AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
WASHINGTON: The top US general Tuesday defended the use of white phosphorus munitions in combat against Iraqi insurgents as a legal “legitimate tool of the military.”
Allegations that civilians were victims of white phosphorus bombs in the battle for Fallujah last year has put the spotlight on a weapon that showers down incendiary particles that burn right through skin.
“A bullet goes through skin even faster than white phosphorus does,” General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon press conference.
“So I would rather have the proper instrument applied at the proper time, as precisely as possible, to get the job done, in a way that kills as many of the bad guys as possible and does as little collateral damage as possible,” he said.
Pace said no military goes to greater lengths to avoid civilian casualties than the US military.
He said white phosphorus was mainly used to mark targets for air strikes and to create smoke screens for moving forces around a battlefield unseen.
“White phosphorus is a legitimate tool of the military,” he said.
“It is not a chemical weapon. It is an incendiary. And it is well within the law of war to use those weapons as they're being used, for marking and for screening,” he said.
An account of the battle for Fallujah published in a US army journal in April said white phosphorus also was used to flush insurgents out of trench lines in what were described as “shake and bake” missions.
