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'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah
By Dahr Jamail, Inter Press Service
November 26, 2004
The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report."Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah," 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS.
"They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground." Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons. "They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud," Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. "Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them."
He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects.
"People suffered so much from these," he said.
Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining around
Fallujah.
"Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans," said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. "Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die."
Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the city. "I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks," he said. "This happened so many times."
Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said soldiers had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium to be buried. "I saw dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the American snipers," he said. "The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah."
Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. "The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore," he said. "Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all shot.." Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white flags shot by U.S. soldiers." Even the wounded people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed." Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot as they held up makeshift white flags.
"They shot women and old men in the streets," he said. "Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost gone now." Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he said. "It's a disaster living here at this camp," Khalil said. "We are living like dogs and the kids do not have enough clothes." Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told IPS that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and that the military had said it would be at least two more weeks before any refugees would be allowed back into the city. "There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah," said Salim. "And the Americans won't let us in so we can help people." In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are living without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate there are at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters outside Fallujah.
Here is the article relating the facts in the London Sunday Mirror by Paul Gilfeather:
Fallujah Napalmed
November 28th, 2004
U.S. troops are secretly using outlawed napalm gas to wipe out remaining insurgents in and around Fallujah.News that President George W. Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun governments around the world.And last night Tony Blair was dragged into the row as furious Labour MPs demanded he face the Commons over it.
Reports claim that innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh.Outraged critics have also demanded that Mr Blair threatens to withdraw British troops from Iraq unless the U.S. abandons one of the world's most reviled weapons. Halifax Labour MP Alice Mahon said:
"I am calling on Mr Blair to make an emergency statement to the Commons to explain why this is happening. It begs the question: 'Did we know about this hideous weapon's use in
Iraq?'"
Since the American assault on Fallujah there have been reports of "melted" corpses, which appeared to have napalm injuries. Last August the U.S. was forced to admit using the gas in
Iraq.
A 1980 UN convention banned the use of napalm against civilians --- after pictures of a naked girl victim fleeing in Vietnam shocked the world. America, which didn't ratify the treaty, is the only country in the world still using the weapon.
And the United States admitted it. Here is an article from August 2003 by Andrew Buncombe for The Independent
Us Admits It Used Napalm Bombs in Iraq
American pilots dropped the controversial incendiary agent napalm on Iraqi troops during the advance on Baghdad. The attacks caused massive fireballs that obliterated several Iraqi positions. The Pentagon denied using napalm at the time, but Marine pilots and their commanders have confirmed that they used an upgraded version of the weapon against dug-in positions. They said napalm, which has a distinctive smell, was used because of its psychological effect on an enemy. A 1980 UN convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm, a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns.
The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few countries that makes use of the weapon. It was employed notoriously against both civilian and military targets in the Vietnam war. The upgraded weapon, which uses kerosene rather than petrol, was used in March and April, when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad.
"We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches," said Colonel James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11. "Unfortunately there were people there ... you could see them in the [cockpit] video.
They were Iraqi soldiers. It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect." A reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald who witnessed another napalm attack on 21 March on an Iraqi observation post at Safwan Hill, close to the Kuwaiti border, wrote the following day:
"Safwan Hill went up in a huge fireball and the observation post was obliterated. 'I pity anyone who is in there,' a Marine sergeant said.
'We told them to surrender.'" At the time, the Pentagon insisted the report was untrue. "We completed destruction of our last batch of napalm on 4 April, 2001," it said. The revelation that napalm was used in the war against Iraq, while the Pentagon denied it, has outraged opponents of the war.
"Most of the world understands that napalm and incendiaries are a horrible, horrible weapon," said Robert Musil, director of the organisation Physicians for Social Responsibility.
"It takes up an awful lot of medical resources. It creates horrible wounds." Mr Musil said denial of its use "fits a pattern of deception [by the US administration]".
The Pentagon said it had not tried to deceive. It drew a distinction between traditional napalm, first invented in 1942, and the weapons dropped in Iraq, which it calls Mark 77 firebombs. They weigh 510lbs, and consist of 44lbs of polystyrene-like gel and 63 gallons of jet fuel. Officials said that if journalists had asked about the firebombs their use would have been confirmed.
A spokesman admitted they were "remarkably similar" to napalm but said they caused less environmental damage. But John Pike, director of the military studies group GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "You can call it something other than napalm but it is still napalm. It has been reformulated in the sense that they now use a different petroleum distillate, but that is it.
The US is the only country that has used napalm for a long time. I am not aware of any other country that uses it."
Marines returning from Iraq chose to call the firebombs "napalm". Mr Musil said the Pentagon's effort to draw a distinction between the weapons was outrageous. He said: "It's Orwellian. They do not want the public to know. It's a lie." In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Marine Corps Maj-Gen Jim Amos confirmed that napalm was used on several occasions in the war.
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