FURTHER EVIDENCE OF ENRICHED URANIUM IN THE AIR IN LEBANON FOLLOWING THE RECENT CONFLICT

See http://www.llrc.org for outline, full report and pictures.

Part of the message of this report is that citizen groups can use simple, affordable and reliable techniques to monitor for the presence of hot radioactive particles in the environment.

Green Audit recently reported the results of measurements carried out on samples from a bomb crater in Khiam Southern Lebanon. Measurements made by the Harwell laboratory in Oxford confirmed the existence of Enriched Uranium of activity 180Bq/kg and U238/U235 ratio of 108 in the sample. The discovery, which was reported in ‘The Independent’ of 28^th October, has caused some concern. The United Nations Environment Programme UNEP responded that its analyses have failed to detect Uranium. The Israel Defence Force has denied using Depleted Uranium weapons. Further evidence of the widespread existence of enriched uranium in Lebanon is now reported in a new paper by Chris Busby and Dai Williams which has been accepted by the European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics and is available on the LLRC website www.llrc.org.

Since the first analysis of the Khiam sample (which used Mass Spectrometry) was reported, Green Audit commissioned a second analysis using different techniques. Alpha spectrometry carried out at the School of Ocean Sciences University of Wales has confirmed the presence of Enriched Uranium but also shown the absence of significant amounts of plutonium. In addition, gamma spectroscopy has shown that there is no Caesium-137 or other gamma emitting isotopes that would be expected if the sample originated in spent nuclear fuel.

There are significant and justified health concerns about exposure to the long lived and widely dispersed oxide particles formed when uranium weapons are used.

In order to examine whether the Khiam bomb was a local contamination affair or whether there is more widespread distribution of uranium, Green Audit has commissioned an analysis for Uranium isotopes of a vehicle air filter taken by Dai Williams from an ambulance in the suburb of Haret Hreyk in South Beirut. The ambulance was hit on day 16 of the war but was active until then. The filter was examined using CR39 alpha tracking plastic and also sent to the Harwell laboratory for an analysis of uranium isotopes and also a routine 45 element analysis. The filter was dissolved in acid and examined using ICP Mass Spectrometry by the Harwell laboratory. Results confirmed the presence of enriched uranium. In three separate measurements the isotopic ratios U238/U235 found were 113, 123, 133 and total concentration in the filter element as supplied was 0.1mg/kg. The lower limit of detection of the Harwell measurement system was 0.0002mg/kg U238 and 0.0001mg/kg U235. This concentration is significant given that the dust in the filter would have had only two weeks to accumulate and add to earlier dust from a year’s usage in the engine. In addition, CR39 tracking techniques suggested the presence of at least two hot particles in the filter, the size and activity characteristics of which are consistent with Uranium. Although care should be taken in over-interpreting data based on only one filter, these results do suggest that there was widespread dispersion of enriched uranium over Southern Lebanon. We suggest that further vehicle filter measurements are made as a matter of urgency and that since there are political aspects, the issue is examined by or overseen by independent experts. We repeat here our earlier warning that the detection of weapons uranium in the environment is not straightforward and that conventional Geiger counters cannot be used. CR39 or sensitive beta scintillation counters followed by sampling and ICPMS is necessary before statements can be made about the presence or absence of uranium particles.

‘Further evidence of enriched uranium in guided weapons employed by the Israeli military in Lebanon in July 2006; Ambulance filter analysis’ Dai Williams and Chris Busby. European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics 2006 Vol 2 Issue 1. Published on the website www.llrc.org with permission of the Journal.

Notes:

The earlier Green Audit report on bomb crater samples is at http://www.llrc.org/du/subtopic/lebanrept.pdf

Independent report at http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece

ICP-MS is "Inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy".

