Quote:
The Pentagon has confirmed that US troops used white phosphorus during last year's offensive in the northern Iraqi city of Falluja.
"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC.
Col Venable denied that the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - constituted a banned chemical weapon.
"It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants," spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC.
Col Venable denied that the substance - which can cause burning of the flesh - constituted a banned chemical weapon.
General military opinion is that WP is a valid night-time illuminant (shiny in da sky) and a legitimate battle-field obscurant (smokey no see nutt'n).
But using it as a weapon directed at enemy combatants (burns skin to the bone and if inhaled burns from the inside) is widely accepted as a chemical attack.
Until today the USA (under pressure) was denying that it had used it as an assault weapon directed at people; just as a smoke-screen or illuminant, but it looks like they gave Lt. Col. Venable the wrong hymn-sheet.
Oops! You pesky Ameh'cuns!
