Fire Bombs in Iraq (Apr 2005)

Both the UK and US authorities now admit that the napalm-type weapon known as the ‘MK77 firebomb’ was used during the invasion of Iraq. This section contains the briefing and press releases which the Iraq Analysis Group has produced on the topic, plus links to evidence of MK77 use during the continuing conflict. We also include information about the controversial weapon White Phosphorus.

Please also see the section on weaponry in the Information Sources.


UK Government forced to admit Coalition forces use firebombs

  • On 17th April 2005, the Iraq Analysis Group produced a report detailing evidence for the use of a new generation napalm weapon known as the ‘MK77 firebomb’ by US forces in Iraq. There was growing concern about this weapon, as the UK is a signatory to a convention limiting the use of incendiaries on humanitarian grounds. The UK authorities had repeatedly denied that Coalition forces were equipped with firebombs. This was in the face of evidence including statements from the US State Department admitting MK77 use.

  • On 20th April 2005, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram was "made aware" of evidence of MK77 use and contacted his US counterparts for clarification.

  • On 28th June 2005, with the General Election safely past, Adam Ingram admitted that his three outright denials in Parliament had been incorrect, and US forces in Iraq had indeed used the MK77 Firebomb. Despite the UK commitment not to use these controversial weapons, he showed no concern about our allies using them: "Where, and against which targets the weapons were used is a matter for the US authorities."

  • The Iraq Analysis Group submitted a Freedom of Information Request to find out if and when the US Government actually told the UK it was not using the MK77 firebomb in Iraq. We were eventually told that the information had been given by telephone directly from Baghdad and that no record was kept.


  • IAG Briefing: 'Fire bombs in Iraq: Napalm by any other name' (PDF File) (17 Apr 2005)

    Fire Bombs in Iraq: Napalm By Any Other Name

    Iraq Analysis Group, March 2005, updated April 2005

    Summary

    This briefing examines the continuing use of incendiary weapons by the US military in Iraq. US officials have been forced to admit using the MK-77 incendiary, a modern form of napalm, at least during the initial fighting stage of the war. In direct contradiction, the UK government continues to deny that such weapons have been used in Iraq at any time. The UK is party to an international convention banning incendiaries where they may cause harm to civilians.

    1. Napalm past

    A fire bomb is a thin-skinned container of fuel gel. It ignites on impact, spreading the burning gel over a wide area. The composition of the fuel gel has evolved over the years:

    • World War II: gasoline plus naphthenic and palmitic acids
    • Vietnam & Korea: gasoline, benzene and polystyrene
    • Iraq (MK-77 Mod 5): kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene

    In the past, incendiaries were most notoriously used in the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden, and by the US in Vietnam. The 1972 photograph of the child Kim Phuc running from her napalmed village with her naked body burning was a defining moment in worldwide opposition to the Vietnam War.

    Napalm has also been used in Iraq in the past. The Ba’ath regime of Saddam Hussein used it during the 1991 uprising. In 1992 Human Rights Watch reported:

    Refugees alleged that Iraqi helicopters dropped a variety of ordnance on civilians, including napalm and phosphorus bombs, chemical agents and sulfuric acid. Representatives of human rights and humanitarian organizations who saw refugees with burn injuries or photographs of such injuries were unable to confirm the source of the burns, although doctors who examined injured Iraqis said that some of the wounds were consistent with the use of napalm.[1]

    2. Napalm present

    The US military has in its current arsenal a modern form of napalm. Known as the MK-77 Mod 5, the bombs are dropped from aircraft and ignite on impact. They contain a lethal mixture of aircraft fuel and polystyrene, which forms a sticky, flammable gel. As it burns, the gel sticks to structures and to the bodies of its victims. The light aluminium containers lack stabilising fins, making them far from precision weapons.

    The MK-77 is the only incendiary now in use by the US military. It is an evolution of the napalm bombs M-47 and M-74 that were used in Vietnam and Korea. In the new weapon, the flammable gel is made up of kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene. The MK-77 bomb reportedly also contains an oxidizing agent. This makes it even more difficult to put out once ignited.

