UK used white phosphorus in Iraq

[TCBF]

Golly, I learn something new every day!  Thanks for the info.

Tom

 

[48Highlander]

There is no WP in a C1 so your second para is correct but don't feel dumb.   Just make sure that if you ever teach young troops, your facts are correct.   Dont worry about saying "I'll get back to you."   It's better than BSing and sending 30 troops off to continue their career with bad info.

Deffinitely, it's what I try to do whenever I'm usure of something.  And if some clown had't gone around telling everyone that we're getting issued WP granades, we wouldn't be having this discussion now  ;D  damn rumours.  Thanks for taking the time to explain it.

 

[Britney Spears]

<a href=http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/declassdocs/dia/19950901/950901_22431050_91r.html>So......</a>

 

[Teddy Ruxpin]

And?  ;D

Single source intrep...  The source likely described the WP as a "chemical" round himself...doesn't mean a whole helluva lot.

 

[Britney Spears]

OK, fine....... :crybaby:

 

[armyintheafterlife]

Darn.....I knew there were chemical weapons in Iraq!

You might be surprised to know what was there.  For example, why would ya have an explosives workshop with torpedoes in it (source of Octogen a.K.a. HMX and specifically designed to start nuke reactions) located next to a primary school in a Baghdad suburb across the 4 lane city street from the nuclear research facility?  Would be kinda like building a similar workshop on Young Street up around Yorkdale someplace beside a school - it goes up and the whole block goes up.  For you westerners that would be MacLeod Trail at about Southland Dr.  Or let me think for a sec, oh yeh, somebody tries to take it out from the air and gets the school so the cameras have something to give the international media.  You know, I am not a war monger by any stretch of the imagination but here's the thing...  I wish the media would sort their %^&* out.  The only bone they were able to chew on about the nuke capability there was how the first sweep of US EOD might have missed some X lying around in the new nuke complex that was found outside the city, one of about 3 I think it was.

As for the other tech stuff here, go with what the AT is saying.  The only thing I'd add to that is I think the last time I saw No 80 in the inventory was in basic load in Germany about 79 or 80.  I think RP was flavour of the day over WP because it got along better with civilian dangerous goods transport rules though once it starts burning ignition temperatures reach WP levels and it begins to behave like WP. The reason WP will always have a burster charge in whatever its loaded into is it needs to be dispersed cause it combusts spontaneously with air when its dry which is why you leave your boots outside overnight after you've been trying to kill a WP fire. HC is indeed Hex though there's a zinc additive.  The degenerative state of my brain doesn't allow me to remember what the zinc was for though it was important for some reason.  HC was favoured because it burns cooler and sticks to the ground better, doesn't billow and is even friendlier for transport.  That's why it started to show up in shells, grenades, et al.  If yer looking for ammo or explosives that isn't toxic or chemical your stupid, er, I mean I wish the media would smarten up. 

 

[Kirkhill]

This release from the JCS.

Top Military Official Calls White Phosphorous "Legitimate Tool"
 
 
(Source: US State Department; issued Dec. 1, 2005)
 
 
WASHINGTON --- The top-ranking U.S. military officer says white phosphorous is an appropriate battlefield weapon and emphasized that American troops take great care to avoid targeting civilians during combat. 

"White phosphorous is a legitimate tool of the military," Marine Corps General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a Pentagon news conference November 29, responding to a reporter's question about the use of white phosphorous in Iraq. 

An Italian television station on November 8 aired a documentary discussing the use of white phosphorous by U.S. troops in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004. The documentary called white phosphorous a "chemical weapon," and said it was used against civilians during the battle to capture the insurgent stronghold. Other news organizations have repeated the allegations, which are incorrect, according to U.S. military officials. 

Defense Department officials have confirmed U.S. troops used white phosphorous munitions against insurgents during Operation Al Fajr in Fallujah, according to a November 30 release by the American Forces Information Service. However, officials refuted media reports that U.S. forces targeted civilians or used the substance as an incendiary weapon. The substance ignites when exposed to air and can cause serious burns. 

"It is used for two primary purposes," Pace told reporters. "One is to mark a location for strike by an aircraft, for example. The other is to be used -- because it does create white smoke -- to be used as a screening agent so that you can move your forces without being seen by the enemy." 

However, "it is not a chemical weapon," Pace stressed, adding that "it is well within the law of war to use those weapons as they are being used for marking and for screening." 

During the news conference, Pace called white phosphorus an "incendiary weapon," but a subsequent legal review by the Defense Department prompted a clarification. "It is not an incendiary weapon as defined by the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons," the Defense Department said in a statement accompanying an official transcript of Pace's news briefing. 

In a follow-up question, a reporter asked Pace if white phosphorous is an appropriate weapon for a densely populated urban setting. 

"No armed force in the world goes to greater effort" than that of the United States "to protect civilians and to be very precise in the way we apply our power," Pace told the reporters. "A bullet goes through skin even faster than white phosphorous does. So I would rather have the proper instrument applied at the proper time as precisely as possible to get the job done in a way that kills as many of the bad guys as possible and does as little collateral damage as possible. That is just the nature of warfare." 

In the March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery magazine, a U.S. Army publication, three Army members wrote that white phosphorous was used in Fallujah in 2004 to hide American troop movements with its white smoke. The article also said white phosphorous was used as "a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes." It said U.S. forces used white phosphorous to flush enemy fighters into the open. 

In mid-November, the British newspaper The Independent interviewed Peter Kaiser with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The organization oversees the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention. Kaiser said that when white phosphorus is used in a way that does not rely on toxic chemical effects, but on smoke-causing and heat effects - as it was used in Fallujah - it is not considered a chemical weapon. 

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