Vanguard News Network

An ‘Electronic Watch on Zion’ Extra

The recent record of U.S./Israel collaboration

in war crimes and genocide (July-October 2006)

The following news reports and news extracts establish the close collaboration between the United States and Israel in the planning, commission and cover-up of war crimes and acts of genocide immediately before, during and after the July/August Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and during the ongoing oppression in Gaza, Palestine, during the same period.

Note: We have all been led to believe in recent years that Israel receives “$3 Billion” in aid from the U.S. government.

As you will see from the first item below, that figure is a gross under-statement. At the beginning of last June The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs established that in 1997:

“…..the complete total of US grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000”.

As that was nearly 10 years ago, and as the Israeli incubus’s demands for sustenance from the bloating body it feeds off has surely not got any the less, that figure must now be very much greater — certainly more than double the $3 Billion figure trotted out by the Jewish-controlled media.

Last month (October) a report issued by the Arms Trade Resource Centre, of New York, reported that “Israel has received more than £9.4 billion worth of military aid and equipment since President George W Bush was elected in 2001”. N.B. That’s just military aid.

The brazen wickedness of these two partners in crime is quite stunning. Let us hope that History will depict their attitude as hubris and that it led to their downfall…….

Martin Webster.
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[Extract]
US Financial Aid to Israel: Figures, Facts and Impact
The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
http://www.wrmea.com/us_aid_to_israel/index.ht m

Americans have read that “Israel receives $3 billion in annual US foreign aid.” That’s true. But it’s still a lie.

The problem is that in fiscal 1997 alone, Israel received from a variety of other US federal budgets at least $525.8 million above and beyond its $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the complete total of US grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000.

One can truthfully blame the mainstream media for never digging out these figures for themselves, because none ever have. But the mainstream media certainly are not alone.
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http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20060710-081624-7700r
United Press Interntional – 10 July 2006.

Israeli use of poisonous material alleged

GAZA — The Palestinian health ministry accused Israel of using a new
type of banned explosives containing poisonous material.

A ministry report released Monday said testimonies from surgeons in
Palestinian hospitals indicated that “all 249 casualties inflicted by the
Israeli war machine during the operation on Gaza which started on June 27
resulted from shrapnel of new and developed shells and explosives which
cause amputation of limbs and burning of all the injured parts.”

The ministry called on the international community and human rights
organization “to send medical committees to examine the wounded and verify
the existence of poisonous material in their bodies caused by Israeli
weapons.”

It also urged international organization to put pressure on Israel to stop
using internationally banned arms against inoffensive and unarmed civilians.
The report indicated that “most casualties who were submitted to surgeries
were caused by strong explosions that led to the amputation and
carbonization of limbs while shrapnel caused small openings in the body
through which internal parts, including intestines and spleen, are burned.”

In a related development, the foreign ministry warned Monday that Israel’s
military operations and threats to expand its incursion in Gaza will not
contribute to finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis of the Israeli
soldier abducted by three Palestinian factions, including Hamas which leads
the Palestinian government.

The ministry said in a statement that “international idleness and silence
over Israel’s crimes do not contribute to boosting the rule of the law but
encourages the law of the jungle and Israel’s ignoring of all international
norms.”

Israel launched operation “Summer Rains” in Gaza two weeks ago in an
attempt to free Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was abducted in an attack on the
crossing of Keer Shalom between Gaza and Israel by militants from Hamas,
the Popular Resistance Committees and the Islamic Army.
=================================

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/772933.html
Haaretz – Last update – 02:46 11/10/2006

Italian TV:

Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
By Meron Rapoport, Haaretz Correspondent

An investigative report to be aired on Italian television Wednesday raises the possibility that Israel has used an experimental weapon in the Gaza Strip in recent months, causing especially serious physical injuries, such as amputated limbs and severe burns.

The weapon is similar to one developed by the U.S. military, known as DIME, which causes a powerful and lethal blast, but only within a relatively small radius.

The Italian report is based on the eyewitness accounts of medical doctors in the Strip, as well as tests carried out in an Italian laboratory. The investigative team is the same one that exposed, several months ago, the use by U.S. forces in Iraq of phosphorous bombs, against Iraqi rebels in Faluja.

Israel Air Force Maj.-Gen (res.) Yitzhak Ben-Israel, formerly head of the IDF’s weapons-development program, told the Italian reporters that “one of the ideas [behind the weapon] is to allow those targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other persons.”

