LONDON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- British forces used white phosphorus in Iraq, but only as a smokescreen, Defense Secretary John Reid said Wednesday.
His admission came after the Pentagon confirmed Tuesday it had used white phosphorus against insurgents in the Fallujah offenseive last year.
The news has worried British parliamentarians, some of whom have expressed concerns it will be used as propaganda by insurgents. White phosphorus, first used by U.S. forces in Vietnam, burns flesh upon contact and does not stop until cut away from the skin or deprived of oxygen.
The Pentagon admitted -- after initially denying -- that it had used white phosphorus as an "incendiary weapon against enemy combatants" in Fallujah but not against civilians. White phosphorus was not a banned chemical weapon, it said.
It strenously rejected claims by an Italian documentary team that it had gathered evidence of the U.S. use of the substance against civilians.
Reid said he could not answer for the U.S. use of the substance.
But he said: "We do not use white phosphorus, or indeed any other form of munition or weaponry, against civilians...
"We do not use it for anything other than a smokescreen to protect our troops when in action."
But critics said civilians could still be affected even if not directly targeted, as white phosphorus could still burn if it drifted when used as smoke.
Anti-war Labor MP Alan Simpson told the BBC there was hypocrisy over the issue as Britain and the United States had sent troops to war over Iraq's alleged chemical weapons.
"What we are forced to address is that in a post-war occupation of Iraq, the coalition forces -- British and American -- have also used chemical weapons."
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which monitors the Chemical Weapons Convention to which the United States and Britain are parties, said that white phosphorus would be classed as a chemical weapon if deliberately used against people for its toxic properties.
