Weapons used by Israel against Lebanon
By Mary Rizzo
Fifth of a series of
reports of the People’s Tribunal for Lebanon (Bruxelles, February
2008) by Mary Rizzo. Here, scientific experts give their testimonies
at the Bruxelles Tribunal for Lebanon.
Three
expert witnesses gave scientific testimony about the weapons that
were used by Israel against Lebanon in the war that lasted 33 days,
as well as the effects these armaments had on people and objects.
Lebanese nuclear physicist and expert in nuclear radiation
measurements, Mohammed Ali Kobeissi, Italian Geneticist Paola
Manduca and British Work Psychologist and independent weapons
researcher Dai Williams each presented the results of their
research, complete with corroborating data.
Dr. Kobeissi premised his testimony with these words, “I am a
scientist that was part of the scientific committee to investigate
the state of things after the war. I don’t play politics and I keep
the committee out of the declarations, but I know what I witnessed
and the results of the research and I am here, speaking in my own
name and assume full responsibility for what I say. I am not under
the influence of any organization to declare anything but the
facts.”
The scientist was called to measure data in various places, but one
in particular, the Khaim crater, showed measurements of uranium in
the bottom of the crater fourteen times higher than the measurements
on the edges. One of the first things he made clear that his
independent testing needed to be verified in another laboratory so
that his results could be confirmed. It was the necessary to send
samples out of Lebanon for testing, since no other laboratory in
Lebanon had the equipment necessary to measure the data. “We had to
bring samples out, using soil samples and urine samples.
“In its turn, and upon the request of the Lebanese Government, UNEP
used something that is called a “smear”, which is a collection of
dust samples. These smear samples were brought by UNEP to the
research laboratories of the Swiss Army and they are connected to
those of the NATO. To take samples, you have to be clever, because
dust can be anything. What is relevant as far as weapons go is a
specific type of dust which might be uranium dust or not.
“Because uranium is the most dense metal of them all, at certain
temperatures it is able to melt everything that it is in contact
with and it actually serves as a guide, transforming everything
around it to dust.” Kobeissi collected two kilograms of soil
material from a crater at Jallahieh, which was likely to have been
hit by a bomb with a Uranium head, given the damage. “Our soil
samples and urine samples were sent to Harwell Laboratory in the UK
for uranium measurements.”
Kobeissi had made some of his own measurements, including testing
the water that collected in one of the craters, and he had gathered
enough information to be quite sure that this crater was indeed
caused by the use of unconventional weapons, precisely those
missiles with depleted uranium heads.
When the report by UNEP came back from Switzerland and was
published, he was very shocked at the results. “I read the report
and what I was reading was poetry, not science! It was very
descriptive regarding the case of uranium. The numbers obtained from
the smear dust were far too small, compared to the analysis and
measurements I made on the soil samples.” At this moment in the
testimony, the scientist shook his head and perhaps recalled the
thoughts he had at the time, looking at the devastation caused by
the missile, “I pity the founding fathers of America that today this
country is lead by Bush. To make weapons like this and use them
against civilians and their homes is something I cannot come to
terms with.” Later, Dr Williams would explain with more precision
what these weapons were intended to do, but for the time being, we
listened to a scientific presentation that was almost like the
telling of a moral fable.
“(Bernard) Kuchner came to Lebanon after the war and it happen he
was visiting the town of Khiam. To convince himself he went down
with me to this crater, because in a war that is conducted in
inhabited zones where people are going to hopefully return to live,
dirty bombs can’t be used. There are reasons for it, it will bring
damage to the land and people for who knows how long. When I told
Kuchner that dirty bombs were used, he said, ‘Impossible!’ but as
soon as he saw the crater with radiation and he was witnessing that,
what did he say? ‘Well, C’est la guerre’.”
This kind of disregard for the impact of the bombs being used in
southern Lebanon, and the possibility that they contained radiation,
was indicative of much of the attitude of the international
community when it was mentioned that these weapons were utilised.
