Talk:US admits use of white phosphorus in Iraq

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Evil is like obscenity[edit]

You know it when you see it; and it doesn't matter whose flag flies over its dirty deeds. Neutralizer 01:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Evil is as evil does, but the contents of any comments on this article have no bearing on the content of the article. Brian McNeil / talk 23:34, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV concerns[edit]

This article does not appear to be balanced, and does not present any evidence the USA's statements are not true. It also does not report the USA's statements regarding the issue. This article is in development, and I would encourage editors working on it attempt to balance the reporting before considering it ready for publication. - Amgine 01:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

The article does not say the USA's statements are not true? Please edit it if you feel it is unbalanced. Neutralizer 01:53, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the Pentagon and State Department do now appear to be in agreement that White Phosphorous was used as a weapon against millitant, however the State Department is arguing that their use was not illegal. I've changed the article to reflect this. - Borofkin 01:59, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Still has much more to go. As stated above, it said that it was used against enemies, so there's no difference in the statement released earlier and the one now; and certainly isn't NPOV to take a statement out of context. Is heavily bordering on dupe and POV status right now. --Mrmiscellanious 04:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I thought that the State Department had previously said that WP was not used as a weapon, i.e. it was used for lighting up targets, etc, whereas they have now admitted that it was used as a weapon. Isn't that what the article is about? - Borofkin 04:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I wish English was the language used at this wiki. Can someone translate "Is heavily bordering on dupe and POV status right now" into English? --JWSchmidt 04:23, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

<grin> Jargon everywhere! A "dupe" is a duplicate article; one which does not address different elements of the same story, or only marginally (in which case it should be merged with the more complete article). I don't know which article this might be a duplicate of.
An article is POV (point of view) if it is biased toward or against a given viewpoint, belief, affiliation, party, ethnicity, etc., or states opinions, beliefs, or other items over which there is disagreement as to veracity as though they were facts. For example, there is disagreement within the military as to the classification of incendiary munitions as chemical warfare as their effect is not chemical in nature. This is why white phosphourous and depleted uranium weapons have never been listed in the Geneva Convention as chemical weapons, but instead are listed as conventional weapons. - Amgine 04:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Issue with the title -- white phosphorus as a "chemical weapon" may be contentious. Suggest change to USA admits using white phosphorus in Iraq.

Broken redirects[edit]

This page has been moved repeatedly. Has someone tracked back what links here and repaired broken redirects?

I'm working on the redirects. Neutralizer 02:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Technicalities[edit]

Change the title. The US Government didn't admit to using chemical weapons, they did admit to using white phosphorus. While it is debatable and I'll go so far as to say as probable that white phosphorus will be classified as a chemical weapon in the very near term the US Government currently considers white phosphorus not to be a chemical weapon therefore in their own mind they did not admit to using a chemical weapon. To say that they did is misleading. --Sfullenwider 05:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Title Change[edit]

Changed the title, felt it was NPOV/inaccurate and sensationalist. New title is a lot more accurate. Sinblox 05:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Unpublishing[edit]

I chose to unpublish this article, which is quite new, because text added to the article is not supported by sources, and contradicts the information linked at Wikipedia.

White phosphorous causes painful burns to human skin, but the contentious issue is the smoke, which is both toxic and extremely corrosive to human tissue (internally and externally) with which it forms hot, concentrated phosphoric acid on contact. The Italian documentary showed photos of what it said were Iraqis who had been burned by the white phosphorous and white phosphorous smoke. A small demonstration was held in front of the US embassy in Rome to protest the use of the chemical weapons by the Americans.

This section is not supported by sources. It also contradicts the Wikipedia article on w:white phosphorous.

Effect on humans
Exposure and inhalation of smoke
The dilute phosphoric acid in the aerosol cloud may be mildly irritating to the eyes but with normal field concentrations and exposure it is not harmful; extended exposure can lead to damage of lungs and throat. The smoke may also contain traces of unburnt phosphorus. A respirator usually provides adequate protection.

I assume editors would prefer to correct such misleading or misinformative information before publishing the article. - Amgine 06:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Amgine, the article should probably be modified as it is not precise enough. The Wikipedia article you quote contains the main point, namely the traces of unburned phosporus. "The accepted lethal dose [of white phosporus] is 1 mg/kg, although the ingestion of as little as 15 mg has resulted in death." [[1]] or [[2]]. The problem is that sepecially civilians tend not to have respirators, and even when used in a highly populated area like Fallujah, white phosporus does not check who is a civilian and who is an incurgent before entering someones lung. --vonbergm 18:28, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Having been exposed to white phosphorous smoke during fire training in the military (without a respirator), I can assure it is unpleasant but not so unpleasant as the woodfire smoke in the smokehouse or the tear gas during the gas mask training. WP smoke is toxic as any particulate smoke is - but it is not useful as a chemical weapon. And there is no documentation supporting the statements currently in the article. - Amgine 18:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Please help with the actual article[edit]

