Yes, I’ve heard of “decaf.” What’s your point?

As for “corpses with their skin disfigured BUT their clothes intact”, this from the CSM:

Yet the claims made by an Italian television station - that women and children were found with melted skin despite the fact that their clothes were unharmed - are consistent with the action of white phosphorous, scientists say.

I think this should clarify the matter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_weapon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus

PS. I am not saying that death by White Phosphorus is not NASTY, I think all war deaths are, but I consider use of chemical weapons are serious allegation and to use it to settle partisan/ideological enimity very disappointing.

Regards

Dont be cruel, I did lot of searching for those links .

What you can do though is go to InstaPundit and search for phospohrus.
I got all the links from there.

What you call deception is in my view incompetence, for the reason that even in US roll of honour soldiers have received honour for using white phosporus (the list and citation is publuc and has been always so). If it was deception by US Army(which I dont think it is)they certainly did a shoddy job of it.

“any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm.”

I think it is a bit of stretch for using this definition of chemical weapons for white phosphorus whose only results of chemical rections are fire or highly irritating but not lethal gas (unless you are very near or take high amount of it, which can happen with many “normal” gases).
Phosphorus are not very useful for incendiary purposes either, Soldier use it for smoking enemy combatants (who are in entrenched postion)out in order to minimize damage to other people.
Further the pictures shows the corpses with their skin disfigured (molten ?? or caramalized ??, exaggeration) BUT their clothes intact to my knowledge phosphorus does not do it (either due to fire or due to noxious fumes as a result of burning).
The disfigurement might have been from desert heat or something.
Yes Phosphorus is nasty, but as nasty as getting your guts ripped by shrapnels or blown by daisy cutters, or getting your brain blown by machine gun bullet.
To call this as chemical weapon in my view trivializing “real chemical weapons” like sarin or Orange (I hope everyone has seen enough english movies ).

Regards

Even if you don’t want to split hairs over what is or is not a chemical weapon, the pattern of deception is clear (hope you read this other post). Official statements went from “no, we never used WP” to “yes, we used it, but only for illumination or obfuscation” to (now) “yes, we used it against insurgents.” Isn’t that troubling enough?

Apologies for spoiling your righteous indignation, but white phospohrous are not exactly chemical weapon. it is debunked
here ,
here ,
here,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here ,
and
here ,

This is just in a long list of Anti- Bush Memes like \”Bush lied, Kids died\”

Regards

I for one don’t see the point in differentiating between different kinds of weapons except insofar as there are legal/treaty issues. If there is a reasonable certainty that civilians would perish in an attack, then that is wrong. If you accept that, and I believe the principle is enshrined in all manner of laws, the attack on Fallujah, and the many others since, were not only illegal, but fundamentally immoral.

This kind of messy complication that arises from fighting an urban war is just another reason in that long, dismal list of why you don’t go invading foreign countries that don’t pose a threat to you or anyone else…