Who Would You Believe?

Murtha or Schmidt

Congressman Murtha Stands Strong  

while

Congresswomen Schmidt Inserts Both Feet In Her Mouth  

By: Tom Scott

A colonel in the Marine reserves has taken issue with how his views were represented in a Ohio Republican Congresswoman’s personal attack on War hero and House Representative John Murtha.

Schmidt narrowly won a special election on August 2, 2005 to replace 12-year incumbent, who was appointed United States Trade Representative.

The New York Times ran a front-page story on Hackett and articles appeared in USA Today and The Washington Post. USA Today wrote "if Democrats could design a dream candidate to capitalize on national distress about the war in Iraq, he would look a lot like the tall, telegenic Marine Reserve major who finished a seven-month tour of Iraq in March."

Hackett has correctly observed that "If you think America needs another career politician steeped in a culture of corruption that does as she's told and toes the line on failed policies, then I'm not your candidate."

A month before the election, the inspector general of the Ohio General Assembly announced he was investigating three legislators for accepting gifts and failing to report them. Schmidt was implicated in this, but could not be investigated because she was no longer a member of the Ohio house.

Schmidt was so proud to be associated with President Bush, she was sending campaign mail with a photograph of them together in the Oval Office.

Schmidt made the Iraq War an issue in the race. She declared that "9/11 was a wake up call stating “We lost our innocence" and praised the Bush foreign policy for tying the 9/11 attack to Iraq and Saddam Hussein "We have toppled a terrorist regime, a terrorist madman who now sits in a prison cell. She's really on top of things isn't she?

Hackett did not mince words about his feelings on Iraq or President Bush. He told The New York Times that Bush was "a chicken hawk" for pursuing the war after having avoided active duty military service in the Vietnam War.

Asked to respond on the congresswoman's statement, her office quickly did a about face and said only, "Mrs. Schmidt's statement was never meant to disparage Congressman Murtha.", which anyone who was watching knows, is a flat out lie.

From the sounds of it, she has been sniffing way too much ethanol to challenge a great American like John Murtha with personal attacks and lies.

But this isn't the first time Schmidt has embarrassed herself and America by opening her mouth before she thought. In 1995, she traveled to Russia to offer instruction about political campaigning in a country which had little experience of free elections. On her trip she ran in Moscow's Red Square. "Did I ever feel unsafe?" she said. "No. And would I jog through Central Park in New York? No way."

 Tom Scott is Senior Investigative Reporter for Choice America Network

 CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

CHOICE AMERICA NETWORK

U.S. Military

 attempts to deny

While Confirming

 Use of White Phosphorus  

 On Iraqi civilians in Fallujah

By: Tom Scott

The documentary, which was shown on Italian state television on Tuesday, November 8th, cited evidence that U.S. Armed Forces had used the incendiary chemical white phosphorus, also know as “Willy Pete” or “Whiskey Pete” in military jargon, against innocent civilians in the November 2004 offensive on the Iraqi town of Fallujah immediately following the U.S. Presidential election.

Sounding a lot like Scooter Libby in his total lack of recall of the Vice Presidents actions on the outing of Covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, Lieutenant Colonel Steven Bolin said "I do not recall the use of white phosphorus during the offensive operations in Fallujah in the fall of 2004,”

This reporter was expecting Bolins next statement to place the use of “Willy Pete” squarely on the shoulders of Tim Russet. 

Bolin also denied the use of “Willy Pete” against “civilians” in Fallujah despite numerous eyewitness accounts to the contrary.

Interestingly, the Marine spokesman did take time Wednesday, November 9th, to make the statement that he would describe white phosphorus as "conventional munitions" used primarily for smoke screens and target marking. He then went on to state that “U.S. forces do not use any chemical weapons in Iraq.”

If he, like the Bush Administration considered everyone in Fallujah as “enemy combatants”, which Bush and the military did at the time that would technically be a true statement, but that wasn't the reality. 

