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Depleted and Enriched Uranium in Lebanon,
a Scientific Approach to the Clarification of
whether Uranium was used in the Israeli/Lebanon
Conflict.
By Dr. Mohammed Ali
Kobeissi*
The interpretations and
content of this report are the sol
responsibility of the author**.
1-
The
reporting of the use of Uranium by
Israel and its denial by its
officials
Since the declaration ( Daily
Star, An-Nahar ) on August 20th-06 by the
author of this article on the presence of high level
of nuclear radiation in one of the missiles craters
in Khiam caused by the Israeli bombardments, the
dispute about the origin and cause of such radiation
is still taking place in the media.
On December 7th-06,
The Daily Star has reported again on the presence of
Uranium in a soil sample obtained from the Khiam
town bomb crater caused by Israeli air force
bombardments The report was taken from an
interview given by the British expert, Dr. Chris
Busby to the Environment and Development magazine in
its December-06 issue. In a detailed article
written by Robert Fisk in the Independent (UK,October
28-06), followed by a long report in the As-Safir
paper( Lebanon, October30-06), all stating that
enriched Uranium has been found in the Khiam crater.
Both, The Independent and AS-Safir, have relied on
results in a report obtained from Dr. Chris Busby
and his co-worker Dai Williams. In a conference
arranged in Linz ( Austria) on the Use of Dirty
Weapons by Israel on Lebanon, where I took part in
the Lectures of that Conference, a copy of that
report was also submitted to me on October 26-06 by
Williams. Such report at that time has created an
atmosphere of anxiety among the Lebanese citizens
and confusions among the scientific community.
This situation has created also
panic in the social and health stream in Lebanon. In
several of these reporting and on Web sites, the
dispute on whether the soil of Khiam crater contains
enriched Uranium or depleted Uranium (DU) is still
taking place and yet no definite conclusion is
established, while it is well known that in the
modern wars depleted uranium has been used. The
Lebanese Council for Scientific Research and UNEP
are still declaring that no DU has been found in
their investigation on samples taken from places of
the war actions.
In this article I
would like to clarify this affaire, based on the
study of the British team as well as on my
investigations and measurements on about 11 craters
soil samples that I have recently carried out in two
reputable Laboratories in Europe.
2-
Historic Background
a-)
In the War Zone in
South Lebanon
The 33 days war
waged on Lebanon by Israel starting on July 12th-06,
has left a large part of the Lebanese infrastructure
in a complete destruction. Weapons of highly
powerful explosives were used with a tremendous
efficiency, so that homes, high rise buildings and
high way bridges have been flattened to the ground.
Road communications between the cities in south
Lebanon and elsewhere in the country were cut using
weapons such as bunker busters. Hundreds of
thousands of civilians of the population were forced
to leave the south to other safe community places in
the country. Children suffered the most and many
were killed and some were burned in indiscriminate
attacks.
During the first 20 days of the
war, I remained in my residential area in South
Lebanon witnessing the Israeli war planes throwing
missiles on towns, including schools, markets,
moving cars and fleeing civilians and massacres have
been committed by the Israelis. The craters caused
by these missiles ranged from small size of depth of
4 meters to about 10 meters and larger in some
cases. I do not know why the fear did not penetrate
into the senses of my existence. May be the
barbarism committed by the Israelis toward life
creates a much higher values in man's consciousness
, where during that war the roots of freedom
develops into transcendental noble values, where
Death becomes a small instant of time to arrive to a
nirvana state of celestial values.
b-) South Beirut under
Attacks
On August 2-06, I
moved to a residential place on a hill, overlooking
the southern city of Beirut. During my staying there
I saw how that part of the city was rained by the
Israeli missiles causing huge clouds of dusts mixed
with flames of fires.
Being a nuclear physicist and
expert in nuclear radiation measurements, these
phenomena brought to my mind the possible use by the
Israelis of missiles and bombes equipped with
Depleted Uranium ( DU) as was the case in the two
Gulf wars on Irak.
Directly after the cessation of
the bombardment on August 14th-06, and knowing the
effect of the use of DU on the health of the
population, I went to South Beirut to explore and
see at the first hand the destruction there. The
whole section looked like Berlin during World War II
as was presented as a comparison by the media:
flattened high rise buildings were sandwiched to the
ground, black dust, suspected to be Uranium Oxides,
covered the remaining of concretes, and bad smells
originated from dead human bodies buried under the
ruins and from the weapons chemicals.
3-Radiation
Activities in the Craters of the Khiam Town
On August 20th
and after I returned to my residence in the south, I
received a telephone call from the town of Khiam
stating the detection of strong radiations in one of
the missiles craters in a residential area of the
town and asking for my help. Using a very sensitive
Geiger-Muller counter(GM), I went down to the bottom
of the crater. The counter registered 850 nSV/h (850
nSV per hour) at the deep point. This dose was about
14 times more than the measured dose value of 50 nSV/h
I have obtained at the surface area in the
surroundings of that crater. This event was reported
in the Lebanese press in the next day (Daily Star,
Al-Akhbar, An-Nahar).
