Originally published December 18 2005
Controversy over white phosphorus deepens with discovery of U.S. intelligence report
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Italian journalist Sigfrido Ranucci released a declassified U.S. intelligence document from the first Gulf War that he found online during research that clearly defines the incendiary use of white phosphorus as a chemical weapon, which undermines the Defense Department's latest argument that white phosphorus does not fall under the category of chemical weapons.
ROME: The controversy over the American use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in Fallujah deepened yesterday when it was revealed that a US intelligence assessment had characterised WP as a "chemical weapon".
The Italian journalist who sparked the controversy, Sigfrido Ranucci, told a press conference in Rome that while a colleague was browsing American Defence Department websites he had stumbled on a declassified intelligence report from the first Gulf War.
The file was headed "Possible use of phosphorous chemical weapons by Iraq in Kurdish areas along the Iraqi-Turkish-Iranian borders".
The report was made in late February 1991 during the Iraqi crackdown on the Kurdish uprising that followed the coalition victory against Iraq.
"Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorous (WP) chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil and Dohuk.
Ranucci commented that "when Saddam used WP it was a chemical weapon but when the Americans use it, it's a conventional weapon.
In the original RAI documentary, witnesses inside Fallujah during the November 2004 bombardment described the terror and excruciating agony suffered by victims of the shells fired by American artillery.
The film and still photos posted on the website of the channel that made the film - rainews24.it - show the strange corpses discovered after the city's destruction.
After initially denying that US forces use WP as a weapon, the Pentagon said WP had been used against insurgents in Fallujah.
Yesterday a further wrinkle was added to the row when Adam Mynott, a BBC correspondent posted to Nassiriya during the invasion of Iraq in April 2003, told Rai News 24 that he had seen WP apparently used as a weapon against insurgents in that city.
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