Bolin did confirm however, in an about face from previous statements to the contrary, that U.S. forces had dropped MK 77 firebombs, which the documentary on Italian broadcaster RAI compared to napalm, against military targets only in Iraq in March and April 2003.

However,  a March ‘05 publication by the US Army confirms that US soldiers used white phosphorus offensively in the Battle of Fallujah. This directly contradicts the statements made by the U.S. Department of Defense, as well as a previous statement by the US State Department that Willy Pete was used “very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes”.

Also a story on artillery use in Fallujah from the March/April edition of the US Army’s “Field Artillery Magazine” states that “The munitions we brought to this fight were illumination and white phosphorous (WP, M110 and M825), with point-detonating (PD), delay, time and variable-time (VT) fuses.”

“WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with High Explosives (HE). We fired ’shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.” 

What the article does not say, however, is that there is no way you can use white phosphorus at ground level without forming a deadly chemical cloud that kills everything within a quarter of a mile in all directions from where it hits. Obviously, the effect of such deadly clouds weren't just psychological in nature. 

This claim of “shake and bake” is further confirmed in a news article reported on NCTimes.com on April 10, 2004 by an embedded journalist at the time.

“Bogart is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused. . . they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call “shake ‘n’ bake” into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week.”

Why were "round after round of Willy Pete needed if it were used for illumination purposes only? When used in this manner Willy Pete will form a toxic chemical cloud which will kill within a quarter mile radius. 

It feels like the American people have been hit by a barrage of “shake ‘n’ bake” with the smokescreen and High Explosive denials that the Pentagon and the Bush Administration puts out on a consistent basis.

The documentary had cited a letter it said had come from British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram; admitting 30 MK 77 weapons were used on military targets in Iraq between March 31 and April 2, 2003.

The Defense Minister admitted that the US had misled the British high command about the use of napalm, but he would not comment on the extent of the cover up.

"The only instance of MK 77 use during (Operation Iraqi Freedom) occurred in March/April 2003 when U.S. Marines employed several bombs against legitimate military targets," Keefe said.

He also stated that the chemical composition of the MK 77 firebomb is “different from that of napalm.” The documentary has also accused U.S. forces of using the Mark 77 firebomb on Fallujah.

The use of firebombs puts the US in breach of the 1980 Convention on Certain Chemical Weapons and is a violation the Geneva Protocol against the use of white phosphorous and napalm, "since its use causes indiscriminate and extreme injuries especially when deployed in an urban area." 

Regrettably, "indiscriminate and extreme injuries" are a vital part of this Administration’s terror campaign in Iraq. It is a well-coordinated strategy designed to spawn panic throughout Iraq with random acts of violence. 

It is clear that the U.S. military never needed to use napalm in Iraq.

Their conventional weaponry and laser-guided technology were already enough to run roughshod over the Iraqi army and seize Baghdad almost unobstructed. Napalm was introduced simply to terrorize the Iraqi people and to pacify through intimidation.

The Geneva Convention has banned the use of incendiary weapons against civilians but interestingly enough the United States did not sign the relevant protocol to the convention, a U.N. official in New York has confirmed.  

The Fallujah offensive in November 2004, had aimed to crush followers of al Qaeda's Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said to have linked up with local insurgents in the Sunni Arab city west of Baghdad.

The shocking Italian documentary showed images of bodies recovered after a November 2004 offensive by U.S. troops on the Iraqi town of Fallujah, which it said, proves the use of white phosphorus against innocent men, women and children who were burnt to the bone.

"I do know that white phosphorus was used," said Jeff Englehart in the RAI documentary, which identified him as a former soldier in the U.S. 1st Infantry Division in Iraq. "Burnt bodies. Burnt children and burnt women," said Englehart, who RAI said had taken part in the Falluja offensive. "White phosphorus kills indiscriminately."

Western newspapers had also reported at the time that white phosphorus had been used during the offensive. But not one American newspaper or TV station picked up the story.

