U.S. Admits using "Banned" Chemical Weapons in Iraq

The U.S. finally admitted it used a banned substance (banned by everyone but us, that is) in Iraq. I guess we need someone to lead a preemptive strike against the U.S. to rid us of our banned weapons.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Wednesday acknowledged using incendiary white-phosphorus munitions in a 2004 counterinsurgency offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, but defended their use as legal.

Army Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. military had not used the highly flammable weapons against civilians, contrary to an Italian state television report this month which said the weapons were used against men, women and children in Falluja who were burned to the bone.

"We categorically deny that claim," Venable said.

"It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon," added Bryan Whitman, another Pentagon spokesman.

Venable said white phosphorus is not outlawed or banned by any convention. However, a protocol to the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons forbids using incendiary weapons against civilians or against military targets amid concentrations of civilians.

The United States did not sign the protocol.

All this denying does not alter the fact that Italian TV has pictures and other documentary evidence of the non-existent men, women and children being snuffed by this horrible stuff.