[Media-watch] Napalm - a deadly killer [in Fallujah and Iraq] - Blink - 29/11/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.blink.org.uk/pdescription.asp?key=5066&grp=21&cat=94



Napalm - a deadly killer

by Lester Holloway
29/11/2004

NAPALM IS one of the most deadly chemicals known to man. Banned by the 
United Nations in 1980 napalm is back forty years after it first hit the 
headlines in Vietnam.

If it is proven that US forces deployed napalm on the citizens of Fallujah 
it will send shockwaves through the international community.

Claims of napalm have been heightened by eyewitness accounts of the Fallujah 
attack. Abu Sabah told the news agency IPS: "They used these weird bombs 
that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud. Then small pieces fall from the air 
with long tails of smoke behind them."

melted

Reports of 'melted' dead bodies are emerging from Fallujah, prompting Labour 
MP Alice Mahon to demand a Commons statement from Tony Blair clarifying the 
position regarding napalm and unconventional weapons.

Fallujah resident Abu Hammad is quoted as saying: "Poisonous gases have been 
used." He described how the bombs exploded into fires that burnt the skin, 
similar to that caused by napalm.

The Independent on Sunday quoted an American commander, Colonel James Alles 
of Marine Air Group 11, admitting the use of napalm in Iraq.

He said: "We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches. Unfortunately there 
were people there ... you could see them in the [cockpit] video. They were 
Iraqi soldiers. It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a 
big psychological effect."

The Pentagon has denied using napalm, but there is evidence from several 
pilots and commanders that the weapons was deployed in the advance on 
Baghdad, dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, 
south of Baghdad.

An Australian newspaper reported a suspected napalm attack in the south of 
Iraq, and quoted a marine sergeant as saying: "I pity anyone who is in 
there. We told them to surrender."

Pentagon officials have tried to avoid describing the bombs used in Iraq as 
napalm. They claim the technology has been refined to cause less 
environmental damage.

Orwellian

But Robert Musil, director of the organisation Physicians for Social 
Responsibility said: "John Pike, director of the military studies group 
GlobalSecurity.Org, said: "You can call it something other than napalm but 
it is still napalm.

"It has been reformulated in the sense that they now use a different 
petroleum distillate, but that is it. The US is the only country that has 
used napalm for a long time. I am not aware of any other country that uses 
it."

Robert Musil, director of the organisation Physicians for Social 
Responsibility, said: "It creates horrible wounds. Most of the world 
understands that napalm and incendiaries are a horrible, horrible weapon." 
He said the Pentagon's distinction was "Orwellian."

The weapon uses a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks 
to skin as it burns. Last week the international news agency AFP reported 
the use of 'firebombs' in Iraq, believed to be napalm.