This is the extent to which the American "free press" is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we have seen with the Downing Street memo, which was reluctantly reported 5 weeks after it appeared in the British press, the airtight American media ignores any story that doesn't embrace their collective support for the war.

So far, none of this has appeared in any American media, nor has the media reported that the United Nations has been rebuffed twice by the Defense Department in calling for an independent investigation into what really took place in Fallujah. The US simply waves away the international body as a minor nuisance while the media scrupulously omits any mention of the allegations from their coverage. 

Unfortunately Cheney, Rumsfeld and many others in the Bush Administration are old hands at terrorism dating back to their counterinsurgency projects in Nicaragua and El Salvador under the Reagan Administration.

We can assume that the order to use white phosphorous came straight from the office of Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney. No one else could have issued that order, nor would they have risked their career by unilaterally using banned weapons when their use was entirely gratuitous.

These directives are consistent with other decisions attributed to the Bush Administration. Much like the authorizing of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prison, the targeting of members of the press and the rehiring of members of Saddam's Secret Police to carry out their brutal activities under new leadership.

Rumsfeld and Cheney’s offices have always been the headwaters for most of the administration's treachery. White Phosphorous and Napalm simply adds depth to an already prodigious list of war crimes on the Bush Administrations resume'. 

They know that the threat of immolation serves as a powerful deterrent and fits seamlessly into their overarching scheme of rule through fear. Terror and deception are the rotating parts of the same axis and are the two imperatives of the Bush-Cheney Administrations foreign policy strategy. 

We have to wonder when that terror and deception will spill over to the American people.

If it hasn't already.

Tom Scott is Senior Investigative Reporter for Choice America Network.

He is a Vietnam Veteran.

A Fateful night in November 2004

By Tom Scott

Back at the beginning of the second U.S. offensive on Fallujah, that began on a fateful night in late November 2004, the United States military used strange new artillery shells that put up smoke like little mushroom clouds.

The operation had been planned out and was ready to go well in advance but was put on hold awaiting the outcome of the 2004 Bush/Kerry Presidential election for very apparent reasons.

Commanders just outside Fallujah were anxious to get started with the attack, and were worried about a delay if there were a long contested election outcome dispute like there was after the Gore-Bush election fiasco of 2000.

But the Fallujah commanders were happy and relieved when Kerry conceded so quickly, and they promptly got the go-ahead from Washington to commence the Fallujuh attack immediately after the election results were accepted.

As one soldier put it "In preparation for the main assault on Fallujah, artillery gunners dropped white phosphorus or Willy Pete on the city. The Field Artillery guys later told us this was the newest white phosphorous in the way it is deployed in 81 MM artillery rounds. Whatever it was, it was incredible.”

As it turned out these artillery shells were deliberately designed anti-personnel weapons that released on exploding, a large mushroom shaped killing cloud of corrosive acids that indiscriminately killed everything in it’s path by dissolving flesh and blistering lungs.

Everything within a radius of 500 yards of a strike point was affected. As these 81 MM rounds came in, they burst in the air several hundred feet above the ground for maximum effect. Then smaller pieces of white phosphorous fell from the air with long tails of smoke behind them as they streaked towards the ground in little spider trails burning bright orange. As the Willy Pete hit the ground it created a thick white smoke screen but it still burned bright orange, even on the ground.

Pieces of the Willy Pete exploded into fires that burnt people’s skin even when water was dumped on their bodies, which is the effect of phosphorous weapons.

“This massive barrage lit up the battlefield before the main thrust of tanks and Marines swept through Fallujah and created a great smoke screen” and many, many people suffered greatly from this new weapon.

Both civilian men, women and children alike, most of who were surprised in their restless sleep, as well as the insurgent fighters died from the massive barrage of this newest white phosphorus weapon in the military’s arsenal.

According to the soldier “Most who were hit with the Willy Pete were literally burned to death, which is to say their tissues were burning, not that they were being burned to death by a fire.”

Phosphorus burns the human body on contact even melting it right down to the bone.