    While the composition of the weapons has evolved, the targets remain the same. Incendiaries are typically used against dug-in troops, supply installations, wooden structures, and land convoys.

    Use of incendiary weapons is restricted under the 1980 UN Convention on Weapons Which May Be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to Have Indiscriminate Effects. Protocol III of this Convention makes it "prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons" (article II.2). The UK ratified both the Convention and Protocol III on 13 February 1995, and remains fully bound to them. More than 80 other countries around the world have ratified the treaty, and almost none retain incendiary weapons in their arsenals. However, although the United States has ratified the convention, it has not signed up to the protocol on incendiary weapons. It continues to stockpile and use napalm-type weapons.

    “Most of the world understands that napalm and incendiaries are a horrible, horrible weapon,” said Robert Musil, director of the organisation Physicians for Social Responsibility. “It takes up an awful lot of medical resources. It creates horrible wounds.” [2]

    3. Firebombs in Iraq

    Incendiary weapons have been issued to US forces in Iraq, apparently mainly to Marine Corps aviation wings. Incendiaries were used against Iraqi troops during the 2003 invasion, and there is growing evidence that use continues, including in Fallujah.

    Two embedded reporters (from the Sydney Morning Herald and CNN) witnessed a fire bomb attack on an Iraqi observation post near Kuwaiti border on 21 March 2003:

    Marine Cobra helicopter gunships firing Hellfire missiles swept in low from the south. Then the marine howitzers, with a range of 30 kilometres, opened a sustained barrage over the next eight hours. They were supported by US Navy aircraft which dropped 40,000 pounds of explosives and napalm, a US officer told the Herald.

    Safwan Hill went up in a huge fireball and the Iraqi observation post was obliterated. “I pity anybody who’s in there,” a marine sergeant said. “We told them to surrender.” [3]

    Despite this and other eyewitness accounts, US officials initially denied claims that napalm weapons were being deployed[4]. However, as military personnel and journalists in Iraq persistently presented evidence of their use, by August 2003 Pentagon spokesmen were forced to admit that MK-77 firebombs had been dropped[5]. This has since been confirmed by the State Department, in direct contradiction to UK government statements[6].

    Past denials were justified on the grounds that questioners had used the term ‘napalm’ instead of ‘firebombs’ or ‘MK-77s’. The US claims to have destroyed all its stocks of ‘napalm’ and argues that the MK-77 cannot be included in this term. However, the Pentagon admits that the MK-77 is an incendiary with a function ‘remarkably similar’ to that of napalm[7].

    In fact, the US military itself refers to the new-generation MK-77 as ‘napalm’. The term is even used in official documents such as Defend America, the monthly US Department of Defense publication describing the progress of the ‘war on terror’. In February 2003 the publication proudly described preparations for the coming war, detailing the build-up of weapons in Kuwait:

    Everything from hand grenades to 2,000-pound bombs and napalm are shipped, ready for use whenever 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing needs them.[8]

    Military personnel routinely refer to MK-77 incendiaries as ‘napalm’:

    ‘We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches’, said Colonel Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11. ‘Unfortunately, there were people there because you could see them in the [cockpit] video. They were Iraqi soldiers there. It’s no great way to die’. He added, ‘The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect.’[9]

    The US Marine Corps remained supplied with MK-77s well after the initial fighting phase. In August 2003 a spokeswoman for Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois confirmed they were producing a further 500 MK-77s for supply to the Corps[10].

    4. Recent use of incendiaries: Firebombing Fallujah

    In November 2004 US forces launched a massive attack on the city of Fallujah. Much of the city was destroyed and tens of thousands of residents fled as refugees.

    Rumours have emerged of burnt and melted bodies in the city, consistent with the use of napalm or the equally controversial weapon white phosphorus (also known as ‘Willy Pete’).

    Residents who survived the attack reported seeing incendiary bombs used in the city. Abu Sabah, who lived in the Julan district of Fallujah which witnessed some of the heaviest attacks, said:

    “They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud… then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.” He said that pieces of these strange bombs explode into large fires that burn the skin even when water is thrown on the burns.[11]

    “Usually we keep the gloves on,” said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, Md., the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division’s Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. “For this operation, we took the gloves off.”

    Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns.

    Kamal Hadeethi, a physician at a regional hospital, said, “The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted.”[12]

    In February this year Iraqi Health Ministry official Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli reportedly alleged that napalm, along with other banned substances, had been used in Fallujah. He had been commissioned by the Ministry to assess conditions in the city after the assault[13]. The US strenuously denies that any MK-77 bombs were used in the Fallujah assault.

    5. UK Denials

    Since the first reports emerged of napalm-type weapons being used in Iraq, the question has repeatedly been raised in the UK Parliament. UK Ministers have explicitly denied that napalm-type incendiaries have been used in Iraq by US troops. They have even specifically denied the use of MK-77 weapons. This is in the face of official admissions by the US government.

    This exchange, from 11 January 2005, is perhaps the most comprehensive denial:

    Harry Cohen MP: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence whether Mark 77 firebombs have been used by Coalition forces (a) in Iraq and (b) in or near areas in Iraq where civilians lived; whether this weapon is equivalent to napalm; whether (i) the UK and (ii) the US has signed the UN convention banning the use of napalm against civilian targets; and if he will make a statement.

    Adam Ingram MP: The United States have confirmed to us that they have not used Mark 77 firebombs, which are essentially napalm canisters, in Iraq at any time. No other Coalition member has Mark 77 firebombs in their inventory.[14]

    The United Kingdom is bound under Protocol III to the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) not to use incendiary weapons (which would include napalm) against military targets located within concentrations of civilians.

    US policy in relation to international conventions is a matter for the US Government, but all of our allies are aware of their obligations under international humanitarian law .

    Can Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram really be unaware that the US Pentagon and State Department both admit that Mark 77 firebombs were used in Iraq during the invasion? That US military personnel are talking openly about using these weapons?

    The US State Department writes in a recent statement, “Although all napalm in the U.S. arsenal had been destroyed by 2001, Mark-77 firebombs, which have a similar effect to napalm, were used against enemy positions in 2003.” [15] Is the US government saying one thing on its public website, and something else in private to its allies?

    Conclusion

    The UK government appears not to know what the rest of the world has been told: that US forces in Iraq are supplied with and have used the napalm-type incendiaries MK-77. These were used against Iraqi soldiers during the initial fighting phase of the war, and there are reports that their use continues.

    Along with the majority of countries, the UK is party to a convention which restricts the use of these and other inhumane weapons. While the UK has done much to further other parts of the convention, including pushing for a total ban on anti-personnel mines, in this instance the UK government is condoning the actions of its coalition partner, even when it employs internationally reviled weapons.

    This briefing for the Iraq Analysis Group was prepared by Alison Klevnäs, Per Klevnäs, Rachel Laurence, Mike Lewis and Jonathan Stevenson. The Iraq Analysis Group was set up in 2004 by former members of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. Based in the UK, it is an independent, volunteer-run organisation. For more information please contact us.

    Footnotes:

    1 Endless Torment: The 1991 Uprising in Iraq And Its Aftermath, Human Rights Watch, June 1992.

    2 ‘US admits it used napalm bombs in Iraq’, The Independent, 10 August 2003.

    3 ‘‘Dead bodies are everywhere’’, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 March 2003.

    4 ‘‘Dead bodies are everywhere’’, Sydney Morning Herald, 22 March 2003.

    5’‘Napalm by any other name: Pentagon denial goes up in flames’’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 August 2003.

    6 Hansard, 11 January 2005; US State Department, 09 December 2004, http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/Illegal_Weapons_in_Fallujah.html

    7 ‘Officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops’, San Diego Union Tribune, 5 August 2003.

    8 ‘Sailors Offload Ammo For U.S. Marines’, Defend America, US Dept of Defense, 2 February 2003.

    9 ‘Officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops’, San Diego Union Tribune, 5 August 2003.

    10 ’’Napalm by any other name: Pentagon denial goes up in flames’’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 August 2003.

