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November 17, 2005
So Who Is Going to Invade Iraq to Destroy These Weapons?
Hmm, yeah, it does sound bad when you put it that way:
Let's review:The United States went to war citing Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons appetite as one excuse. Remember Paul Wolfowitz's comment to Vanity Fair interviewer Sam Tanenhaus: "The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on, which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason . . ."
The advertised large chemical weapons stockpiles, the "renewed production of mustard, sarin, GF (cyclosarin), and VX" nerve gas and the active atomic bomb program weren't there.
Saddam never used chemical weapons against U.S. forces. But now U.S. forces admit using weapons with chemical properties against Iraqis.
On Tuesday night, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed to BBC radio that white phosphorus munitions were used during attacks on enemy forces inside Fallujah.
"When you have enemy forces in covered positions that your high explosive artillery rounds are not having an impact on," Venable was quoted in the Daily Telegraph newspaper of London, "one technique is to fire a white phosphorus round into the position because the combined effects of the fire and smoke will drive them out so that you can kill them with high explosives."
Venable added that such use of incendiary weapons "against enemy combatants" is a permitted use.
Venable apparently failed to brief others that the official line had changed.
"U.S. forces do not use napalm or white phosphorus as weapons," Robert Tuttle, former car salesman turned U.S. ambassador to Britain, wrote in Tuesday's Independent newspaper.
Posted by zeynep at November 17, 2005 09:18 PM