A rain of fire and death descended on the time forgotten city of Fallujah that fateful night in November 2004 as Bush glowed in his apparent “mandate of the people”.

People who were exposed to those bright orange spider trails began to burn to death in their own skin. People were found everywhere with very bizarre wounds.

Their bodies were completely burned, but their clothing was still intact. The effects of this new weapon ranged from a toxic acidic mist to shrapnel that burned on contact and until the element was completely oxidized.

Death came painfully that night from inhaling a phosphorus cloud and asphyxiating or being struck by pieces of the little spider trails burning bright orange and dying from horrific burns.

The many corpses scattered everywhere with eyes, nose and mouth areas affected but with the hands intact would be reasonably consistent with being exposed to unoxidized white phosphorus. The moisture from the mucous membranes would react to create phosphoric acid and give intense local damage while the drier skin would only suffer surface burns.

The victims, mostly innocent women and children caught in the crossfire, wouldn't have had a chance.   

But what exactly is Willy Pete? White phosphorus or “Willy Pete” as it is popularly known in military jargon has been used by the military in various types of ammunition to produce smoke screens for concealing troop movement and for identifying targets. For many years, most notably Viet Nam, it has been used in marking landing zones with volumes of white smoke that its explosions produce.

Willy Pete is also used to start fires with its white-hot chemical reaction, which is impervious even to water because it is a waxy solid which burns easily. Because of this characteristic it is used in chemical manufacturing and also in smoke munitions.

So basically, Willy Pete rapidly oxidizes and forms a number of compounds, one of which could be phosphoric acid if it interacts with water. Since the human body is largely water, you can have both heat burns from the oxidation and chemical burns from the acid. 

Exposure to white phosphorus may cause burns and irritation, liver, kidney, heart, lung, bone damage, and even death, and is the type of agent that has all the effects of a chemical weapon on both humans and the environment. The particle size of the white phosphorous determines the effect. Fine dust should oxidize rapidly, almost instantly. Larger particles, including pellets will oxidize more slowly since the interior of the granule is protected from oxidation by the outer oxidized layer.

The use of the incendiary substance on civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997.

It is just a little ironic that as Saddam Hussein sits awaiting trail for his crimes against his people, we as Americans, through the Bush Administration, were doing exactly the same thing Saddam had done.

It is time that “we the people” start holding the Bush Administration accountable for their crimes against humanity.

It starts by us demanding a full investigation of that fateful night in Fallujah!

“Would the United States and other free nations be more safe, or less safe, with Zarqawi and Bin Laden in control of Iraq, its people, and its resources?" Mr. Bush asked.  

In order to answer Mr. Bush’s question one would have to be able to define “safe” with the same accuracy as Mr. Clinton sought to define “is”.  The first part of such an endeavor might involve one’s determining “whose” “is” is being considered.  You might answer, “the United States and other free nations”.

Well, let’s see about  “the United States”.  If we consider the service men and women of the United States, one could hardly say that they are more safe with George Bush as our commander-in-chief than they would have been allowing Sadaam Hussein or Bin Laden to control Iraq; on the other hand, they would probably be no less safe because as my father used to say when describing “normal” politicians,  “They wouldn’t go to hell for a nickel, but they would stand on the edge with a long stick fishing for the nickel and fall in”.  George wouldn’t invade Iraq for a nickel, but he would stand on the edge with his long sticks – his “pet media’, Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz and Sean Hannity - fishing for an excuse to invade and “fall in,” much as he has already done.  His fall would involve dragging (or would it have been pushing) 500,000 troops into Iraq, 2,000 of whom will never parent another child nor become president of the United States.  15,000 service people will carry mental and/or physical battle scars for life as George continues to work feverishly to establish a reason for their sacrifices.  (This is a Pentagon number and subject to a high degree of error.  Congress has been told that 103,000 service personnel have required hospitalization).