European Journal of Biology and Bioelectromagnetics: see http://www.ebab.eu.com

Critics of Green Audit and LLRC have referred to the Human Rights Council report "Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon" (http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/CoI-Lebanon.pdf), claiming that it indicates depleted Uranium was not used in Lebanon. The relevant paragraph appears to be:

ii. Depleted uranium

257. The IDF has within its arsenal of weapons munitions that can be equipped with depleted uranium warheads. It is therefore possible that depleted uranium (DU) munitions were used by the IDF during the conflict. However, the preliminary findings of the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, which carried out a detailed field survey of several bomb sites, concluded that there was no indication of depleted uranium having been used in the conflict, with the caveat that some additional field work was still necessary to draw a final conclusion.

We note that we have already suggested enriched Uranium was deployed in order to disguise the depleted Uranium signature; that since no monitoring methods have been specified either by UNEP or OHCHR no-one can be confident that the forms of Uranium produced by Uranium bombs or armour piercing rounds would be detected; and that the findings are provisional.

We have sent you this email circular because you are on our database of people who are concerned about low level radiation and health. If you do not want to receive information from us please reply, putting “remove from LLRC” in the subject line.

Low Level Radiation Campaign
bramhall@llrc.org

Khiam Southern Lebanon A bombs Anatomy

By Flaviano Masella, Angelo Saso, Maurizio Torrealta

taken from: http://www.rainews24.rai.it/ran24/inchieste/09112006_bomba_ing.asp

The special report was triggered by the radioactivity measurements reported on a crater probably created by an Israeli Bunker Buster bomb in the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon. The measurements were carried out by two Lebanese professors of physics - Mohammad Ali Kubaissi and Ibrahim Rachidi. The data - 700 nanosieverts per hour – showed remarkably higher radiocativity then the average in the area (Beirut = 35 nSv/hr ). Successivamente, on September 17th, Ali Kubaissi took British researcher Dai Williams, from the environmentalist organization Green Audit, to the same site, to take samples that were then submitted to Chris Busby, technical adisor of the Supervisory Committee on Depleted Uranium, which reports to the British Ministry of Defense. The samples were tested by Harwell’s nuclear laboratory, one of the most authoritative research centers in the world. On October 17th, Harwell disclosed the testing results - two samples in 10 did contain radioactivity.

On November 2nd, another British lab, The School of Oceanographic Sciences, confirmed Harwell’s results – the Khiam crater contains slightly enriched uranium. Rainews24 also took a sample taken by Dai Williams for testing by the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Ferrara. The testing - which is still ongoing - found an anomalous structure: the sample’s surface includes alluminium and iron silicates, normal elements in a soil fragment. Yet, looking inside, estremely small bubbles can be found with high concentration of iron. Further testing will clarify the origin of these structures: what seems to be certain at the moment is that they are not caused by a natural process.

What kind of weapon is this? What weapon leaves traces of radiation and produces such lethal and circumscribed consequences?

Researcher Dai Williams believes this is a new class of weapons using enriched uranium, not through fission processes but through new physical processes kept secret for at least 20 years.

Physicist Emilio del Giudice form the National Institute of Nuclear Phisics came to the same conlcusion: “There are two ways to explain the origin of the enriched uranium found in Khiam:

About the origin of enriched Uranium there are two possibilities:

1) this material was present already in the structure of the bombs, but I am puzzled since one should explain the rationale of the use of a material which is both expensive and dangerous , because of its enhanced radioactivity, to people handling it , including military personnel of Israeli Army.

2) the enrichment has been the consequence of the use of the bomb; this possibility is hardly compatible with the known effects of conventional nuclear weapons and should imply that some newly discovered nuclear phenomenon could be at work.

The Israeli army denied the use of uranium-based weapons in Lebanon. So, how can people defend themselves from potential uranium-related harm? What precautions will the Unifil troops in the area take, and what kind of testing has been carried out to prevent the risks? The documentary directly covers those qestions.

Translation by Desiree Berlangieri and Maria Letizia Tesorini

Shafting the Vets

by Conn Hallinan | November 10, 2006 (full story at: http://fpif. org/fpiftxt/ 3695
“War is hell,” Union General William Tecumseh Sherman famously said 14 years after the end of the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history. “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation.”

