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17-11-2005 Scotsman British troops plan to continue use of white phosphorous for smokescreens By Gethin Chamberlain BRITAIN'S armed forces have no intention of changing the way they use white phosphorous despite the row over how it was employed as a weapon by US troops against Iraqi insurgents, the Ministry of Defence said last night. Troops in Iraq have access to white phosphorous grenades, which can be used to lay a smoke screen, and some vehicles can also fire phosphorous charges. US forces have been criticised for using white phosphorous - which burns with an intense heat - as a weapon to flush out insurgents. The former UK armed forces minister Doug Henderson accused the United States of double standards by using chemical weapons after invading Iraq to prevent the use of such weapons. But John Reid, the Defence Secretary, said British troops only used the substance to lay smokescreens, in accordance with the UK's international treaty commitments. "I think the Americans have to answer the questions which are put to them on this issue," he said. The MoD later said there were no plans to abandon the use of white phosphorous. Although nowhere near as deadly as the high explosives which are available to US and British troops, white phosphorous can cause painful burn injuries to human flesh. A recent documentary by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI, claimed civilians in Fallujah, including women and children, had died of burns caused by the substance - a report strenuously denied by the US. The US has argued that the use of white phosphorous was lawful because it had been used as an incendiary weapon, not a chemical weapon. Unlike Britain, the US is not a signatory to protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons, which prohibits its use as an incendiary weapon against civilians or in civilian areas. Nevertheless, the admission by a Pentagon spokesman that it was used against insurgents in Fallujah was seen as an embarrassment for the US after the State Department had previously denied that it was used as a weapon. The Pentagon was forced to backtrack after an internal US Army magazine written by soldiers who served at Fallujah described how they used white phosphorous in operations to drive insurgents from their dug-outs. Yesterday, Labour MP Mike Gapes, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said that the international conventions on chemical weapons may now have to be strengthened to cover white phosphorous. "I think there is an issue here about whether the chemical weapons convention should be strengthened to include this particular substance because it is defined as an incendiary not a chemical weapon, therefore it is excluded from certain definitions," he said. The battle for Fallujah was the most intense and deadly fight of the war, after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. The city, about 35 miles west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River, was a critical insurgent stronghold.
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................................................................................................................. Copyright ©2004 Gethin Chamberlain. All rights reserved. |
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