US official said it was "patently false,"
but US forces did use napalm in Iraq
by Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown NewsAug. 8, 2003
Napalm is "incendiary material ... based on a mixture of gasoline, sometimes mixed with other petroleum fuels, and a thickening agent. The thickener, to which the term napalm
was originally applied, turns the mixture into a thick jelly that flows under pressure, as when shot from a flame thrower, and sticks to a target as it burns. One of the first thickeners used was an aluminum soap (a salt of aluminum and certain fatty acids). Later thickeners have been based on polystyrene and similar polymers."
Napalm was widely used in the Vietnam war. It clings to human skin, and burns the flesh off. This photo shows the effects of napalm. It is horrendous stuff, but its use is not necessarily defined as a war crime (which says something sad about the nature of war and the legality of war crimes).
In March of this year, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that the US military is using napalm in Iraq (see re-printed articles, below). A US military public relations officer responded by sending this letter to the Herald:
Your story claiming US forces are using napalm in Iraq, is patently false.
The US took napalm out of service in the early 1970s.
We completed destruction of our last batch of napalm on April 4, 2001, and no longer maintain any stocks of napalm.
Jeff A. Davis, Lieutenant Commander, US Navy,
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense
That's an American military officer, telling a lie. The Herald's story is correct, as clarified in a follow-up report (also republished below):
"The Pentagon no longer officially uses the brand-name Napalm, a combination of naphthalene and palmitate, but a similar substance known as fuel-gel mixture contained in Mark-77 fire bombs was dropped on Iraqi troops near the Iraq-Kuwait border at the start of the recent war."
The chemical make-up of napalm used in Iraq is barely distinguishable from napalm used in Vietnam. It has the same grotesque, deadly effect on its victims. The difference is insignificant to its victims -- and it is still called napalm by the American troops who handle it. Saying it's not napalm is a little like replacing the oregano with basil in a recipe for chicken soup, and claiming it's no longer chicken soup (except, of course, chicken soup doesn't kill people).
So it's not "patently false", as the US military spokesman claimed, to report that the US military is using napalm in Iraq. Quite the contrary, it's "patently false" to claim that the US military isn't using napalm.
Here's the Herald's original story from last March (on the left). After the US military complained that the story was inaccurate, the reference to napalm was briefly deleted from their site, and later restored. On the right side, below, is the Herald's follow-up coverage from today.
'Dead bodies are everywhere'
by Lindsay Murdoch Sydney Morning Herald March 22, 2003
There was little initial resistance as the United States Marines swept into southern Iraq early yesterday. One of the first encounters of the ground war was more like a massacre than a fight.
The Iraqi gunners fired first, soon after United States President George Bush announced the attack on Saddam Hussein was under way.
It was a fatal mistake.
The Iraqi artillery unit, preparing for the American invasion, had tested the range by firing registering shots at a likely spot where the American tanks would cross from Kuwait. US radar picked up the incoming shells and pinpointed their source.
Within hours, the Iraqi gunners and their Russian-made 122mm howitzers were destroyed as the Americans unleashed an artillery barrage that shook the ground and lit up the night sky.
"Dead bodies are everywhere," a US officer reported by radio.
Later in the day, the American firepower was turned on Safwan Hill, an Iraqi military observation post a couple of kilometres across the border. About six hours after US marines and their 155mm howitzer guns pulled up at the border, they opened up with a deafening barrage. Safwan Hill went up in a huge fireball and the Iraqi observation post was obliterated.
"I pity anybody who's in there," a marine sergeant said. "We told them to surrender."
The destruction of Safwan Hill was a priority because it had sophisticated surveillance equipment near the main highway that runs from Kuwait up to Basra and then Baghdad. The attacking forces could not attempt to cross the border unless it was destroyed.
Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald. But a navy spokesman in Washington, Lieutenant Commander Danny Hernandez, denied that napalm — which was banned by a United Nations convention in 1980 — was used.
"We don't even have that in our arsenal," he said.
The navy admitted to using napalm as late as 1993 in training exercises on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico, but the last cannister of a vast US naval stockpile was reportedly destroyed in a public ceremony in April 2001.
When dawn broke on Safwan Hill, all that could be seen on top of it was a single antenna amid the smoke. The marines then moved forward, their officers saying they were determined to push on as quickly as possible for Baghdad.
The first air strike on Baghdad, and Mr Bush's announcement that the war was under way, appeared to catch US officers in the Kuwait desert by surprise. The attack was originally planned for early today. But the US officers did not seem worried.
Within hours of Mr Bush's announcement, a vast army of tanks, trucks, bulldozers and heavy guns was surging to positions on Iraq's border.
Despite the early indications that Iraqi forces were showing little resistance, some US Marine units halted 200 metres inside Iraqi territory last night as they came under fire from anti-tank missiles and rifles. They called in artillery to deal with the threat.
Napalm by another name: Pentagon denial goes up in flames
by Ben Cubby Sydney Morning Herald Aug. 9, 2003
The United States military has admitted it used napalm-type weapons in Iraq.
A Pentagon spokesman had told the Herald it did not have any stocks of napalm, but it seems the denial was a quibble.
The Pentagon no longer officially uses the brand-name Napalm, a combination of naphthalene and palmitate, but a similar substance known as fuel-gel mixture contained in Mark-77 fire bombs was dropped on Iraqi troops near the Iraq-Kuwait border at the start of the recent war.
"I can confirm that Mark-77 fire bombs were used in that general area," said Colonel Mike Daily, of the US Marine Corps.
Colonel Daily said that US stocks of Vietnam-era napalm had been phased out, but that the Mark-77s had "similar destructive characteristics".
On March 22 a Herald correspondent, Lindsay Murdoch, travelling with US marines, reported that napalm was used in an attack on Iraqi troops at Safwan Hill, near the Kuwait border.
His account was based on statements by two US marines officers on the ground. But Lieutenant-Commander Jeff Davis, from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Defence, called Murdoch's story "patently false". "The US took napalm out of service in the 1970s. We completed the destruction of our last batch of napalm on April 4, 2001, and no longer maintain any stocks of napalm," Commander Davis said.
He was apparently referring to Vietnam-era Napalm-B, which consisted of inflammable fuel thickened with polystyrene and benzene. The inflammable fuel in Mark-77 fire bombs is thickened with slightly different chemicals, and is believed to contain oxidisers.
Neither weapon technically contains napalm.
A Pentagon official told Agence France-Presse on Thursday that US forces used the Mark-77 fire bombs against Iraqi forces in their drive towards Baghdad and defended their use as legal and necessary.
The official, who did not wish to be identified, said that US marines jets dropped the fire bombs at least once to destroy Iraqi positions at Safwan.
The official told AFP: "It is like this: you've got [an] enemy that's hard to get at. And it will save your own lives to use it." There were no international conventions against it, the official said.
Marines used the napalm-like bombs on at least two other occasions during the drive to Baghdad, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported this week.
"The generals love napalm," the paper quoted Colonel Randolph Alles, the commander of Marine Air Group 11, as saying. "It has a big psychological effect."
Napalm was banned by a United Nations convention in 1980, but the US did not sign the agreement. The US military considers the use of Mark-77 weapons to be legal.
A spokeswoman for Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois said it was producing a further 500 Mark-77s for the marines. She said she did not consider them napalm bombs, but they are still referred to as napalm in some US documents.
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