Napalm used in Iraq invasion

[ClubMed]

I once mentioned to someone here on the board, in a thread about the invasion of Iraq, that Al Jazeera had reported the use of Napalm by the US airforce, at the time there was no English link, and the member mentioned that the US airforce did not have any stockpiles of Napalm since a number of years, they also questioned the claim.

So since I couldn't find the thread, I'm going to post it here, it's interesting.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...p?story=432201

[daveleau]

From comprehensive and current first hand/hands on experience, I can assure you that the US Air Force has ZERO napalm canisters or any associated chem warfare devices that can be carried on any of its aircraft.

I will leave the assurance that the US Navy has the same situation to a US Navy member.

This is inflammatory and libelous at worst, and a misunderstanding and ignorant at best.

There are no weapons on US aircraft other than conventional bombs and missiles and nuclear bombs and missiles, period. We do not use, employ or have plans to use or employ chemical weapons of any kind.

[F/A-18 MechDood]

Speaking for myself and only myself not on behalf of the Navy, I didn't see any thing other than conventional weapons being dropped while I was over there on one of the Carriers.

[Theophylact]

Conventional weapons (including cluster bombs and "daisy cutters", both of which we used in Afghanistan) are quite nasty enough.

[Warthog]

Theo, you seem to be missing the goal of war: to kill.

[daveleau]

War is nasty, Theophylact. We killed a lot of Iraqi soldiers with our nasty conventional weapons and daisy cutters. Conversely, we killed fewer civilians in this war than in any other. Fewer than Afghanistan, fewer than Desert Storm, fewer than in Bosnia. And that is because of the huge price we have paid to create disciplined soldiers and highly technological guided weapons.

Theophylact, do you even know in what instances the "daisy cutter" was used? Do you know how it is employed or anything about it other than that it has a sinister name? I know you can look these things up now, but I am asking what you knew as of the time you made the above statement.

[Theophylact]

daveleau, I do. Give me some credit.

Warthog, the purpose of war is to win. Often that requires a lot of killing; but it's not the purpose.

I recognize that there are no nice ways of killing people. The problem with cluster bombs and mines is that they tend to kill a lot of civilians who weren't the target.

[Warthog]

Yes, I reread what I wrote and it is mis-worded, although you understood my point.

Oops, you brought mines into it all of the sudden. I didn't even think we used landmines.

[Gomer]

The Daisy Cutter... off the top of my head (no google used)

Very large weapon. Deployed from rear of cargo jet using drogue chute. Vietnam era weapon designed to clear patches of jungle for helicopter landing. So named for the pattern of the trees made on the ground for a very large radius around the blast point. Creates massive over pressure in the general vicinity causing interal injury to anyone nearby.


As for the "NAPALM"...

a case of semantics so popular w/ the current administration.

out with Napalm, in with the new and improved MARK 77 FIREBOMB!

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...ebombs_big.gif

If our use of the weapons wasn't enough, just consider how pentagon spokesmen responded when the press asked if we used "napalm."

Apparently the spokesmen were drawing a distinction between the terms "firebomb" and "napalm." If reporters had asked about firebombs, officials said yesterday they would have confirmed their use. What the Marines dropped, the spokesmen said yesterday, were "Mark 77 firebombs." They acknowledged those are incendiary devices with a function "remarkably similar" to napalm weapons

Rather than using gasoline and benzene as the fuel, the firebombs use kerosene-based jet fuel, which has a smaller concentration of benzene.

Hundreds of partially loaded Mark 77 firebombs were stored on pre-positioned ammunition ships overseas, Marine Corps officials said. Those ships were unloaded in Kuwait during the weeks preceding the war.

"You can call it something other than napalm, but it's napalm," said John Pike, defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.com, a nonpartisan research group in Alexandria, Va....
Before the Marines crossed the Saddam Canal in central Iraq, jets dropped several firebombs on enemy positions near a bridge that would become the Marines' main crossing point on the road toward Numaniyah, a key town 40 miles from Baghdad.

Next, the bombs were used against Iraqis near a key Tigris River bridge, north of Numaniyah, in early April.

There were reports of another attack on the first day of the war.

Two embedded journalists reported what they described as napalm being dropped on an Iraqi observation post at Safwan Hill overlooking the Kuwait border.

Reporters for CNN and the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald were told by unnamed Marine officers that aircraft dropped napalm on the Iraqi position, which was adjacent to one of the Marines' main invasion routes.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0805-01.htm

[Skywalker[TSG]]

As for the "NAPALM"...

a case of semantics so popular w/ the current administration.

out with Napalm, in with the new and improved MARK 77 FIREBOMB!


It's the same all over the world.

Our military is forbidden to use anti-personel mines.
So they just changed the name to multi-purpose mine.

Didn't destroy them or disable them , simply changed the name.