Drip, Drip, Drip

First, the stories about US Forces using White Phosphorus in Fallujah were "not true," then the official position became "only for illumination," then it was "only when routing insurgent from foxholes..."

Now, it's "ok, yeah, we used it pretty much whenever and wherever." But we didn't mean to kill civilians:

The US military on Wednesday acknowledged it might have killed civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja with white phosphorus munitions during the battle against insurgents a year ago.

The Pentagon insisted civilians had not been targeted, however, and that it had avoided unnecessary casualties by evacuating the city before the offensive.

Well, that should warm over any hearts and minds straddling the fence over there, no?

Riverbend has a couple of posts up about the military using WP--her latest suggests the story about Iraqi prisoner abuse--by other Iraqis this time--might in part be a planned leak to divert attention from the Fallujah admission. According to her, local torture centers have been known to locals for some time--again, that can't inspire much confidence in the ability of US forces to impose any semblence of order.

But that hardly matters to the wingnuts...