This is a disturbing diary, so I am warning you up front.

A report out of Iraq this past week by Dahr Jamail highlights another stunningly horrific result of the illegal use of white phosphorus and chemical weapons in Fallujah by "coalition forces" back in late 2004 and 2005.

Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say.

The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after "special weaponry" was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.

After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah.

In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tons of DU in Iraq thus far.

One of the snipers charged with placing "bait" out to draw Iraqis into their killzone is quoted as saying

"If you've never been outside the wire, you really have no basis -- you don't have a basis to judge what I do or what I don't do. You've never been in a life-or-death situation, where you've had to count on the guy to your left and right,"Hand said.

"People who stay back here, in my opinion, are not mentally in the game. They've never been out there."

The problem is what happens "outside the wire" has become a freezone. Free from accountability for anything a Soldier does. We have seen over and over when brought up on charges for things like murder and rape, the punishment is a slap on the wrist if that. There is too pat a pattern not to believe the same thing that is happening in Washington, is happening in Iraq.

For years upon years the U.S. government has been using the ocean as a dumping ground for chemical weapons.  Let me say that again.

FOR YEARS THE U.S. GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN DUMPING CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN THE OCEAN

This is something I did not know about and I am guessing that maybe you don't either.  I first read about it at Deep Sea News and from their links I went to The Daily Press which has been all over this. I can't believe this hasn't garnered more attention, even in the debilitated MSM, but also out here in the lefty blogoshpere.

Follow me below the fold if you can stomach it.  

If we are to impeach, we must impeach both Bush and Cheney. It will not do any good for us to impeach Bush and have Cheney take the Oval Office and pick someone just as radical as he is. It will also not do any good for us to impeach just Cheney and allow Bush to groom John "I'm not knowledgeable" McCain for the 2008 election. Therefore, we must simultaneously impeach both of them so that the 3rd person in succession, Nancy Pelosi, would become the next President of the United States.

What remains to be done is for us to work out articles of impeachment against the President. Others may surface after the Democrats begin their job of investigating and getting to the bottom of the matter. If the Bush administration obstructs or lies to the Congressional Committee chairs, those could in and of themselves be grounds for impeachment and removal of Bush and Cheney.

In the meantime, here are the following 14 possible articles of impeachment against the President and Vice President.

Instead of a limited response from Israel, Hizbollah's own leadership was surprised by the extent of Israel's aerial, naval and ground assault.  An assault, not only against Hizbollah, but also against many civilian targets that have little if anything to do with Hizbollah.  Attacks which have "officially" killed well over 300 Lebanese civilians and maimed countless others.  Attacks which have caused billions of dollars of damage to buildings, factories, offices, bridges and other infrastructure destroyed by Israel's missile, bomb and artillery campaign.

When similar attacks were implemented by Serbia's armed forces and militias against Muslims in Bosnia, the world community was quick to condemn those actions as atrocities.  

(Cont. below the fold)

By now, most of us have heard allegations that Israel is using white phosphorus against civilian populations in violation of international law.  But now here's the $64,000 question--where are the calls for an investigation into where these phosphorus bombs came from?

We have the Lebanese government, plus doctors and ordinary citizens claiming that Israel has used phosphorus bombs against Lebanese civilians.  And unless I missed something, no high-level Israeli official has stepped forward to deny these claims.  Considering that if true, Ehud Olmert and the whole Israeli cabinet are guilty of war crimes, this is more than a little troubling for someone like me, who has always considered himself moderately pro-Israel.  The only reason that reasonable doubt that exists in this affair is that Hezbollah has been accused of blending with civilians.

At present, the only morally defensible course for Washington is not to stand in the way of any resolutions condemning the Israeli attacks.

Lebanon's president accused Israel on Monday of using phosphorous bombs in its 13-day offensive and urged the United Nations to demand an immediate ceasefire.
"According to the Geneva Convention, when they use phosphorous bombs and laser bombs, is that allowed against civilians and children?" President Emile Lahoud asked on France's RFI radio.
An Israeli military spokeswoman said arms used in Lebanon did not contravene international norms.

Introduction

In March 2005, an official of the interim government in Iraq, Health Ministry investigator Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli allegedly held a press conference regarding the Ministry's official investigation by a hand picked medical team of claims that, in the assault on Fallujah, US Marines and other Coalition forces had employed  incendiary and chemical weapons against insurgents and civilians alike.  The press conference was attended by over 20 major American and international news outlets, yet (via Chris Floyd) not one reported on what Dr. Ash-Shaykhli said.  

More, much more after the fold (and also at Booman Tribune)

It interests Congressman John Conyers, however.  Last week, Conyers released a 273-page report titled "The Constitution in Crisis; The Downing Street Minutes and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War."  This 273-page report covers many war-related crimes, including the use of white phosphorous.  

International War Crimes Tribunal

with this boldly at the top:

Crimes Against Peace, War Crimes, Crimes Against
Humanity and Other Criminal Acts and High Crimes in
Violation of the Charter of the United Nations,
International Law, the Constitution of the United States
and Laws made in Pursuance Thereof.

I wonder ...

(cross posted @ my (new) blog when pigs fly)

Full NYTimes editorial scorning WP use in Iraq and reciting our evidence points below.

It's worth keeping the debate in the light, because indeed, and somewhat miraculously, the more central point in the Fallujah debate is finally being poked at: whether giving Iraqis "freedom" means killing them in large numbers, and whether or not we are in the military position we are in largely because our unquestionable military prowess cannot compensate for the dunderheadedness of our truly contemptible war planning, which relied first on the Iraqis greeting us with flowers, and then when the oft-predicted Iraqi schisms arose and gave way to the oft-predicted violence, taking on entire urban centers in an effort to separate the insurgents from the civilians by way of 2000lb bombs.

After an exodus of civilians from the city into refugee camps -- estimates were that 250,000 people fled the city -- the most common figures for casualties in the Fallujah assault itself seem to be somewhere between three hundred and one thousand civilian deaths, with some estimates three or four times that, in neighborhoods where the Washington Post reported "more than half" of the houses were destroyed in the assault. Of Fallujah's estimated 50,000 homes, according to the director of the Commission for the Compensation of Fallujah Citizens about 36,000 were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries. Red Cross sources at the time estimated approximately 800 civilian deaths in the assault.

The United States claimed about 1200 insurgents were killed during the November 2004 Fallujah operations. Balance that against the rough estimates of 800 civilians killed in the same assault.

So is eight hundred civilian deaths in the assault too many, too few, or just right? What did we gain from the effort?

What did we lose?

The meeting between Mr Bush and Mr Blair took place at a time when Whitehall officials, intelligence officers, and British military commanders were expressing outrage at the scale of the US assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja, in which up to 1,000 civilians are feared to have died. Pictures of the attack shown on al-Jazeera had infuriated US generals.

It's not the use of WP that bothers me about these reports but that WP was used on civilians.  Our military in Iraq could be indiscriminately firing on civilians - including the use of WP.  That's the outrage that should be investigated and stopped.