Last week I mentioned an Italian television documentary that showed evidence of the use of chemical weapons by US forces during its assault on Fallujah in Iraq.

Since then, despite coverage across the rest of the world, until this morning the issue has had one mention in the British mainstream media, in The Independent.

George Monbiot discusses the documentary today to debunk it in his column for The Guardian:

The US used chemical weapons in Iraq - and then lied about it
The proof is not to be found in the documentary broadcast on Italian TV last week, which has generated gigabytes of hype on the internet. It’s a turkey, whose evidence that white phosphorus was fired at Iraqi troops is flimsy and circumstantial.

Monbiot goes on to cite other evidence of the use of chemical weapons by US forces in Iraq.

Now, there were some of us who were all over this way back in June (Me, here, here, here, here; and Tim Ireland here) only to see the story fizzle out in the mainstream. We can only hope it catches light again this week although nobody seems overly bothered, not least the BBC who have been happy to let dead Iraqis lie on this issue.

This includes, as Monbiot points out in scathing terms, Ann Clwyd, special envoy to the prime minister on human rights in Iraq:

In May this year, she wrote to the Guardian to assure us that reports that a “modern form of napalm” has been used by US forces “are completely without foundation. Coalition forces have not used napalm - either during operations in Falluja, or at any other time”. How did she know? The foreign office minister told her. Before the invasion, Clwyd travelled through Iraq to investigate Saddam’s crimes against his people. She told the Commons that what she found moved her to tears. After the invasion, she took the minister’s word at face value, when a 30-second search on the internet could have told her it was bunkum. It makes you wonder whether she really gave a damn about the people for whom she claimed to be campaigning.

A 30-second search on the internet could have told George that Clwyd is little more than a stooge or at best an unwitting mouthpiece for uncorroborated stories that were then shaped into pro-war propaganda, and there are many for who her opinion counts for nothing.

It makes you wonder what else British ministers, and by extension the British public, have been “lied to” about. The UK Government has stated repeatedly that “[t]he US authorities have repeatedly given us assurances that no terrorist suspects are being held on Diego Garcia, or have at any time passed in transit through Diego Garcia or its territorial waters.” But I’d be keeping an eye on that.

As with the napalm stories that the UK Government had denied but were forced to belatedly confirm, there’s been a steady drip of stories about Diego Garcia, an island owned by the UK and rented to the Americans, as yet unconfirmed:

The Guardian, March 19 2005: ‘One huge US jail’

In June 2004, a senior counterterrorism official in Britain confirmed that Hambali (a nom de guerre) - accused of organising the October 2002 Bali bombings and unseen since Thai police seized him in August 2003 - was “singing like a bird”, apparently at the US base on Diego Garcia.

I’d be prepared to put good money on Adam Ingram releasing a statement sometime soon (on a quiet day so it gets maxium coverage, naturally) that Diego Garcia is one of the CIA’s so-called “black sites“.

But these victims will never be seen. They will never feature on our TV screens to inspire millions to take to the streets. But they exist nonetheless.

You know who said that? Tony Blair in his speech to the Labour Party’s spring conference in February 2005.

Torture and chemical weapons. Victor’s justice I think they call it.

UPDATE: The Independent has more on the RAI documentary. The Pentagon’s tactic would seem to be to rubbish the documentary while obfuscating with contradictory statements on the wider issue and other evidence.

UPDATE: I tell a lie. The BBC did cover the story, online at least, last week. You’ll need to use the search to find it. It doesn’t get a mention on BBC News’ dedicated page for Iraq. And the coverage of the story itself doesn’t go beyond reporting what the documentary said and recycling a quote from the US State Department on the matter made last December.