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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.
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