4-
The Chasing after the Depleted Uranium ( DU)
At that day, I took
samples from that crater and other craters in the
town and outside it. To make sure that I have
collected the right samples I called Dr. Doug Rokke,
a former US Army Major and a Lecturer at Jackson
Vill University and who is an expert on missiles
containing DU, describing to him the appearance of
the craters soils and asking him for advice on the
collection of the appropriate soil samples to be
taken for the investigation. I took the advice of
this noble man and extended my samples collection to
other towns in the south such as Froun, Ghandouria,
Teery, Bint-Jbeil and Ainata, and including dust
samples from South Beirut buildings, in order to
measure radiation emanated from these samples using
Gamma and Alpha Spectroscopy. During the samples
collections I have also measured by GM radiation in
the other craters from which the samples were
obtained using the same counter. These measured
doses were about 5 times as the surface dose and not
as high as the one I have measured in the very first
crater in Khiam. During the process of samples
collections, Mr. Dai Williams, who is a co-worker of
Dr. Busby on DU, was present in Lebanon at that
time, has asked if he can accompany me to collect
few samples to take back to his country England. One
of the samples he took, was from the Khiam crater
which showed relatively high level of radiations as
I mentioned above and which still under dispute.
5-
Motivation of the task for Uranium measurements
Having detected such high
level of radiations and knowing the effect of such
radiation on the health of the Lebanese people and
the toxicity of the radio active Uranium, Depleted
or enriched, I was prompted to take the initiative,
as independent researcher, in collaboration with
Green Line Organization in Lebanon, to set up a
project to carry out
measurements on
soil
samples that I have taken
from craters of various areas in the country and
specially the one from Khiam crater, which showed
the high activity mentioned above. Then I went to
Europe to execute such project in two and highly
reputable Laboratories.
I would like to emphasize here
that no collaboration between me and the British
team of Dr. Chris Busby took place regarding the
measurements of samples or interpretations of data.
My task of investigation was to be independent of
any governmental influence or any other
institutions.
6-Methodologies
Several methodologies are used to
measure depleted Uranium and we mention only two
concerning this article:
a)-The Gamma Spectroscopy
Method
This method was used in our
measurements, where in the
gamma spectra, peaks activities of Uranium isotopes
U-238 and U-235 are usually compared to get a value
for these isotopes ratio. The value of this ratio
depends on the enrichment or depletion of Uranium.
For natural Uranium this ratio has a value of 21.7,
which corresponds to an enrichment of 0.71% by the
U-235 isotope. Any increase in the ratio factor is
an indication of the presence of depleted uranium.
The opposite is true, where the decrease in this
factor is an indication of enrichment in the Uranium
content. The validity of any interpretations of such
values of the ratio depends on the margin of the
uncertainty in the error of measurements.
In general, the
errors of the measurements result from uncertainties
of the detector efficiency in combination with the
sample geometry and the low samples activities.
The total error of the isotopes ratios in our
measurements can be estimated as
about 15%. Thus it must be clear
that all these factors play an important role in the
interpretations of data and the confidence in their
values. In our measurements on the disputed Khiam
sample gave a ratio value of 26 between the
activities of the two isotopes U-238 and U-235. This
ratio corresponds to a percentage enrichment of 0.60
% as compared to the natural enrichment of 0.71%.
This former value of enrichment is in contradiction
with value obtained by Busby's result of enriched
uranium as will be discussed below.
b)- The Mass Spectroscopy
Method Used by Busby and Dai Williams at Harwell
Laboratory
In this method the ratio of the
masses of the isotopes U-238 and U235 is used to
determine depleted or enriched Uranium content in
the collected samples.
For natural Uranium this ratio is
138 which correspond to an enrichment of 0.72%.
Lower values than 138 indicate enrichment above
0.72% and higher values indicate depleted Uranium
content.
For the Khiam sample, the
published results of the measurement obtained from
Harwell Laboratory for Chris Busby and his co-worker
Dai Williams, who have evaluated and interpreted
them, showed mass ratio of 108, corresponding to an
enriched Uranium of 0.91%,which is higher than the
natural enrichment of 0.72% . ( See bellow) .
Discussion
of the results obtained by the author and the Team
of Chris Busby
a)-
Results obtained by M.A.Kobeissi and co-workers.
Almost all the samples we have
investigated and measured their ratio factor in
Europe showed normal behavior of natural Uranium
content except the one taken from the Khiam crater
under dispute. The sample of this crater showed a
much higher content of Uranium and its decay
products than those obtained from other samples we
have investigated and obtained from other locations
in the South. This activity of that sample is in
line also with the high counting I have measured
earlier in that crater with Geiger Muller detector.