The investigation, by Rai24news, follows reports by Gaza-based doctors of inexplicably serious injuries. The doctors reported an exceptionally large number of wounded who lost legs, of completely burned bodies and injuries unaccompanied by metal shrapnel. Some of the doctors also claimed that they removed particles from wounds that could not be seen in an x-ray machine.

According to those who testified, the wounded were hit by munitions launched from drones, most of them in July.

Dr. Habas al-Wahid, head of the emergency room at the Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital, in Deir el-Balah, told the reporters that the legs of the injured were sliced from their bodies “as if a saw was used to cut through the bone.” There were signs of heat and burns near the point of the amputation, but no signs that the dismemberment was caused by metal fragments.

Dr. Juma Saka, of Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, said the doctors found small entry wounds on the bodies of the wounded and the dead. According to Saka, a powder was found on the victims’ bodies and in their internal organs.

“The powder was like microscopic shrapnel, and these are what likely caused the injuries,” Saka said.

The Italian investigative team raised the possibility that the IDF is making use of a weapon similar in character to DIME – Dense Inert Metal Explosive – developed for the U.S. military. According to the official website of a U.S. air force laboratory, it is a “focused lethality” weapon, which aims to accurately destroy the target while causing minimum damage to the surrounding.

According to the site, the projectile comprises a carbon-fiber casing filled with tungsten powder and explosives. In the explosion, tungsten particles – a metal capable of conducting very high temperatures – spread over a radius of four meters and cause death.

According to the U.S.-based website Defense-Tech, “the result is an incredibly destructive blast in a small area” and “the destructive power of the mixture causes far more damage than pure explosive.” It adds that “the impact of the micro-shrapnel seems to cause a similar but more powerful effect than a shockwave.”

The weapon is supposed to still be in the testing phase and has not been used on the battlefield.

The Italian reporters sent samples of the particles found in wounds of injured in the Gaza Strip to a laboratory at the University of Parma. Dr. Carmela Vaccaio said that in analyzing the samples, she found “a very high concentration of carbon and the presence of unusual materials,” such as copper, aluminum and tungsten. Dr. Vaccaio says these findings “could be in line with the hypothesis” that the weapon in question is DIME.

On the matter of DIME, Ben-Israel told the Italian reporters that “this is a technology that allows the striking of very small targets.”

The report says that the weapon is not banned by international law, especially since it has not been officially tested.

It is believed that the weapon is highly carcinogenic and harmful to the environment.

The non-governmental organization Physicians for Human Rights has written to Defense Minister Amir Peretz requesting explanations for the aforementioned injuries to Palestinians. Amos Gilad, a senior adviser to the minister, is supposed to meet with the group on the matter in the near future.
=================================

[Extract]
Israel Bans Reporting of Use of ‘Unique’ Weapons in Lebanon
Redress Information & Analysis – 24th July 2006
http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/israel_c ensor.htm

Israel has issued new censorship guidelines banning reporting of the “use of unique kinds of ammunition and weaponry” in Lebanon.

This comes amid reports that Israel is using chemical weapons against civilians in Lebanon.

Below is the text of the guidelines, sent to international and local news organizations by the chief Israeli military censor, Colonel Sima Vaknin-Gil, on 23 July.
==================================

[Extract]
Ireland Rejected US Request for Trans-Shipment of Bombs for Israel
Scotland on Sunday – 30th July 2006
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm ?id=1104532006

Bombs destined to be used by Israel are being flown via Scotland only because the Irish government refused to allow them to land on its soil.

Scotland on Sunday can reveal that after the conflict in Lebanon began three weeks ago, Ireland turned down a United States request for planes carrying 600 lb so-called bunker busters to refuel at Shannon airport in County Clare.

As a result, cargo planes carrying the bombs, which the Israeli army is using in its offensive against the Hezbollah, are being flown via Prestwick airport in Ayrshire.

The use of Prestwick triggered a furious diplomatic row last week after it emerged that the US had broken aviation rules by failing to notify Britain about the flights.
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[Extract]
http://www.wnd.com/news/articl e.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51464
10th August 2006

Israel Enhancing Nuke-Capable Submarines
Galil Report features ­ World Net Daily

German engineers the past few weeks have been in Israel working to improve three advanced, nuclear capable attack submarines it provided the Jewish state last year, security sources tell the Galil Report.

Many here have estimated the vessels can be used both as a strategic, second-strike nuclear deterrent or for conventional use during any large-scale confrontation.

