Bush's Fallujah - Broken Treaties and Crimes Against Humanity
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!