As we mentioned above the ratio factor of this
sample was 26 as compared with 21.7 for natural
Uranium. This might indicate that the soil of that
crater is contaminated with depleted Uranium. This
factor corresponds to an enrichment of 0.60% as
compared with the value of 0.71% of natural Uranium
and compared with 0.91% stated by Busby..
b)-Results obtained by Busby
and Williams
Some of the samples taken by Dai
Williams were reported as normal but again for the
Khiam sample, the published results of the
measurements obtained from Harwell Laboratory for
Chris Busby and co-worker Dai Williams, who have
evaluated and interpreted them, showed mass ratio of
108 as compared to 138 for natural uranium. This
value of 108 corresponds to an enriched Uranium of
0.91%, which is higher than the natural enrichment
of 0.72% . This value contradicts strongly our
result of 0.60 % enrichment, which indicates the
presence of depleted Uranium. The percentage error
stated in Busby's report was given as 20%.
Conclusion:
Based on the above we conclude
that in our measurements the
percentage enrichment ranges as: 0.48
< 0.60
<
0.70 indicating depleted uranium content in the
disputed Khiam crater.
On the other hand, in Busby's
results, the percentage enrichment ranges as: 0.73
<
0.91
<
1.1 which indicates enriched uranium.
The results obtained from
both methodologies show definite contradiction. I
believe the cause lies in the following factors:
1-
Instrumental and procedural.
In order to obtain believable results high precision
instrumentation and procedures must be followed. The
results from both methodologies are subject to
errors uncertainties which can put doubt on any
obtained values with such margin of errors.
2-
The
choice of appropriate samples collection is very
crucial in this case. I have found for example that
enrichment in one sample A taken from the disputed
Khiam crater was 0.72%, a normal natural enrichment,
while the enrichment obtained from sample B taken
from the same crater as A but from an opposite
location within the crater, was 0.60%, which
indicates possible content of DU. This shows
inhomogeneous distribution of radio active elements
in the crater soil.
3-
The more
important cause of the discrepancy in the results
given above is the question of how much is the
amount of Uranium delivered by the missile explosion
to the location soil of the crater. Since this
amount will determine the activity of the samples as
well as the quantity of the DU mass. Such amount
will play a crucial roll in the precision of the
measurements, since for small contaminating amount,
it will be very difficult to measure small activity
and mass of Uranium in such increases without a
large margin in uncertainty in the achieved values
of the measurements of enrichment or depletion. This
depends also on the methodologies used in this case
I believe that more
investigations on the appropriate soil samples in
our possession are necessary to obtain a definite
answer to whether Depleted Uranium or Enriched
Uranium has been used by the Israelis. The results
given above are not conclusive enough to give a
final answer to this affair. In a future task, we
will use a more precise different methodology to
obtain a decisive answer to the uranium problem in
Lebanon.
Based on the above results and
the immoral behavior of Israel in its wars and
attacks on Lebanon, one can not exclude the use of
missiles equipped with DU by Israel.
________________________________________________________________
Morality
and Duty of Institutions
Few thoughts should be given
related to the moral duty of the press and the
scientific communities in Lebanon and abroad
regarding the use of Uranium by Israel in its wars
on that country.
In the last few decades and so,
several wars have been conducted against humanity,
where dirty weapons, such as depleted uranium, have
been used. The effect of such crime on the health
and social life of the people, who were subject to
such attacks, was catastrophic in countries like
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The case in
Lebanon is still pending for further studies and
investigation. Thus it is the moral duty of the
press and the media to enlighten the public in a
scientific approach about the health effect of the
use of Uranium on the population of Lebanon. The
press and other media must adder to the principles
of creating awareness among the population about the
danger of nuclear radiation be it artificial or
natural radiation.
Governmental scientific or
non scientific institutions should not threaten
nor prevent the press or the scientists, from
enlightening the Lebanese people in a humane
manner about the possible presence of Uranium in
Lebanon, caused by Israeli wars against that
country, so that preventive actions can be
taken. Any action against enlightenment is crime
toward the Lebanese people.
The Ministry of Health and
the Ministry of Environment in Lebanon must have
the moral duty also to take more dynamic actions
and to approach the Lebanese people on the
ground to assure them their save locations and
their psychological health . The present
government is not doing enough in that
direction.
-
University Professor of
Physics and Researcher,
email :
makobeissi@yahoo.com
** Detailed information on data
and results can be obtained from Green Line
Organization in Lebanon or from the author. The
author would like to thank the Green Line
Organization in Lebanon and the Society of the
Austro-Arab Relations for the financial support of
the project. |