The physicist explained that a bit of uranium is present in nature
anyway, but beyond a certain level, it is extremely dangerous.
Uranium is used to increase the power of thermonuclear missiles. Few
nations have the capacity to produce these weapons, and as a matter
of fact, the largest weapons used in the war were American made. In
order to extract the uranium for these weapons, a process is carried
out which results in the creation of another toxic substance that is
known as Depleted Uranium. “This is the dirty bomb. It is the result
of the trash that comes out of making other bombs or for nuclear use
and it is disposed of generally by being used in other weapons.
America gives or sells this trash to others, and the others use it
against their enemies.”
The
next expert witness explained the effects of the unconventional
weapons. Dr Paola Manduca is a Geneticist specialised in the effects
on the human body of these new weapons, and in the past had also
investigated the wounds from other victims of Israeli weapons, the
people of Gaza. “Weapons of this sort do not distinguish between
their victims. They are aimed at an area and those who are in that
area are subject to the effects, whether they are military,
civilian, adults or children. In this way, since these new weapons
strike indiscriminately, we can also think that they have an
ideological use. They leave wounds that are different than any kind
we are used to. When the body is subject to the old kind of
traditional weapons, the material that harms the body has an entry
place, a bullet wound, cuts and abrasions that come from objects
that are in disintegration, or foreign bodies that one can identify
and possibly extract. In the case of these weapons, there are simply
entrance holes in the body, internal damage, but no exit wound and
no presence of shrapnel either. The wounds we have here are
invisible wounds that give no clear answers to what they are. They
cause dramatic effects on the body, spots, burns, incapacity for
muscles to react, pain and so forth, but they do not have a clear
cause, there is no specific ‘entry point’ at times and the variation
of types of wounds on a single individual is also great. These
wounds do not indicate how they can be treated. Psychologically,
this is another effective weapon against whoever might be in an area
where weapons like this are used.”
She showed us many photos of the kinds of effects by these ‘new’
weapons, which she nominated as ‘experimental’ ones. “They represent
a new development in the strategy of war.” Some of them are
thermobaric, which means that they explode and reach high
temperatures. DIME, Dense Inert Metal weapons cause extreme and
intense heat which can be localised even to certain parts of the
body. She showed pictures where one side of the torso was scorched
and charred, and the other was unharmed. The damage from these bombs
includes alteration of the DNA and reproductive damage, in addition
to the severe tissue damage and deformation as from burning. “Then
there are the bombs using Depleted Uranium but not only. There are
bombs with Enriched Uranium. These weapons are deadly even though
the period it takes to bring about their full effects is not yet
known. They are still ‘experimental’ weapons, and therefore, not
permitted to be used by international rules of war.” She showed
examples of the effects of cluster bombs, white phosphorus, the use
of microwaves and the bombs that were responsible for the damage of
the crater that Dr Kobeissi had focused much of his specific
presentation on, the Bunker Buster.
“There has been lack of institutional response to the wounds that
the victims had. As if they were simply caught in the crossfire of a
standard battle. But this is not what happened to them. From within
their homes and in shelters they were exposed to these weapons and
their wounds are inexplicable, if not by deducing that Israel had
used unconventional weapons that penetrated in ways that normal
weapons are incapable of doing. I saw bodies covered with black
powder, a kind of dust that darkens the bodies and when tested, the
skin is tested as positive for the presence of iron. While some
people were being evacuated from Bint Jbeil and Tyre, they were
wounded, and I examined them. It is clear that they were exposed to
unconventional weapons and it was a mystery as to the precise nature
of these weapons. Three of the more seriously wounded people in this
attack were brought to Israeli hospitals for treatment. They spent
one month in the hospital.” When asked what the clinical reports
were following the admission and treatment, Dr Manduca told us that
they came back with no clinical reports whatsoever. “Whether or not
any serious clinical investigation took place is unknown to me or to
those in Lebanon. The fact is, that one may not obtain information
from Israel. Whatever secret weapon was used against these people,
we will never get information from anyone in the country that used
it. Doctor or not.”