Clearly the U.S. Civil War is not on the reading list of psychiatrist Sally Satel, a scholar at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Indeed, Satel sees war less as hell than as a golden opportunity for veteran lay-abouts to milk the government by “ overpathologizing the psychic pain of war.”

Satel, whom the AEI trots out anytime the Bush administration needs cover for cutting veteran services and benefits, says the problem for former soldiers is not Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “The real trouble for vets,” she writes, is that “once a patient receives a monthly check based on his psychiatric diagnosis, his motivation to hold a job wanes.” Her solution? “Don't offer disability benefits too quickly.”

The commentary makes an interesting contrast to a powerful piece in the October 2006 issue of the California Nurses Association's magazine Registered Nurse titled “The Battle at Home” by Caitlin Fischer and Diana Reiss. They found that “in veterans' hospitals across the country—and in a growing number of ill-prepared, under-funded psych and primary care clinics as well—Registered Nurses … are treating soldiers … and picking up the pieces of a tattered army.”

According to the authors, RNs across the country “have witnessed the guilt, rage, emotional numbness, and tormented flashbacks of GIs just back from Iraq and Afghanistan,” as well as older vets from previous wars, “whose half-century-old trauma have been ‘triggered' by the images of Iraq.”

How many soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will eventually fall victim to PTSD is not clear, although a U.S. Defense Department study in 2006 found that one in six returnees suffer from depression or stress disorders, and 35% have sought counseling for emotional difficulties. The Veterans Administration (VA) treated 20,638 Iraq vets for PTSD in just the first quarter of 2006 and is currently processing a backlog of 400,000 cases.

Out of 700,000 soldiers who served in the 1991 Gulf War, 118,000 are suffering from chronic fatigue, headaches, muscle spasms, joint pains, anxiety, memory loss, and balance problems, and 40% receive disability pay. Gulf vets are also twice as likely to develop amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and between two and three times more likely to have children with birth defects.

gent Orange exposure tied to ills in Vietnam vets

9/11/06

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Vietnam veterans who sprayed the herbicides like Agent Orange decades ago in Vietnam are at an increased risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and chronic breathing problems, a new study shows. Agent Orange, a weed killer containing dioxin, was widely used during the Vietnam War, Dr. Han K. Kang of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, DC and colleagues note in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Overall, two thirds of the herbicides used during the conflict contained dioxin.

To understand the long-term effects of exposure to the chemicals, Kang and his team compared 1,499 members of the US Army Chemical Corps to 1,428 vets who had worked in chemical operations jobs but did not serve in Vietnam. The Chemical Corps members had been responsible for spraying herbicide around base camp perimeters, as well as aerial spraying of the chemicals from helicopters.

Study participants were surveyed by telephone in 1999 and 2000.

Tests of a subset of the study participants, including 795 Vietnam vets and 102 non-Vietnam vets, showed the Vietnam vets had higher levels of dioxin in their blood.

(Full article at:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061109/hl_nm/agent_orange_dc)

gent Orange exposure tied to ills in Vietnam vets

9/11/06

Vietnam veterans who sprayed the herbicides like Agent Orange decades ago in Vietnam are at an increased risk of developing heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and chronic breathing problems, a new study shows.Agent Orange, a weed killer containing dioxin, was widely used during the Vietnam War, Dr. Han K. Kang of the Department of Veteran Affairs

Department of Veterans Affairs

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in Washington, DC and colleagues note in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. Overall, two thirds of the herbicides used during the conflict contained dioxin.

To understand the long-term effects of exposure to the chemicals, Kang and his team compared 1,499 members of the US Army Chemical Corps to 1,428 vets who had worked in chemical operations jobs but did not serve in Vietnam. The Chemical Corps members had been responsible for spraying herbicide around base camp perimeters, as well as aerial spraying of the chemicals from helicopters.

Study participants were surveyed by telephone in 1999 and 2000.

Tests of a subset of the study participants, including 795 Vietnam vets and 102 non-Vietnam vets, showed the Vietnam vets had higher levels of dioxin in their blood. (Full article at:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061109/hl_nm/agent_orange_dc)

US and UK Ignored DU Cancer Risk

The U.S. and UK continued to use depleted uranium munitions in Iraq despite warnings that they cause cancer, a BBC investigation concluded.

