GIULIANA SGRENA: [translated from Italian] Not only in Fallujah. I had heard stories from the inhabitants about the use of certain weapons like napalm in Baghdad during the battle at the airport in April 2003. And then I had collected just before going to interview the city refugees testimonies from other inhabitants in Fallujah about the use of guns and white phosphorus. In particular, some women had tried to enter their homes, and they had found a certain dust spread all over the house. The Americans themselves had told them to clean their houses with detergents, because that dust was very dangerous. In fact, they had some effect on their bodies, leading some very strange things. I would have liked to interview those persons, but unfortunately my kidnappers, who were said to be part of Fallujah's resistance, had forbidden me to tell what I have known about Fallujah by kidnapping me. This world cannot have witnessed this. It cannot have witnessed it, because it’s based on lies. The Americans have permitted only to embedded journalists to go to Fallujah.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Giuliana Sgrena. And now Jeff Englehart, who is a former U.S. soldier.

REPORTER: Were any chemical weapons used in Fallujah?

JEFF ENGLEHART: From the U.S. military, yeah, absolutely. White phosphorus. Possibly napalm may or may not have been used; I do not know. I do know that white phosphorus was used, which is definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, a chemical weapon.

REPORTER: Is he sure of it?

JEFF ENGLEHART: Yes. It happened.

REPORTER: How can he be certain?

JEFF ENGLEHART: Well, it comes across radio as a general transmission. When it happens like that, you hear it on the radio through -- we have speakers in our trucks -- speakers and then the transmission goes to the speakers, so it's audible. And as they'd say, “In five [inaudible], we're going drop some Whiskey Pete.” “Roger. Commence bombing.” I mean, it just comes across the radio, and like, when you hear “Whiskey Pete,” that's the military slang.

NARRATOR: Contrary to what was said by the U.S. State Department, white phosphorus was not used in the open field to illuminate enemy troops. For this, tracer was used. A rain of fire shot from U.S. helicopters on the city of Fallujah on the night of the 8th of November. [inaudible] will show you in this exceptional documentary, which proves that a chemical agent was used in a massive and indiscriminate way in districts of Fallujah. In the days that followed, U.S. satellite images showed Fallujah burned out and razed to the ground.

JEFF ENGLEHART: The gases from the warhead of the white phosphorus will disperse in a cloud. And when it makes contact with skin, then it's absolutely irreversible damage, burning flesh to the bone. It doesn't necessarily burn clothes, but it will burn the skin underneath clothes. And this is why protective masks do not help, because it will burn right through the mask, the rubber of the mask. It will manage to get inside your face. If you breathe it, it will blister your throat and your lungs until you suffocate, and then it will burn you from the inside. It basically reacts to skin, oxygen and water. The only way to stop the burning is with wet mud. But at that point, it's just impossible to stop.

REPORTER: Have you seen the effects of these weapons?

JEFF ENGLEHART: Yes. Burned. Burned bodies. I mean, it burned children, and it burned women. White phosphorus kills indiscriminately. It's a cloud that will within, in most cases, 150 meters of impact will disperse, and it will burn every human being or animal.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Jeff Englehart, who is a former U.S. soldier, speaking from Colorado. As we wrap up, Maurizio Torrealta of RAI, where he is being broadcast, the documentary Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre. The response in Italy, not to mention the rest of the world, to this documentary?

MAURIZIO TORREALTA: The response in Italy is bizarre, because when we broadcast it, we had one day before, having some response, because then we had two days of strike. The newspaper were on strike. So there were a few newspaper that wrote about it, and then there was a silence for two days. And then again there was nothing, nothing for three or four days. But actually, now, yesterday and the day before, it was the first news on the first page. Why? Because it came from outside.

At that point, the news had been bounced in the United States, in England, and it became -- some information transformed themselves in news and now is the news. And now, yesterday was a major newsbreak of the major channel of the Italian television. So it has been a strange, very strange [inaudible]. The news really has been diffused, but didn't have a reaction right now.

It seemed like there are two different media that are fighting: One media which is based on the internet and which is based on the net and on streaming and has a different way to spread around; and the other media, the mainstream media, which is very slow, very much controlled, and doesn’t come out right away with information, only after it became something bigger. That is my impression, which is not – doesn’t make me happy at all.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And George Monbiot, this news is now beginning to spread on the corporate media here in the United States. But what's happening in Britain? Are you having similar battles between the corporate media and the internet?

GEORGE MONBIOT: Well, the corporate media has picked it up pretty well comprehensively, and they have messed it up pretty well comprehensively. The misreporting of this issue is second almost to none that I've ever come across before. They have managed to mix up the use of white phosphorus against military versus civilian targets. For example, repeatedly, I'm saying, in the media, that it's a war crime if it's used against civilians but not if it’s used against the military. The Chemical Weapons Convention does not mention the word civilian. It does not mention the word non-combatant. There is no distinction made. If you use white phosphorus as a weapon against human beings, that is a war crime. It doesn't matter whether those human beings are civilians. It doesn't matter whether they are military. It remains a war crime.

They've mixed up several other things, as well. And the result of this is that if we're not careful, we can see excuses made for the use of this weapon as a weapon of war. And the whole point of the Chemical Weapons Convention is to prevent that from recurring. If we look back to the first World War and saw how mustard gas and phosgene were used and saw in the subsequent commemorations of that war these lines and lines of men with their hands on each other's shoulders walking along, because they could not see, because they had been blinded by this gas or their lungs had been destroyed by this gas, the undermining of the Chemical Weapons Convention threatens to bring about the kind of gas warfare which we saw in the first World War and which we saw in the war between Iran and Iraq. It's absolutely essential that we get this story right and we make it completely impossible for states such as the United States or, indeed, any other, to use poison toxic chemicals as a weapon of war and to use it ever again.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, George Monbiot and Maurizio Torrealta, I want to thank you both very much for being with us. And I want to point out I don't think the military is confused, because when Lieutenant Colonel Boylan first on Democracy Now! denied the use of white phosphorus as a weapon, he said as a weapon against people. He didn't say insurgents or civilians. He said we didn't use it against people. So that's an interesting point, and I wish they had joined us today. George Monbiot of Tthe Guardian of London, and Maurizio Torrealta, News Editor for the Italian television, the state broadcaster, RAI, co-producer of the film Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre, thanks so much for joining us.

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