9, 2005 the Italian state-run broadcaster Radiotelevisione Italiana S.p.A. aired a documentary titled "Fallujah, The Hidden Massacre", alleging that the United States' used white phosphorus as a weapon in Fallujah causing insurgents and civilians to be killed or injured by chemical burns. The filmmakers further claimed that the United States used incendiary MK-77 bombs in violation of Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. According to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, quoted in the documentary, white phosphorous is permitted for use as an illumination device and as a weapon with regard to heat energy, but not permitted as an offensive weapon with regard to its toxic chemical properties. The documentary also included 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.

On November 15, 2005, U.S. Department of Defense spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Barry Venable confirmed to the BBC that white phosphorus had been used as an incendiary antipersonnel weapon in Fallujah. Venable 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."

On November 16, 2005, BBC News reported that an article published in the March–April 2005 issue of Field Artillery, a U.S. Army magazine, noted that white phosphorous had been used during the battle. According to the article written by a captain, a first lieutenant, and a sergeant, "WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes where 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." BBC News noted that the article had been discovered by bloggers after the US ambassador in London, Robert Holmes Tuttle, stated that US forces do not use not use napalm or white phosphorus as weapons.

On November 22, 2005, the Iraqi government stated it would investigate the use of white phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah.

On November 30, 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".