Military officials say the submarines are not needed for Israel’s current campaign in Lebanon. The officials said Israel recently has discussed with foreign governments travel and refueling routes so the submarines can reach the Persian Gulf ­ within firing distance of Iran.
==================================

[Extract]
Israel To Acquire Two German-Made Submarines

Associated Press – 25th August 2006
http://news.yahoo. com/s/ap/20060825/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_deterring_i ran_13

With the purchase of two more German-made Dolphin submarines capable of carrying nuclear warheads, military experts say Israel is sending a clear message to Iran that it can strike Iran and that it can strike back if attacked by nuclear weapons.

The purchases come at a time when Iran is refusing to bow to growing Western demands to halt its nuclear program, and after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

The new submarines, built at a cost of $1.3 billion with Germany footing one-third of the bill, have diesel-electric propulsion systems that allow them to remain submerged for longer periods of time than the three nuclear arms-capable submarines already in Israel’s fleet, the Jerusalem Post reported.
==================================

[Extract]
Israel Can’t be Destroyed, Ex-Mossad Director Says
Canadian Jewish News – 1st September 2006
http://www.cjnews.com/viewarticle.asp? id=10009

Israel is indestructable, claims the former director of the Mossad, Israel¹s fabled foreign intelligence agency.

³Israel¹s existence is not in question,² Efraim Halevy said in a talk last week at the Windsor Arms Hotel, after describing Iran¹s nuclear ambitions and its enmity toward Israel. ³It¹s impossible to destroy Israel ­ take it from me.²

³Israel is indestructable for a variety of reasons,² he added. ³Israel can¹t be eradicated. Whenever Israel has identified a threat [to its existence], Israel has been able to take care of it.²

Halevy, who was in Toronto to promote his newly published memoir, Man in the Shadows (St. Martin¹s Press), said Israel has adopted measures to ensure its survival.
==================================

[Extract]
US Congress Approves Israel Military ‘Joint’ Projects
The Jerusalem Post – 2nd October 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? cid=1159193348715&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle% 2FShowFull

The US Congress has approved an increase of $460 million in funding for joint Israeli-American defense programs, including $20 million for the development of a short-range ballistic missile defense system which will provide protection from Katyusha rockets.

The funding, approved as part of the defense appropriations bill, is double the amount the administration initially requested for joint projects. It is not part of the foreign aid package which Israel receives annually…

The increased funding by Congress is seen as a major achievement for Israel and was supported by pro-Israel activists in Washington.
==================================

[Extract]
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/769104.html
Haaretz – 2nd October 2006

“The United States Congress on Friday approved an additional $500 million for developing joint defense projects with Israel. The funds will be allocated between many different projects, including the development of a short-range missile interception system, navigation systems for missiles and combat aircraft, and aerial drones.

The money is not part of the regular military aid to Israel, which currently stands at over $2 billion. The Senate authorized the funding after it was approved by the House of Representatives on Thursday. The amount approved by Congress is well in excess of the $270 million submitted for approval by the U.S. Government.”
==================================

[Extract]
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/101 1-35.htm
Daily Star (Lebanon) – 10th October 2006

Lebanon¹s Ambient Clusters of Death

The US State Department is investigating whether Israel’s use of American-made cluster munitions in Southern Lebanon in July and August violated secret agreements between Israel and the United States.

Confirmation of the use of such weapons shows the need for Israel to release information on the sites over which the bombs were dropped, as a step toward avoiding further civilian casualties in those areas.

In 1978 and in 1982, Israel used cluster bombs in Lebanon, although the US had placed restrictions and a moratorium on their use out of concern for civilian lives.
==================================

[Extract]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle _east/3625315.stm
BBC News – 25th October 2006

US and Israeli Forces in Closer Collaboration

The Israeli army has long experience of offensive operations in urban areas and it is experience that the Pentagon has been eager to draw upon…

Israel and the US have developed a close military relationship over the years…

Go to any US military exercise and Israeli observers are much in evidence. But the transfer of doctrine and tactics is not just a one-way street. US commanders have drawn extensively on Israel’s experiences in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for lessons that might be applicable to Iraq.
==================================

The Independent October 28, 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1935945.ece

Mystery of Israel’s secret uranium bomb
by Robert Fisk

Did Israel use a secret new uranium-based weapon in southern Lebanon this summer in the 34-day assault that cost more than 1,300 Lebanese lives, most of them civilians?