    11 ‘U.S. uses napalm gas in Fallujah – Witnesses’, Al-Jazeera.com, 28 November 2004 and ‘Fallujah Napalmed’, Sunday Mirror, 28 November 2004.

    12 ‘U.S. drives into heart of Fallujah’, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 November 2004.

    13 ‘U.S. used banned weapons in Fallujah – Health Ministry’, Al-Jazeera.com, 3 February 2005

    14 Hansard, 11 January 2005

    15 US State Department, 09 December 2004, http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/Illegal_Weapons_in_Fallujah.html


  • Update on firebombs
    • RAI documentary: 'Fallujah. La Strage Nascosta' (08 Nov 2005)

      'Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre'. Documentary by Italian state broadcaster RAI detailing use of White Phosphorus in the 2004 assault on Fallujah. Uses video, photographs, and interviews with US soldiers.

      There was an English report in the The Independent.

      This appears to be a copy of the documentary, provided by Information Clearing House.

    • Statement by Physicians for Social Responsibility (23 June 2005)

      Comment by Dr Robert M. Gould, Chair of the Security Committee of Physicians for Social Responsibility:

      “While Defence Secretary Reid said on British TV that the United States has used MK77 firebombs in Iraq, but that these are not napalm bombs and that their contents do not stick to the skin like napalm, he is being disingenuous at best and misleading at worst.

      Napalm is a mixture of benzene (21%), gasoline (33%), and polystyrene (46%). A typical bomb will contain about 75 gallons of this combustible material in an aluminium shell. The MK47 bomb, now withdrawn from service, was a napalm bomb.

      While the US Department of Defense has denied using napalm claiming instead to be using ‘firebombs’ as Defence Secretary Reid stated, this denial by the US DOD was issued on the technical basis that the incendiaries used consisted primarily of kerosene-based jet fuel (which has a smaller concentration of benzene), rather than the traditional mixture of gasoline and benzene used for napalm, and that these therefore did not qualify as napalm.

      The material in the MK77 is not classic napalm, it is a modern version of the substance with an identical purpose. To claim that material from a bomb set to explode in a fireball containing a mix of fuel and polystyrene is not intended to stick to the skin defies all reason. Defence Secretary Reid is attempting to hide the awful reality of warfare in Iraq from the British public, something he cannot be allowed to succeed in.”

    • IAG press Release: US ARMY ORDERS NEW FIREBOMB STOCKS (20 June 2005)

      IAG press Release: US ARMY ORDERS NEW FIREBOMB STOCKS

      Iraq Analysis Group, 20/06/05, 16:00

      Introduction

      Challenged about the government’s false denial to Parliament about the US use of controversial napalm-type firebombs in Iraq, Defence Minister John Reid yesterday responded with further inaccurate statements about the weapons, contradicting a previous ministerial statement. Meanwhile new documents discovered by the Iraq Analysis Group show that the US army is producing new stocks of the controversial weapon.

      Ministers contradict each other

      Asked on ITV’s 'Jonathan Dimbleby programme' on Sunday about the US use of MK77 Mod 5 firebombs, Dr Reid replied:

      “they didn't use napalm. They used a firebomb. It doesn't stick to your skin like napalm, it doesn't have the horrible effects of that."[1]

      This appears to contradict Defence Minister Adam Ingram, who called Mark 77 firebombs “essentially napalm canisters” in a statement to Parliament earlier this year. [2] Napalm is itself a firebomb: although the last US stocks of MK77 Mod 4 napalm were decommissioned in 2001, the MK77 Mod 5 firebombs used in Iraq are simply an updated version using a slightly different fuel. US military spokespeople have also repeatedly stated that the MK77 has ‘remarkably similar’ effects to napalm.[3] US Army specifications for the MK77 firebomb confirm that the weapons are

      ‘designed for use against dug-in troops, supply installations, wooden structures, and land convoys...rupture upon impact and spread burning fuel gel on surrounding objects.’[4]

