This regards the recent controversy over use of white phosphorus in the November 8th, 2004 assault on Fallujah in Iraq.
I'm looking for help with meteorological research to determine whether or not a smog-inducing temperature inversion formed immediately before or during the assault on Fallujah.
This isn't a tin-foil hat thing about weather manipulation. Rather, what if the anticipated assault was timed the way it was not merely for election reasons, but to wait for the right weather conditions?
I believe that may possibly have been the case. Here's why...
Because of the recent controversy over use of white phosphorus in the assault, I started looking into the whole thing a little more closely.
The thing about white phosphorus "melting" flesh and not burning clothes is not consistent with what happens when one is literally hit with burning solid fragments of the substance.
However, when white phosphorus burns, the thick smoke it immediately produces is first mainly composed of phosphorus pentoxide which rapidly becomes phosphoric acid.
Phosphoric acid can produce chemical burns and is intensely hygroscopic (water absorbing). It very well may be that a sufficiently dense areosol cloud of white phosphorus generated smoke that mainly consisted of droplets of phosphoric acid would produce the effects seen. The melting effect would actually be a "congealing" of the flesh as the water is rapidly sucked out of it at the same time it is being "carmelized" by chemical burns.
The human body is mostly water. The relatively light moisture in clothing on the body, however, would quickly be exhausted, leaving the cloth relatively intact, compared to the poor bastard wearing them anyway.
Thus, we may be seeing not incendiary burns when we look at victims with clothing intact, but chemical burns.
Now, it may be that just a sufficiently intense bombardment with white phosphorus could achieve this effect -- particularly indoors in a poorly ventilated space, if one was in a building that had been hit with enough WP.
My recollection of the days leading up to the assault was that it was an open secret that US forces were going to attack the city. Much speculation in the media and online attened the matter of the actual timing of the assault -- with cynics such as myself assuming that it was all about the election.
But, just as a hypothesis -- what if they were actually waiting for a forecasted weather conditions to come about -- a temperature inversion, specifically?
Readers in smog-prone cities are probably familiar with how a temperature inversion -- a layer of cooler air trapped under a layer of warmer air -- traps pollution close to the ground.
If US forces hypthetically waited for a temperature inversion to launch an attack making use of large amounts of white phosphorus, we might perhaps be seeing the war crimes equivalent of the old thing about stabbing someone with an icicle. The murder weapon melts away. The smoke disperses, in this case.
I'm seeking comments and research help from chemistry and meteorology geeks in particular.
Chem geeks: What aerosol concentration of phosphoric acid might produce the effects on flesh described? Or would it? Am I completely off-base, and if so, why?
Weather geeks: If we arrive at a figure for a certain required concentration of phosphoric acid in aerosol form, what can you tell me about whether or not that level could be achieved over a metropolitan area if sufficient quantities of the smoke was created and then trapped at ground level by atmospheric conditions?
Weather geeks: Can we find any archived meteorological data for Fallujah in the period leading up to and during the attack that started November 8th, 2004 which might conclusively show whether or not a temperature inversion existed at that time or not over the city?
Please recommend this diary and pass this request along to any weather geeks or chem geeks you know. I'm also cross-posting this at my blog.