Amgine, respectfully, why would you not do some work on the article to help it get to where you think it should be? The only edit from you on the article is the "unpublish" edit; so I am puzzled as to why someone so interested in the article would not contribute to its improvement? I do not mean to be disruptive or confrontative and there is no hidden meanings in my question; I am simply making a suggestion I think is in the best interests of the article. Neutralizer 14:33, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yesderday there was a problem uncovered with a bot run to tag pre Sept 25 articles as being in the public domain. In seemingly random cases it had put completely the wrong article text in on some articles. With over 1,000 edits to check, looking at recent changes and picking up something like this would just be done in taking a break from that — like me picking up this comment in a coffee break from work.
Remember, tagging an article or moving it back to {{Develop}} isn't a promise to do the work. It's only something to get bothered about if someone has a history of tag'n'dash without justification of the tagging on the talk page. Anyway, glad to see you're working on news rather than policy today. Brian McNeil / talk 15:15, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Neutralizer, its anti-wiki to just complain without any edits, even if your explaining yourself. It means your trying to prevent the article from being published by exhausting the actual editors. Procedure should be N edits, A edits, N disagrees with A's edit & takes it to the talk page, at wich point either may tag it.. if N undoes A's edit, A should tag it. But we now have N edits, A disagrees and tags without editing, which should be viewed as a tag&dash. Amgine is clearly doing a tag&dash here.

Title correction[edit]

This article is about,primarily, the new news which is from the Nov.16th AP source which clearly includes admission by the USA of using white phosphoprous as a weapon. the older news is the Nov.14th. air force news source about the initial Italian claim. I have changed the article title accordingly to reflect the newer news. Neutralizer 14:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC) P.S. I tried to correct the redirects; hopefully they are ok. Neutralizer 14:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Was it ever news that the US used incediary weapons in Iraq? This title is akin to "USA admits to use bullets against people". Incediary weapons are pretty standard, at least for marking. Sinblox 17:18, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • How about title: "U.S.A. admits using incediary weapons in Fallujah". This is a little more precise and addresses the concern of Sinblox. The US has admitted before in using incendiary weapons in the early stages of the war, but denied having used them in Fallujah as late as last week (see "related article" and discussion page). If people feel strongly that the title could imply that these weapons were merely used for marking and not to target people, one could change the title to "U.S.A. admits using incendiary weapons against Fallujah insurgents". --vonbergm 18:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV[edit]

I have reviewed the three additional sources added to this article. Not one of them describe white phosphorous smoke as highly toxic. On the basis of the repeated publication with misinformation, after it has been raised on the talk page, I have tagged the article as a violation of the neutral point of view: reporting disputed statements as facts. - Amgine 18:26, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Article has been published by 3 different editors and pushed back from publishing by the same editor 3 times for "reasons bordering on esoteric that I don’t care to puzzle over"(I borrowed this from Ed). The disputing editor has not added any edits to the article other than the tags and unpublish edits; which may be technically ok but I think also interferes with a friendly atmosphere for article improvement. Since the rest of us have no way of knowing what/if any edits will satisfy the disputer, I see no choice but to republish until the disputer actually works on the article himself. Does anyone else see another reasonable approach? If not, I will remove the non=actionable NPOV tag and republish it myself in an hour or so. Neutralizer 19:20, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I do have problems with someone unilaterally choosing to revoke the NPOV. If you cannot provide sources to support statements such as the one regarding the "extremely corrosive" smoke, remove them. All factual statements in an article must be supported by a source. - Amgine 19:25, 16 November 2005 (UTC)



Thanks, International[edit]

Ok; International stepped up to the plate to work on the article. Thank you, International. Neutralizer 19:22, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

International, thank you for addressing one concern. Would you please find a source for the statement "The Italian documentary showed photos of what it said were Iraqis who had been burned by the white phosphorous and white phosphorous smoke." The underlined section is not supported anywhere. - Amgine 19:30, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Amgine, you have a point there. But imoh not enough to npow the it. Someone have to reformulate it, maybe the original writer?
<nod> Yes. I removed it for now; if someone *does* find a source, it would be good one to add back. - Amgine 20:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Republishing[edit]

Consensus is for publishing. Last unpublish had no talk page comment at all to address. Neutralizer 23:51, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Information added during Amgine's rewrite[edit]

The information added by 84.67.179.52 should be reinserted in the final version, as this is an important piece of information. It seems to point out that there are different opinions within the US military whether or not WP is allowed to be used against personnel targets. Or am I missing something here? Someone (maybe with more experience in military jargon than I have) might want to verify this. --vonbergm 00:09, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And here comes another report from an embedded journalist with a unit using WP in Fallujah. This seems to strengthen the allegation that WP was used quite loosely (in therms of selecting targets). Quote: "Bogert is a mortar team leader who directed his men to fire round after round of high explosives and white phosphorus charges into the city Friday and Saturday, never knowing what the targets were or what damage the resulting explosions caused." Or about "shake 'n' bake: "The boom kicked dust around the pit as they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call "shake 'n' bake" into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week." --vonbergm 00:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just about done, Vonbergm. Looking at your source now. Realizing this article is about the admission of action by the USA - WP is allowed by the US military against military (not civilian) personnel. It's generally considered to be too expensive/not effective as an anti-personnel weapon, however; instead it's used to flush (shake) opponents so they may be killed using HE (high-explosive - bake) shells. Shake-n-bake is a phrase used for many forms of flush-to-kill tactics. - Amgine 00:29, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


Not for conflict, Amigne, but the reference provided by the user 84.67.179.52 says otherwise and may be dated to 1999. Is your knowledge from after this year or before? If your information is from before it, policy has changed. The website user referenced seems to be under heavy use currently and may not successfully load, so the material seemingly referenced is copied as follows with extraneous details removed.