      Devasting weaponry

      Dr Douglas Holdstock of the UK medical charity Medact, said: “Dr Reid is hair-splitting. Both napalm and the MK77 are gel-based firebombs. They both seem likely to breach the basic principle of the international humanitarian law of war that weapons should not inflict “superfluous injury and unnecessary suffering”

      More firebombs in production

      Meanwhile, new documents discovered by the Iraq Analysis Group, an independent UK research group critical of UK humanitarian policy in Iraq, reveal that the US army has recently been stockpiling large quantities of new MK77 firebombs. Adam Ingram sought to reassure Labour MPs in a letter to Labour MP Harry Cohen last week that US forces had dropped MK77 firebombs only up to 21 April 2003. Nonetheless a Federal Procurement Solicitation issued on January 14 2004, and updated on June 7 2004, solicits manufacturers for a further 993 firebombs.[5]

      Mike Lewis, a spokesperson for the Iraq Analysis Group, said:

      “New US stockpiling of firebombs adds to the Government’s embarrassment that its Coalition ally is using these internationally reviled weapons in Iraq. If, as Dr Reid says, the UK is unwilling to use ‘anything that even approximates to what they were using’, then he should publicly restrain the US from using and stockpiling firebombs. Standing by while they are used in joint US/UK missions is simple hypocrisy.”

      References:

      [1] Quoted in Adam Sparrow, ‘Parliament Misled over Firebomb Use’, Daily Telegraph 20 June 2005

      [2] Commons Hansard, 11 January 2005: “Adam Ingram: The United States have confirmed to us that they have not used Mark 77 firebombs, which are essentially napalm canisters, in Iraq at any time”

      [3] ‘Officials confirm dropping firebombs on Iraqi troops’, San Diego Union Tribune, 5 August 2003. Compare also the statement by a Pentagon spokesperson in August 2003: ‘MK 77 is called Napalm due to the fact that their impact on targets resembles remarkably the use of Napalm’ [4]. Transcript from Monitor-TV, ARD, Germany, 7 August 2003. Original programme viewable at http://www.wdr.de/tv/monitor/real.phtml?bid=513&sid=100 ; partial translation at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4395.htm

      [4] Federal Procurement Solicitation for MK77 Mod 5 Firebomb No. W52P1J04-R-0077, 13 January 2004, http://www2.eps.gov/servlet/Documents/R/850735

      [5] Federal Procurement Solicitation for MK77 Mod 5 Firebomb No. W52P1J04-R-0077, 13 January 2004, http://www2.eps.gov/servlet/Documents/R/850735 ; update 5 June 2004 at http://osc1.ria.army.mil/padds_pdf/W52P1J04R0077/0005.pdf

    • Field Artillery magazine: White Phosphorus in Fallujah (March 2005)

      The March edition of Field Artillery magazine, a U.S. Army publication, reveals that the U.S. military did in fact use the incendiary weapon white phosphorous in Fallujah, and not just for 'lighting' purposes, as officially claimed.

      "WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired “shake and bake” missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."

      The rest of the article (The Fight for Fallujah) is also interesting, in a horrifying kind of way.

      White Phophorus was also used near Irbil, according to an article in Infantry Magazine (May/June 2004).

    • Freedom of Information Request (2005) (2005)
      • MoD Response (PDF File) (02 Aug 2005)
      • IAG Request for clarification (16 July 2005)
      • MoD Response (PDF File) (15 July 2005)
      • IAG Freedom of Information Request (24 Apr 2005)

        Following the UK government admission that US Forces in Iraq have been using the MK77 firebomb, Mike Lewis of the Iraq Analysis Group submitted the following Freedom of Information Request to the UK Ministry of Defence:

        "All factual information, comments and opinions requested and received by the Ministry of Defence from Departments of the United States Government or the United States military (including but not limited to the Department of State and the Department of Defense) regarding: (a) the use of MK-77 bombs by US armed forces in Iraq (b) the use of any other incendiary bombs or firebombs, including 'napalm', by Coalition forces in Iraq.

        The request is for information, comments and opinions requested and received between March 2003 and the present."

    • Parliamentary Questions about firebombs
    • US Army Firebomb Procurement