"The destruction of Falluja was an act of barbarism that ranks alongside My Lai, Guernica and Halabja."
Guardian | A name that lives in infamy
[Narrator] "Falluja is the heart of the 'Sunni Triangle', the area most hostile to U.S. occupation. A crossroads between Baghdad and Jordan, it was the City of Mosques and Sights. The destruction detailed in a report for the U.N.'s office in Iraq, the UNAMI, dated January 2005, which was for a time kept secret, is described as 'shocking'. Around 37,000 houses are destroyed. The Americans mark, with a red cross, 'cleaned out' or 'disinfected' houses as they write in their reports. As for the official death toll, there is still no figure. 'I can honestly say that I am not aware of any civilian casualties,' said U.S. general John Sattler on the 18th of November. These images, shot on the days following the attack, seem to disprove his theory."
[...]
[Narrator] "Dr. Mohammed Hadeed [?] and his team were given U.S. authorization to enter Falluja with the unenviable task of identifying and burying the dead. The bodies of the civilian casualties of women still clutching the mesbaha, the Islamic rosary [sic]... the bodies showing strange injuries; some burnt to the bone, others with skin hanging from their flesh. There is no sign of bullet wounds. The faces have literally melted away, just like other parts of the body. The clothes are strangely intact, and so it is easier to distinguish the 'insurgents', who were wearing bulletproof jackets, from combatants and civilians. Some animals are also dead, without any apparent injury."
[...]
[Narrator] "Jeff Englehart, you took part in the attack in November 2004, the most dramatic one. Were any chemical weapons used in Falluja?"
[Jeff Englehart] "From the U.S. military? Um, yuh, absolutely. Uh, white phosphorous. Uh, possibly napalm. It may or may not have been used. I do know that white phosphorous was used, which is definitely—without a shadow of a doubt—a chemical weapon."
[Narrator—voiceover] "Is he sure of it?"
[Jeff Englehart] "Yes. It happened."
[Narrator—voiceover] "How can he be certain?"
[Jeff Englehart] "Well, er, it comes across the radio as a general transmission. When it happens lie that, you hear it on the radio through... we have speakers in our trucks. And the speakers and the... the transmission goes through the speakers, so it's audible. And, um, as... as they say, um, 'In five Mikes we're gonna drop some Whisky Pete. Roger. Ten...' Y'know? 'Commence bombing.' I mean, it was... it just comes across the radio and, like, when you hear 'Whisky Pete', that's the military slang."
[Narrator—voiceover] "Contrary to what was said by the U.S. State Department, white phosphorous was not used in the open field to illuminate enemy troops. For this, tracer was used. The rain of fire shot from U.S. helicopters on the city of Falluja on the night of the eighth of November. We will show you in this exceptional documentary, which proves that a chemical agent was used in a massive and indiscriminate way in districts of Falluja. In the days that followed, U.S. satellite images showed Falluja burnt out and razed to the ground (sic)."
[Jeff Englehart] "The gasses from the warhead... the white phosphorous, will disperse in a cloud. And when it makes contact with skin, it's absolutely irreversible damage, burning flesh to the bone. Um, it doesn't necessarily burn clothes, but it'll burn the skin underneath clothes. And this is why protective masks do not help, because it'll burn right through the mask, the rubber of the mask. It'll... it will manage to get inside your face. If you breathe it, it will blister your throat and your lungs until you suffocate, and then it'll... it will burn you from the inside. Um, it basically reacts to skin, oxygen and water. The only way to stop the burning is with wet mud but, at that point, you're... it's... just impossible to stop."
[Narrator] "Have you seen the effects of these weapons?"
[Jeff Englehart] "Yes. Burned... burned bodies. I mean... it burned children and it burned women and it... white phosphorous kills indiscriminately. It's a cloud that will... will in, most cases, two... 150 meters of impact will... will disperse and it will burn every, every human being or animal."
From: Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre
Of course, the U.S. military denies using 'napalm' in Falluja. And it denies using 'white phosphorous' bombs [called "shake and bake" by the troops firing them into the city] against civilians. Remember, Falluja was officially 'cleared' of civilians before the November massacre. However, the same U.S. military does not deny using MK 77 firebombs to obliterate the city and its people. Perhaps they were the result of this U.S. Army Field Support Command procurement notice, amended in June 2004. It seems branding is everything. The evolution of good ol' napalm into the MK 77 firebomb, which has been—since Day 1—and is still being used Vietnam-style throughout Iraq, is documented on the GlobalSecurity site.
Remember, and to paraphrase the military, a firebomb is a thin-skinned container of fuel gel designed for use against dug-in troops. It's similar in size and appearance to earlier napalm canisters, and is loaded with 44 pounds of polystyrene-like gelling compound and 63 gallons of jet fuel. Firebombs can be carried by F/A-18 Hornet attack jets or AV-8 Harrier jump jets and, without fins, the blunt-nosed bombs tumble when dropped, increasing the spread of the flammable gel when the 510-pound canisters hit the ground.
During the war, Pentagon spokesmen disputed reports that napalm was being used, saying the Pentagon's stockpile had been destroyed two years ago. Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use.
What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons.
Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene. Hundreds of partially loaded Mark 77 firebombs were stored on pre-positioned ammunition ships overseas, Marine Corps officials said. Those ships were unloaded in Kuwait during the weeks preceding the war.
"You can call it something other than napalm, but it's napalm," said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va. Although many human rights groups consider incendiary bombs to be inhumane, international law does not prohibit their use against military forces. The United States has not agreed to a ban against possible civilian targets.
"Incendiaries create burns that are difficult to treat," said Robert Musil, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a Washington group that opposes the use of weapons of mass destruction. Musil described the Pentagon's distinction between napalm and Mark 77 firebombs as "pretty outrageous."
"That's clearly Orwellian," he added.
Welcome to Iraq, the world, and the American way, Bubba.
See also: Iraqanalysis.org | Fire Bombs in Iraq: Napalm By Any Other Name
