Marine journal tells how it's done

David Charter, London
November 18, 2005
TAKE one white phosphorus mortar round, normally used to illuminate enemy positions. Add half a stick of C4 explosive. Wrap three times with detonation cord.

Under the headline, "Some of the lessons learned during the battle for Fallujah", the US Marine Corps Gazette is clear about the practical uses of phosphorus, which ignites on exposure to oxygen and produces an intense heat: "Used when contact is made in a house and the enemy must be burned out."

Guidance such as this, in the marines' own journal in September, lay behind the Pentagon's abandonment on Tuesday night, local time, of its long-held position that white phosphorus was used "very sparingly" at Fallujah, and only for illumination.

A US government website had previously insisted phosphorus shells were merely "fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters". The Pentagon now admits phosphorus was indeed "used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants" - although not civilians.

In London, US ambassador Robert Tuttle, who earlier this week rebutted reports that US forces used phosphorus as a weapon, said yesterday: "We did the best we could with the information we had, but we regret that it was not totally accurate." Washington's new position is that phosphorus is "not a chemical weapon" and "not outlawed or illegal".

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which polices the 1993 convention prohibiting chemical weapons, accepts that position. Its spokesman said phosphorus was covered instead by the 1980 Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects.

Although the US ratified parts of this convention in 1995, it has failed to enact Protocol III, which bans the use of incendiary weapons against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas. They can be used against military targets separate from civilian positions.

The row - ignited by claims in an Italian television documentary that accused the US military of using phosphorus on women and children - led Britain to deny yesterday that its forces had used the substance on civilians or enemy combatants. Defence Secretary John Reid said it was used "to produce a smokescreen to protect our troops".

The Times

Link Here