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WP in Fallujah, let's end this...

By The Armorer on November 22, 2005 | | Comments (18) | TrackBacks (4)

Just got this note from Bob at Confederate Yankee.

There is a thread up over at Protein Wisdom where a poster claiming to be a Vietnam veteran states:

Technically, WP and smoke rounds (HC) are classified as chemical weapons.

Is that true? [Armorer, only in that they are classified as obscurants - whose primary purpose is *not* attack of personnel]

He further states that:

Note also that smoke generators are operated by the Chemical Corps. [Yep. Not relevant, however. Chemical smoke isn't a weapon, either, though you shouldn't breathe anything with that particulate load for long times or in high concentrations...]

Is that true, and if so, is that relevant to the discussion of artillery-deployed WP? [Nope]

Thank you for any clarification you can provide. [You're welcome]

Sincerely,

Bob


Let's answer the WP as chemical weapon question, shall we?

I believe the relevant international agreement is the "Convention On Prohibitions Or Restrictions On The Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Excessively Injurious Or To Have Indiscriminate Effects"

More specifically, Protocol 3: PROTOCOL ON PROHIBITIONS OR RESTRICTIONS ON THE USE OF INCENDIARY WEAPONS (PROTOCOL III).

The specific wording of interest is:


(b) Incendiary weapons do not include:

(i) Munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems;

(ii) Munitions designed to combine penetration, blast or fragmentation effects with an additional incendiary effect, such as armour-piercing projectiles, fragmentation shells, explosive bombs and similar combined-effects munitions in which the incendiary effect is not specifically designed to cause burn injury to persons, but to be used against military objectives, such as armoured vehicles, aircraft and installations or facilities.

Emphasis mine.

The doctrinal use of White Phosphorus in the United States military is as an obscurant, a signal/marker, or to start fires where fires are militarily useful, such as ammo dumps, weapons caches, motor pools, etc.

In other words - exactly as it was used in Fallujah, and within the confines of the UN Convention on the subject.

As a career artilleryman and Joint Targeteer, I'll vouch that in our training on the subject and the written doctrine on the subject, the purposes to which you apply WP are those within the confines of the convention.

It was easy to sign on to the convention, we didn't have to make any changes. And WP is a crappy AP weapon, anyway. If I can shoot you with that, it would be far better to shoot you with HE or DPICM.

Can we MoveOn, please?

Others pointlessly pricking Moulitsas:

My Pet Jawa, John Cole, Confederate Yankee, The Commissar, Dread Pundit Bluto, Wunder Kraut, Caedorioa, Dean Esmay, INDC Journal

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18 Comments

By cw4(ret)billt on November 22, 2005 11:33 AM
Yer friendly, neighborhood Vietnam vet checking in--the only thing we used artillery-fired WP for was marking center of sector when everthing went featureless in haze, the smoke from burning rice paddies (relax--the farmers set the fires to get rid of the straw) or mist. If we wanted to scare the VC/NVA below, we'd drop a WP grenade from 1,500 feet and the big, white *poof* would scare them into thinking they were in for a pasting if they didn't scoot. I've flown through the airburst from a 175mm WP round--it stunk, but didn't kill us a bit. *Or* set us on fire, and the Huey was a champ at catching fire at the most inconvenient times...
 
By phil - “What a pompous a$$hole!” on November 22, 2005 1:46 PM
News Item: Cheney Ratchets Up Verbal Assault on Majority of Americans. The Bush Administration this week continued to ratchet up its rhetoric against the 63% of Americans who disagree with Administration conduct of the war in Iraq and the 57% of Americans who believe that the Administration misused intelligence to justify their preconceived plans for the invasion of Iraq [good chunk elided because Phil is spamming, and not being topical.] [Oooh, look, *humor*] In an increasingly bad sign for the Republicans, 67% of Americans polled responded that they viewed Pat Robertson as the “sole voice of reason” in the Republican Party, though those polling numbers were taken prior to Robertson calling for his close friend God to assassinate the President of Venezuela, to destroy the town of Dover, PA, and prior to this past weekends gratuitous pimping of Jesus by Robertson on the 700 Club to raise money for his political action committee. [Oooh. More *humor*!] Asked to comment on these recent developments Bush, in Mongolia for a joint appearance with an Emu, encouraged Americans to wear the purple heart band-aids “in honor of the 2 purple hearts won by that coward John Murtha.” The band aids, decorated with a purple colored heart, were developed and worn by Republicans at their National Convention to mock John Kerry’s purple hearts, and are a common visual device used by Republicans to poke fun at the bravery of American soldiers with whom they disagree. Bush, sporting one of the band-aids on his forehead, encouraged all Americans to join him in mocking Murtha’s “so-called bravery.” Seeing Bush off at the airport, the President of Mongolia issued a brief statement regarding Bush’s visit which was later translated as “What a pompous a$$hole!” [Emphasis mine. The irony here is Phil's last sentence is autobiographical. No pottymouth without permission, Phil.]
 
By John of Argghhh! on November 22, 2005 1:50 PM
Sigh, hi, Phil. Can't you *ever* get topical with your posting'bot? Sheesh. As a visitor, you have an obligation to be topical. Away with your drivel, unless you want to be on-topic. Anything else, no matter how passionately you feel about it, I consider spam, and retain at my whim. I'm not feeling whimsical today.
 