The third expert witness, Dr Dai Williams, stated that he was only going
to make statements that could be backed by evidence, and he wished
to qualify any interpretation he might make as being supported by
scientific and photographic evidence. All of it, however, pointed to
his conclusion that Israel had indeed made use of illegal weapons in
the war.
“One has to understand what a weapon is used for. There are certain
weapons used for specific purposes. In fact, weapons are developed
according to the aim that is defined by the military strategy of the
conflict. Arms control legislation is ten years behind technology. I
have been researching uranium weapons since 1999, focusing on the
aspects of health and safety, and all of these weapons, since they
are not allowed by any country as legal and acceptable weapons, are
all classified as ’secret weapons’. Not only are there uranium
weapons, which are guided bombs having a warhead that is considered
to be a ‘magic metal’ for its destructive capacities, but there are
many other kinds of secret weapons; pressure waves, vacuum bombs and
a combination of the two, weapons using depleted uranium, including
a one ton bomb with a US patent dating from 1947, and high
temperature bombs.”
Dr Williams described in great detail the Bunker Buster, which is a
bomb that has a specific explosion pattern and devastating results.
Both of these were documented by a series of photographs and by
testing the soil and water in the craters which occupied the space
where buildings previously stood. “There is a military reason to use
a Bunker Buster. It is because the military aim is to penetrate
deeply into that space. In the case of southern Lebanon, they were
certain that Hezbollah was located under the buildings and that
there were stocks of WMDs or missiles, or else, they wanted to kill
the people who were down that low, in the most sheltered part of the
buildings, which the Israeli strategists claimed were Hezbollah
militants. These bombs are not ordinary bombs. In fact, they are so
large that only several places have the capacity to produce them,
including the US. These are guided bombs produced in the US, which
travelled via the UK and arrived in Israel to be used.”
The Bunker Buster has a particular explosion pattern which Dr
Williams called a ‘blast profile’. First there is an intense
explosion and fire, followed by a subsequent explosion generally
creating a great amount of dust. He showed photographs where it was
clear that two distinct explosions with visibly different
characteristics were used on some targets. “Then there are
thermobaric weapons that use heat and cause physical wounds that
actually show exposure to different kinds of temperatures that are
registered on a single body. There are ‘flash burns’ where one side
of the body is burnt, as Dr Manduca had already said. An unknown
number of different kinds of weapons were used in these 33 days of
war, and the estimates range from 50 to 100 varieties of weapons. On
the 11th of August I went to the Human Rights Council, because the
wounds that I had seen caused me to wonder about the nature of the
weapons and I asked them to investigate not only the illegal
weapons, but also to investigate the use of uranium weapons such as
the Spike or Hellfire Missiles. What is important in these cases is
to investigate the targets and I have to say that the International
forces worked very quickly to clean most of the sites. In fact, what
this did was remove much of the evidence that is needed to do a
proper investigation of the sites. I asked for tests to be carried
out not only on depleted uranium, but also uranium. The UN
Environmental commission did not take the reports into account that
I had carried out on the terrain, where I had evidence of uranium
far above normal levels. As a matter of fact, and this is what is so
sad, the tests that were carried out used unsound methods and only
one site was tested. The site was declared ‘clean’ and therefore,
the case was closed as far as they were concerned.”
Dr Williams stressed the fact that there was no doubt that Israel
had used weapons containing uranium. One of the ways of measuring
the material that remains after a bombardment is to measure the
chemical composition of the dust. A colleague of Dr Williams, Dr
Chris Busby, had suggested that the best automatic dust collecting
device is an automotive filter, so a filter that was in immediate
proximity of a bombardment was sent for analysis [see reports
here,
here] . It was from a semi-destroyed ambulance that was bombed
at Khaim. “There was a small amount of low enriched uranium in it.
