USPID -
Union of Scientists for Disarmament (Italy)
General
Secretary
cufaro@ba.infn.it
+39 080
5443212/5232289
www.uspid.org
INCENDIARY
WEAPONS ON FALLUJAH
(November
15, 2005)
1) On
November 8, 2005 the italian TV RaiNews24 broadcasted an impressive 27 minutes
reportage with witnesses supporting the hypothesis that the November 2004 US
attack on Fallujah has been brought on by inhuman, if not apparently criminal
means. Copies of this reportage (both in italian and in english) can be
downloaded from RaiNews24 web site at
http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchiesta/video.asp
2) In
this reportage the american military are charged with using incendiary weapons
(either White Phosphorus (WP), or Napalm) against civilians. This is a heavy
charge since the use of incendiary weapons, albeit not outrightly prohibited
(as for chemical weapons subjected to the 1993 CWC - Chemical Weapons
Convention), is regulated by the Protocol III of the "UN 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" (1980) briefly called CCCW. The Protocol III states that
incendiary weapons can be used neither against the civilian population, nor
against "any military objective located within a concentration of
civilians". On the other hand exactly that seems to have been done in
Fallujah, and this is a very serious accusation: for less than that the
political and military officials of other regimes have been brought to
international penal tribunals. The text of Protocol III is joined for reference
at the end of this statement. The complete text of the CCCW can be found at
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/int/index.html
3) On
the other hand the US Administration mantains first of all that WP munitions
have been used as "illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling
systems", which are explicitely excluded from the incendiary weapons by
the Protocol III. This is, however, a weak answer given the horrible results on
the civilians documented by the RaiNews24 reportage. This line of defense,
moreover, does not apply to the possible use either of Napalm, or of its more
recent form used in the munitions MK77 and similar. Documentation on these last
munitions is at
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/mk77.htm
4) The
US Administration, moreover, even without acknowledging an illegitimate use of
incendiary weapons, deems herself not to be restricted by the Protocol III of
the CCCW because the US are not a party to this Protocol. But this answer is -
if possible - worse than the indictment itself, since it adds to the injury
just the arrogant mockery of being above the rules with which the others must
instead comply. Here we are not interested in determining if a treaty has been
formally violated; rather we want to know if a crime against humanity has been
perpetrated. From a substantial point of view a murder remains a murder even if
the murderer proclaims to be above the judiciary sysem.
5) More
caution should be used, instead, for the charges (diffused by the press) of a
use of chemical weapons in Iraq. The use of chemical weapons is strictly
prohibited and even their production and detention is not allowed by the quoted
CWC. In fact, however, neither the WP munitions, nor the Napalm munitions can
be described as chemical weapons. It is true that their effects are produced by
chemical reactions (as for conventional explosives), but they are used on
behalf of the thermal effects of their agents, not of their toxic effects. Hence
the said substances are not mentioned at all in the treaties on chemical
weapons. To charge the US of using chemical weapons on the basis of RaiNews24
revelations is wrong, and can have the paradoxical effect of discrediting the -
already momentous - indictment of an indiscriminate use of incendiary agents
against civilian populations.
6) Of
course this caution will cease to make sense if we were to discover that the US
used true chemical weapons. We are not in want of charges, but these seem not
to be substantiated by the same kind of witnessing as that of the RaiNews24
reportage. See for example the following article
http://www.islamonline.org/English/News/2004-11/10/article05.shtml
7) More
information on this argument can be found on the web at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4417024.stm
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/sept11/dailyUpdate.html
http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts103.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/incendiary.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/napalm.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus
8)
American denials and liquidatory comments on RaiNews24 reportage by J.Pike can be found at:
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/Illegal_Weapons_in_Fallujah.html
http://www.corriere.it/Primo_Piano/Cronache/2005/11_Novembre/15/pike.shtml
Nicola Cufaro Petroni
USPID Secretary General
=========================================
Convention
on Certain Conventional Weapons
Protocol
III
Protocol
on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons.
Geneva,
10 October 1980
Article
1
Definitions
For the
purpose of this Protocol:
1. Incendiary weapon" means any weapon
or munition which is primarily designed to set fire to objects or to cause burn
injury to persons through the action of flame, heat, or combination thereof,
produced by a chemical reaction of a substance delivered on the target. (a)
Incendiary weapons can take the form of, for example, flame throwers,
fougasses, shells, rockets, grenades, mines, bombs and other containers of
incendiary substances.
(b) Incendiary weapons do not include:
(i) Munitions which may have incidental
incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems;
(ii) Munitions designed to combine
penetration, blast or fragmentation effects with an additional incendiary
effect, such as armour-piercing projectiles, fragmentation shells, explosive
bombs and similar combined-effects munitions in which the incendiary effect is
not specifically designed to cause burn injury to persons, but to be used
against military objectives, such as armoured vehicles, aircraft and
installations or facilities.
2. Concentration of civilians" means
any concentration of civilians, be it permanent or temporary, such as in
inhabited parts of cities, or inhabited towns or villages, or as in camps or
columns of refugees or evacuees, or groups of nomads.
3. Military objective" means, so far as
objects are concerned, any object which by its nature, location, purpose or use
makes an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial
destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the
time, offers a definite military advantage.
4. Civilian objects" are all objects
which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 3.
5. Feasible precautions" are those
precautions which are practicable or practically possible taking into account
all circumstances ruling at the time, including humanitarian and military
considerations.
Article
2
Protection
of civilians and civilian objects
1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to
make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects
the object of attack by incendiary weapons.
2. It is prohibited in all circumstances to
make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the
object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.
3. It is further prohibited to make any
military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of
attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary
weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the
concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view
to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding,
and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to
civilians and damage to civilian objects.
4. It is prohibited to make forests or other
kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when
such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or
other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.