By jim b on November 22, 2005 2:03 PM
Well to settle things I think we should pop a WP 100 meters upwind of everyone claiming it is a chemical round. After the smoke settles, I vote we pop a Sarin round 100 meters upwind of them and see if they note any difference. One way or the other it should settle things eh?
 
By dorkafork on November 22, 2005 2:37 PM
I think it's important to note that even if WP does not fall under the categories b)i) and b)ii), it's use would still be legal when used against military targets. In other words, the US is followed Protocol III any which way you cut it. And there's also the Chemical Weapons Convention. It would be hard to argue that WP is illegal under the CWC. (Here's a (pdf) fact sheet)
 
By CDR Salamander on November 22, 2005 4:09 PM
John, This whole WP thing has had my head twisting from day one. The intentional ignorance and fearmonging propaganda from the the Left in OUR country is just otherworldly. If a bunch of quasi-edu'mu'cated bloggers can get to the truth and explain it to the non-company folks - why is this so hard? Then again, why let the facts get in the way of a good story...... Thanks for keeping to beat this dead horse, some still think it is a winner and need reminding.
 
By John of Argghhh! on November 22, 2005 4:14 PM
Looking over at the thread at Protein Wisdom, *at last check, anyway* no one was referring to the WP bit anymore, having chosen to focus on torture, instead. Thread was moving that way anyway, but still wonder if they are now ignoring the elephant in the living room having had the UN thrown in their face.
 
By Pogue in Kuwait on November 22, 2005 4:57 PM
I think I know where the WP as chemical warfare came form. When I went through NBC NCO school in 1985 (Cold War days, remember?) They were teaching that since smoke made an excellent obscurent for a chemical attack that we should consider ourselves in a chemical environment if the Soviets launched smoke against us. I don't know how deep this doctrine went, but it was what we were taught. (July 1985, Ft Drum)
 
By Boquisucio - "Some Troll needs their Lithium" on November 22, 2005 5:32 PM
Sheesh - You can't swing a dead horse without hiting a whacked Moonbat in these here parts! It seems that with so many psychotropic chemicals in their brains, The Yeller' Left is seeing Chemicals everywhere they turn. Oh, the innanities!!!
 
By Gamer on November 22, 2005 5:35 PM
Rules for using the law for lefties: 1) Define whatever elements are necessary to make the crime. 2) When the US is clearly operating legally, ignore the law on the grounds that it is not strict enough to capture the moral necessities of the situation. See also: Interrogation/Torture
 
By kat-missouri on November 22, 2005 6:10 PM
heh...gamer, that was funny.
 
By Greg on November 22, 2005 7:56 PM
MY GOD! I never knew that my city was trying to kill me each Forth of July by shooting chemical weapons in the air. OH THE HORROR! All of that toxic smoke from fireworks! We should all be dead! GOTT IM HIMMEL, every country on Earth has access to these deadly chemical weapons. Who knew that the peaceful Chinese were selling cheap chemical weapons to individual citizens at the Crazy Bill's Firework stand. Maybe my National Guard unit should attack my garage to clean out my stocks of chemical weapons.
 
By Boquisucio on November 22, 2005 9:23 PM
Well Greg, As I posted before.... last time I checked, TNT and PETN were all organic chemicals as well.
 
By SangerM on November 22, 2005 10:00 PM
Personally, I'd like to stuff a smokin' willy-pete grenade up K-O-S' a$$, and then afterward we could try to determine if he died from chemical poisoning or from some other more obvious cause. Pogue: I was an NBC NCO for many years. What we were told, and passed along was that any incoming warsaw pact arty--smoke, HE, or whatever--was likely to be intermixed with chemical rounds of some kind, and so w/in our unit at least, we practiced masking whenever there was "incoming." The Sovs supposedly had a mix of round types sitting in their ready racks, and were as likely to use chem as anything else. I never did find out if this was hoopla or otherwise, but that was the story, and we all stuck to it.... For my part, considering what chem agents would do to a person, I was more than happy to wear the mopp suit all the time (at least after we got rid of those goofy British coveralls).
 
By John of Argghhh! on November 23, 2005 7:16 AM
Hee! Around the One-Two-Zoo, the Brit coveralls were coveted items, as they were a *lot* more comfortable than the US-issue suits (which is turns out were probably worthless, too). I made mine last until 1984, when we were ordered to quit using them.
 
By cw4(ret)billt on November 23, 2005 7:30 AM
Heh. A Dutch chem firm tested the efficacy of US MOPP gear back in 1986 by placing a sheet of detector paper under a new jacket and allowing a droplet of VX to plop onto it from a 10-foot height, simulating the effect of the agent hitting the MOPP at 25% of the velocity of the stuff during a live attack. *blip-slurp* Right through to the paper in two seconds. The Dutch techie's comment was, "So, who designs your chem suits for you--the enemy?"
 
By ry on November 24, 2005 12:13 AM
IS this where the black humor of 'product of the lowest bidder' is comes from?
 
By Steve Skubinna on November 24, 2005 12:42 AM
Personally, I'm happy to watch the handwringing over WP being a chemical weapon. It changed the topic from all the radiation poisoning DU was causing. If your garden variety lefty can't figure out what "depleted" means, what the heck makes you think they'll actually examine the relevant treaty for a definition of a chemical munition? And when they get tired of that, we can expect "Bush lied! Huh? He didn't? Ummm.... LOOK! Abu Ghraib!"