Update on White Phosphorus Use in Fallujah

Via Reuters AlertNet. Go. Read.

Update: Another update via the SJ Mercury News. File this one under, "Why the British cannot use white phosphorus in the manner in which the US did."

Quick snippet:

Use of white phosphorous is not banned but is covered by Protocol III of the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons. The protocol prohibits use of the substance as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas.

Blair's spokesman pointed out that Britain is a signatory to the convention. The United States is not.

Britain's Liberal Democrat Party, which opposed the Iraq war, criticized U.S. forces for using the substance as an incendiary weapon.

"A vital part of the effort in Iraq is to win the battle for hearts and minds," said the party's foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell. "The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency."

The last paragraph is the essential point of my two entries on this subject.