Let’s examine how much better off financially the United States is with George in power here instead of Sadaam remaining in power there.  Thanks to incompetence, stupidity, negligence and blatant corruption, the cost of the war in Iraq is up to 6 billion dollars per month having risen from 1 billion dollars per week to 1½ billion dollars per week.  (But, not to worry, this is only the play money we are borrowing from the Chinese and the rest of the world and which we cannot possibly repay.  Repayment is being left to our children and grandchildren or, as is more likely, repayment will be made when the Chinese throttle our “economic engine” and extort repayment by threatening to foment the collapse of our national economic system.  Who can imagine life without Wal-Mart?  How else could we be reminded where American jobs are going)? But, this is for the future; what about the NOW?

George’s war to remove Sadaam has taken 2 million barrels per day of oil off the world market causing an almost 100 percent increase in oil prices.  (At least that is one of the stories we are being told).   The increase at the gas pumps for working Americans who have to commute is being severely felt, but whether or not one drives, the cost increase is being felt in every commodity everyone buys.  Who does the average American pass this cost to?  He can’t go borrow more play money from the Chinese on April 15; he has to borrow from a banker who definitely expects to be repaid in “real” money.

And safety?  When was the last time you boarded a plane in the United States?  The main difference in flying now and before George started his war is that there are now approximately 56,000 more fools on the government payroll who are charged with groping the young and well endowed and making life as miserable as possible for little old ladies with fingernail clippers. 

And safety?  Now, with George’s help, we have terrorists theoretically threatening to bomb the New York City subway system.  We have had subway bombs in London’s subways and terribly destructive bombings in Spain.  Sadaam in all his glory was never capable or stupid enough to threaten the US in any way.  In fact, Sadaam made every concession that George asked of him to avoid war.  Neither were there “Sadaam” bombings against our allies simply because they were our allies.

As for protecting his citizens, George presents a pitiful spectacle.  While bombing the infrastructure of Iraq “back to the stone age”, George had to divert monies from domestic infrastructure maintenance such as levy repair into “smart bombs” for his war on terror – against a country that had never been a threat to the US.  To add insult to the injury of New Orleans’ citizens, George had to make use of the FEMA branch of his 47.3 billion dollar per year Homeland Security boondoggle to thwart both domestic and foreign efforts for the relief of the people of New Orleans.  Meanwhile back at the borders.  Not even Hurricane Katrina slowed the illegal traffic into the United States.  An estimated one million illegals cross our borders each year – any of which could be a terrorist with murder or an American Social Security number or an American driving license on his mind.

But, let’s get back to George’s original question.  Is the world better off with George ruining the lives of Iraqis and stealing their oil or would we all be better off with Bin Laden ruining their lives and stealing their oil?  Who knows?  If Bin Laden had ever figured out how to depose Sadaam, Bin Laden would be living in Sadaam’s palaces instead of US Embassy and US military personnel.  Other than that, there isn’t much apparent difference.

Would Bin Laden have killed 100,000 Iraqi civilians, incarcerated another 40,000, tortured and killed untold numbers, set up gulags around the world for captured and purchased prisoners, used extraordinary rendition on those the CIA deems useful but uncooperative?  Would unemployment in Iraq under Bin Laden be over 50%? Who knows? Would Halliburton’s profits have jumped by 284% for the last year if Bin Laden controlled Iraq?  Probably not.

On the other hand, if Bin Laden were in control of Iraq, he might have decreed that Iraq go into competition with Afghanistan for the honor (and profits) of being the world’s foremost producer of poppies and illegal heroin.  Being an astute businessman he might have developed a deep jealousy toward Afghanistan’s control of 87% of the world’s heroin supply.   (Of course he might have had to enlist the help of the US military to become the top heroin producer).  After all, it was only after the US military had chased the Taliban out of Afghanistan that Afghanistan rose to its present number one heroin producing position.

So, you, Mr. and Mrs. America, decide for yourselves who represents the lesser of the evils – George or Bin Laden.

Nolan K. Anderson is a retired engineer and a veteran of Korea

who was once a “conservative” until he found there was nothing left to conserve.

(He may be reached at nkanders@tds.net ).

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