Author Archives: Michael Froomkin

It was a year ago. Fallujah had become a battleground, many — but by no means all — residents had left; a substantial number were cowering in their homes or other buildings. The fighters opposing the US were mounting a stiff resistance.

It appears that the US has admitted that faced with this situation, it used white phosphorus. “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 HE. We fired ‘shake and bake’ missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.” If, as appears to be the case, they were used in artillery rounds, this spreads the stuff over a wide area. It lands on the skin of everyone within range. And it’s now alleged that children in the area had their skin melted/burned off.

See Daily Kos: Melting the Skin Off of Children [GRAPHIC] for details. Like the commentator at Daily Kos says, the US obviously doesn’t consider melting the skin off children to be a military or political goal; the problem is that the US failed to make NOT melting the skin off children and other civilians a greater priority.

If George Bush is going to continue his policy of sending troops into hostile urban areas, it is almost inevitable that the troops will either suffer more casualties, or kill/maim more civilians (or fail in their mission). Take away an effecitve weapon because it is so horrible in its effects on civilians — and there are times when one must — you risk getting more troops shot. These are stark choices, tragic choices — and thus yet again call into further question the wisdom of the entire enterprise.

And what are the conditions in Fallujah today? Were they improved by the US military foray? Was all that sacrifice — civilian and military — of any value? Did it even rise to the level of a ‘famous victory’?

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