It is unusual to have uranium in dust, and this was definitely the
consequence of a bombardment with bombs containing uranium. The
quantity was enough to be an absolute fingerprint, small but legally
sufficient. It was present in two of the locations that I tested, in
Beirut and Khaim.”
200 samples underwent Gamma testing in Geneva. “It is logical that
they came up with the wrong analysis, because they used the wrong
test. This is not the appropriate test to analyse the presence of
depleted uranium. Mass Spectroscopy should have been used.” He also
showed the results of tests analysing samples of human urine of the
people who were in the vicinity of the bombing there and the
concentrations of uranium were high.
Robert Fisk published the report made by Dr Williams, and it
received a very negative reaction from the UN and Israel. “There was
some collaboration with the UNEP (United Nations Environmental
Program) scientists and Achem Steiner, but so much misinformation
started to circulate that the inquiry was actually forced to be
stopped.” The conclusions drawn from that by Dr Williams are
unequivocal: “There are still the effects of the dirty bombs that
were used on Lebanese soil and there are consequences of this that
unfortunately we will not know as long as we do not continue
investigation. One thing is certain, new arms control discussions
are needed. Weapons are being used against people without any kind
of control or adequate safety measures. We don’t know all the
harmful side effects that can still be triggered, and this also
reflects upon a negligence of the Lebanese government in not doing
anything to investigate.”
When asked for more details by the Lebanese barristers present, he
mentioned that these weapons produce a fine dust that has the
consistency of pepper. Since the heat is so great, most of it goes
straight up, but then it gets blown by the wind very far away and it
can spread. In some areas it is concentrated. “Most of the bombs
used in the war were conventional ones, and the amount of
unconventional weapons used in Lebanon is very small when compared
to those used in Iraq or Afghanistan. But, the problem is that
radiation is forever, even if in very small amounts. There was not
adequate human or environmental testing done, and the damage was
indiscriminate and permanent in some cases.” He suggested that there
was the possibility of a variety of bombs being used, containing
both enriched uranium and depleted uranium, and that perhaps the
sites had themselves been cleaned or altered between various moments
of testing. He also pointed to the variation in the results (between
the determination that the bombs used depleted uranium or enriched
uranium) as being explained in the hypothesis that at least two
bombs were dropped on each site. He indicated that once enriched
uranium is burnt, it becomes indistinguishable from uranium present
in nature - but of extreme rarity - and test results can be
politically charged by stating that these things are not the result
of bombs, or even that the machines used to test were not properly
cleaned, something quite absurd to state about a laboratory with the
reputation of Harwell.
After his talk, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr Williams.
Being a psychologist, he is very concerned with the emotional or
psychological impact of communication, and we spoke at length about
the importance of the ‘human filter’ when listening to this kind of
information. Actually, to the profane in material, the difference
between a conventional and unconventional weapon is marginal, if the
result is destruction. Yet, Dr Williams mentioned that there is an
element that makes informing about these weapons complicated, and
that is the will to inform tempered by the desire to not cause undue
stress and worry. “These bombs can cause damage in the future, since
they operate at a genetic level. This means we don’t know what
effects there are going to be, and this can cause a level of alarm
that, in the end, is psychologically just as critical. Where does
one draw the line about saying the possible effects and assuring
people that perhaps things are not as bad as we fear? How do we
inform without creating panic? Not getting any information about the
weapons leaves us in that condition. As scientists and
investigators, we are not even allowed to make any genuine
conclusions because we are denied the possibility of having a
scientific response.”
If this is indeed the case, the Israeli war against Lebanon had as
its most damaging and pervasive weapon the psychological one of
fear, fear that would remain intact for generations.
Mary Rizzo is an art restorer, translator and writer living in
Italy.
