Press Releases

Embassy Press Statement

Ankara, November 9, 2005

Alleged Use Of Chemical Weapons By U.S. Forces in Iraq

On November 8, an Italian television documentary falsely claimed that US forces used chemical weapons during anti-insurgent operations in Fallujah in 2004.  These false claims appeared today in the Turkish media.  To suggest that US forces have used napalm and white phosphorus as chemical weapons is to ignore the facts:

• The US destroyed its last remaining stocks of napalm in 2001.  We do maintain an incendiary firebomb, the Mk 77, that is not napalm.  It has a different chemical composition.  Firebombs have not been outlawed, and are not illegal.
  
• US forces did not use Mk 77 firebombs in Fallujah.  The only use of Mk 77 in Iraq occurred in March and April of 2003, when US marines used several such bombs against legitimate military targets.
  
• White phosphorus is also a conventional munition.  It is not a chemical weapon.  White phosphorus munitions have not been outlawed, and are not illegal.  US forces use them primarily as obscurants – i.e., smokescreens – or for target marking.
  
• Suggestions that US forces targeted civilians with these weapons are simply wrong.
  

Coalition forces go to extreme lengths to ensure that everything possible is done to ensure that civilians and noncombatants are not put in harm’s way during operations.  The loss of any civilian life is a tragedy, and is something that coalition forces work painstakingly to avoid every single day.  Former regime elements, terrorists, and insurgents have made a practice of deliberately targeting noncombatants, using civilians as human shields, and operating and conducting attacks against coalition forces from within areas inhabited by civilians.

We have seen these baseless charges before.  Had the producers of the documentary exercised due diligence, they would have been told that the premise of their program was erroneous.