Chapter 5

FIRE SUPPORT

Section III. SYSTEM AND WEAPON DATA

5-11. FIELD ARTILLERY AMMUNITION

...

(4) Burster Type White phosphorus (WP M110A2) rounds burn with intense heat and emit dense white smoke. They may be used as the initial rounds in the smokescreen to rapidly create smoke or against material targets, such as Class V sites or logistic sites. It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets.

The additional information is based on the book's title and authoring organisation. Some basic information noted with semicolon in place of line breaks: US Army Command & General Staff College; Ft Leavenworth, Kansas; July 1999. 68.210.70.211 00:38, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Three points:
  • I cannot confirm the text cited above. (site returning 404) but google lists the document creation as 04-April-2005
  • www.fas.org does not appear to me as a military site.
  • I cannot confirm the existence of any army document st100-3.
I'll take this up again when I get back in about 2 hours. Hopefully the article will be published at that time, but will remain NPOV and true to sources. The facts are pretty damning; it would be a shame if people pushed an agenda to the point the article were removed from publication. - Amgine 00:50, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


Amigne, responses to your points. The website is that of the Federation of American Scientists, and the document is located in its Military Analysis Network section. For information on the FAS look on this page:http://www.fas.org/static/about.jsp. Document ST 100-3 Battle Book is an Army Command and General Staff College Student Text, perhaps that is why you can not locate it easily on other pages. Are unaltered redistributions of army educational documents not considered valid sources? Google is not the publisher and the date the web page may have been created is not the date that the book from which material published there was taken was itself published.

Aside, why was the ATSDR basic phosphorous and specific white phosphorous toxicological information removed in your rewrite, simply a matter of placement? It is basic knowledge for the understanding of a central concept of this news entry. 68.210.70.211 01:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Found military website reference for the "against the law of land warfare" quote: [[3]] The site does not load up for me, but the internet archive indicates that it was put up at that site in 2001 and has not been changed since. [[4]]. This info should be added, as it seems to contradict the official statements. Or are there differences in the rules for army and other branches of the military? --vonbergm 01:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that there are different types of weapons using white phosphorus. there are the bombs and there are mortar shells. Looking at all the information we have, both were used against enemy combattants. At least the use of artillary shells (same as mortars?) seems to be illegal according to the ST100-3 Battle book. Can someone who knows more about this confirm this? --vonbergm 01:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking for sources for you, Vonbergm. Here is the current US Army Field Manual, complete with video clips and slide shows; did not find the relevant section.
BTW: I don't know who added the section regarding the artillery shooting of shells at unknown targets, but that's what the definition of artillery is. They have coordinates called to them, and they try to hit those coordinates with the requested munitions. For anyone who knows what artillery is that sentence (and the original reporting) sounds like an idiot, like they didn't research their subject or are trying to convince people that something completely unexpected and criminal is happening when it's the normal violence of war. - Amgine 02:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Amgine, the link to the ST100-3 on the army.mil website I found is dead. If you look at the internet archives you can still find it (see link in my comment above). The question is whether the manual just moved somewhere else or whether the rules changed since 2001. This is getting interesting. About the changes in the first paragraph, that was me. I put the quote in to underscore that claims that clivilians were not "targeted" does not mean that civilians were not "hit". To someone like me it is not obvious that this type of collateral damage is normal. (Maybe I am too naive?) -vonbergm 03:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If the link is dead, that would mean the policy is no longer valid. Of course, trying to find the *new* policy will be nearly impossible. However, in looking through the Law of Land Warfare law and interpretation (FM-27) I'm not finding any basis for an interpretation that WP would be outlawed. It's really quite odd, that law. "How can we make murder and mayhem 'nice', while not preventing us from actually engaging in it." (feeling a bit cynical tonite) - Amgine 03:29, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
It looks to me now that this rule does not exist any more. I will add a note that the use of white phosphorus on personnel targets was against the U.S. rule of land warfare until at least 2001 and add the link to the internet archive regarding the appropriate army.mil website. This adds another dimension to the story, as it seems that this rule has only been changed recently. --vonbergm 04:08, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of incorrect information[edit]

Specifically in the previously added ToxFAQs™ for White Phosphorus reference:

The EPA has determined that white phosphorus is not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity in humans. There are no studies available in people or animals that suggest white phosphorus causes cancer.

Cool! another source listed it as carcinogenic; glad you caught that. - Amgine 04:04, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
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