UN scientists have pointed to the health implications of using depleted uranium in Iraq, where the weapons were used in the 1991 and 2003 wars.

Depleted uranium (DU), which is used for armor-piercing bullets or shells, is an extremely dense and hard metal that can cause chemical poisoning to the body, according to the Campaign Against Depleted Uranium Web site.

Fears over the DU's health implications prompted a study by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2001, which said that the weapons pose only a small contamination risk.

But a top UN scientist told the BBC Radio Four's Today program that evidence showing that depleted uranium could cause cancer was withheld.

(Full article at: http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_id=12149

Depleted Uranium For Dummies

Depleted Uranium For Dummies

By Irving Wesley Hall
Notinkansas.us
Under the direction of Secretary of Defense Cheney, the 1991 Gulf War began with a "shock and awe" bombing campaign that destroyed large biological laboratories, chemical plants, and nuclear enrichment facilities, most of them around Baghdad. Many sites were illegally supplied by the Reagan-Bush administration, in which both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld served, so the United States government knew their locations.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons damage the bodies of soldiers in distinct ways. The first employs deadly bacteria and viruses to cause known illnesses. The second uses poisonous, or toxic, substances to attack the body's chemistry. Nuclear weapons, such as depleted uranium (D.U.), were unimaginable before World War II. They attack the body with invisible radioactive energy that, as you will soon read, produces a wider variety of symptoms that develop over a longer period of time. Radioactive heavy metal particles embedded in the body are both radioactive and toxic.

Biological, chemical and nuclear weapons can potentially "blow back." Once they are released, they can kill and maim civilians as well as enemy soldiers. Hence all three have been banned by international treaties which the United States signed.

They also blow back on the army that uses them. The practical danger to America's own troops prevented the widespread use of WMD's until the atomic bombs in World War II and the chemical herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam. Hundreds of thousands of American troops suffered and died because of the testing and use of these weapons.

For full article go to http://www.countercurrents.org/hall230306.htm or visit www.notinkansas.us for current articles.

Stop Uranum Wars - Mission Statement

NO 'BAN' OR TREATY NECESSARY. URANIUM WEAPONRY IS ILLEGAL BY FORCE OF LAW

Deceptively called 'Depleted', fallout from uranium weapons will still be poisoning the earth when the sun goes out.

Uranium coated tanks and bullets have been used by the US in both Gulf Wars. The resultant radioactivity lasts 4.5 billion years.

It is a war crime to attack living beings and the Earth with radioactive material of any kind!

Attempting to create a "treaty" is not useful because:

1. UN will never develop a "treaty" targeting the few countries using UW.

2. the US/UK would never ratify -- so we are left with the "operation of
existing law" argument in any legal action involving US.

3. There is not a State to carry this.

4. Even if there were, States control the text, not nongovernmental organizations, and what might be proposed would be seriously watered down -- endangering possible litigants.

5. Efforts to get treaties are very costly, and take many years and drain activist work. The present and future victims can't wait ten years!

We are NOT working on a ban, as UW is already banned.

Karen Parker, JD, delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights since
1982, states that "A weapon made illegal only because there is a specific treaty
banning it is only illegal for countries that ratify such a treaty." However,
"a weapon that is illegal by operation of existing law is illegal for all
countries.

Parker provides legal advice to the UN on DU weapons and other matters of
humanitarian law.

"DU weaponry cannot possibly be legal in light of existing law," Parker
said."In evaluating whether a particular weapon is legal or illegal when there is
not a specific treaty, the whole of humanitarian law must be consulted,"
Parker states.

Because UW is illegal, we demand:

The Immediate cessation of the manufacture, deployment and use of uranum weapons

Immediate restitution of, and compensation for victims of uranium posioning

We support the petition at the Organization of American States to
discover the possible impacts of DU on the people of Fallujah attacked by the
US (http://www.webcom.com/hrin/parker/press.html).