White Phosphorous

This all started with a post at the beginning of the month on the question of the Israeli incursion into Gaza and if the incursion was legal--in terms of just in terms of initiation and just in terms of conduct.

Earlier today Kad Barma posted a comment that brought up the question of the legality of Israel using White Phosphorous weapons for its incursion into Gaza. (He had earlier posted on the issue at this own blog.) I promised in my response in the comments section that I would look into it.

As Kad Barms says, if this is wrong, it is wrong all around and that includes the US, which has large stocks of this weapon.

White Phosphorous is, in my understanding, about smoke. In a previous incarnation I was a Forward Air Controller (FAC) in Alaska and we carried three kinds of items on our aircraft, the O-2A, to expend. The first was 2.75 inch rockets with a White Phosphorous (Willy Pete) warhead, for target marking during the day. We used the smoke to talk the fighters onto the target we had selected. One winter we experimented with colored smoke, since white on snow is sometimes hard to see (but the rocket scorch mark is fairly easy to see).

"See my smoke?"  "Roger."

"Target is 200 meters to the north of my smoke."  "Roger."

"You are cleared in. FAC is holding west at 3000. Call in."

The other two were for night time work. We had flares for illumination and "logs," which were flares that fell to the ground and provided night time markers to talk the fighters onto the target.

Someone I met on the Internet (well, I know his pedigree) gave me some information. I wasn't the first to ask. He says:

Some of the televised images have been of aerial flares dropped from IAF fighters. Much of the rest appears to be what we would call the "M825 155mm projectile."

It's a smoke round used to cover movements. The white phosphorus you're seeing actually is just in the ejection projectile (called a "felt wedge"). The spray of WP occurs at a high angle and most likely will NOT affect people on the ground or certainly in nearby concrete structures.

Basically, what you're seeing is a whole bunch of WP-drenched wedges falling to the ground where it smokes like a big stick of incense. Only about 10 percent of the munition is WP, and it detonates very high above the ground and burns out before hitting the deck.

Here is the Army's press release on the round when we put it into our inventory in 1982--some 26 years ago. Just the first article applies to this issue.

And at this location is a write-up by one of the several web sites with information on the military. It reads like it was lifted from an instruction manual for Field Artillery personnel.

Before we jump to a conclusion about the use of these rounds, we need to understand the tactical application. It is possible that the smoke was being used to hid Israeli military operations, with the intent of minimizing non-combatant casualties by reducing the threat to the soldiers moving into the area and thus allowing a reduction in suppressive fire.

As for the flares from aircraft, that is a defensive response against hand-held surface-to-air missiles. Usually it is a combination of chaff and flares.

I am under no illusion that this explication settles anything. But, I would think that Army lawyers have been thinking about this for a couple of decades. As my internet buddy says: "If it's a violation for the Israelis to use it, then you probably better herd into the stockade every battery (member) outside Fallujah in 2004."

Regards  --  Cliff