We know that the Israelis used American “bunker-buster” bombs on Hizbollah’s Beirut headquarters. We know that they drenched southern Lebanon with cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, leaving tens of thousands of bomblets which are still killing Lebanese civilians every week. And we now know – after it first categorically denied using such munitions – that the Israeli army also used phosphorous bombs, weapons which are supposed to be restricted under the third protocol of the Geneva Conventions, which neither Israel nor the United States have signed.

But scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, the scene of fierce fighting between Hizbollah guerrillas and Israeli troops last July and August, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel’s weapons inventory – and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli heavy or guided bombs showed “elevated radiation signatures”. Both have been forwarded for further examination to the Harwell laboratory in Oxfordshire for mass spectrometry – used by the Ministry of Defence – which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples.

Dr Busby’s initial report states that there are two possible reasons for the contamination. “The first is that the weapon was some novel small experimental nuclear fission device or other experimental weapon (eg, a thermobaric weapon) based on the high temperature of a uranium oxidation flash … The second is that the weapon was a bunker-busting conventional uranium penetrator weapon employing enriched uranium rather than depleted uranium.” A photograph of the explosion of the first bomb shows large clouds of black smoke that might result from burning uranium.

Enriched uranium is produced from natural uranium ore and is used as fuel for nuclear reactors. A waste productof the enrichment process is depleted uranium, it is an extremely hard metal used in anti-tank missiles for penetrating armour. Depleted uranium is less radioactive than natural uranium, which is less radioactive than enriched uranium.

Israel has a poor reputation for telling the truth about its use of weapons in Lebanon. In 1982, it denied using phosphorous munitions on civilian areas – until journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air.

I saw two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege of the city, suddenly burst back into flames. Israel officially denied using phosphorous again in Lebanon during the summer – except for “marking” targets – even after civilians were photographed in Lebanese hospitals with burn wounds consistent with phosphorous munitions.

Then on Sunday, Israel suddenly admitted that it had not been telling the truth. Jacob Edery, the Israeli minister in charge of government-parliament relations, confirmed that phosphorous shells were used in direct attacks against Hizbollah, adding that “according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the (Israeli) army keeps to the rules of international norms”.

Asked by The Independent if the Israeli army had been using uranium-based munitions in Lebanon this summer, Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, said: “Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions.” This, however, begs more questions than it answers. Much international law does not cover modern uranium weapons because they were not invented when humanitarian rules such as the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and because Western governments still refuse to believe that their use can cause long-term damage to the health of thousands of civilians living in the area of the explosions.

American and British forces used hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) shells in Iraq in 1991 – their hardened penetrator warheads manufactured from the waste products of the nuclear industry – and five years later, a plague of cancers emerged across the south of Iraq.

Initial US military assessments warned of grave consequences for public health if such weapons were used against armoured vehicles. But the US administration and the British government later went out of their way to belittle these claims. Yet the cancers continued to spread amid reports that civilians in Bosnia – where DU was also used by Nato aircraft – were suffering new forms of cancer. DU shells were again used in the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq but it is too early to register any health effects.

“When a uranium penetrator hits a hard target, the particles of the explosion are very long-lived in the environment,” Dr Busby said yesterday. “They spread over long distances. They can be inhaled into the lungs. The military really seem to believe that this stuff is not as dangerous as it is.” Yet why would Israel use such a weapon when its targets – in the case of Khiam, for example – were only two miles from the Israeli border? The dust ignited by DU munitions can be blown across international borders, just as the chlorine gas used in attacks by both sides in the First World War often blew back on its perpetrators.

Chris Bellamy, the professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University, who has reviewed the Busby report, said: “At worst it’s some sort of experimental weapon with an enriched uranium component the purpose of which we don’t yet know. At best – if you can say that – it shows a remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products.”

The soil sample from Khiam – site of a notorious torture prison when Israel occupied southern Lebanon between 1978 and 2000, and a frontline Hizbollah stronghold in the summer war – was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium. “The health effects on local civilian populations following the use of large uranium penetrators and the large amounts of respirable uranium oxide particles in the atmosphere,” the Busby report says, “are likely to be significant … we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up.”

This summer’s Lebanon war began after Hizbollah guerrillas crossed the Lebanese frontier into Israel, captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others, prompting Israel to unleash a massive bombardment of Lebanon’s villages, cities, bridges and civilian infrastructure. Human rights groups have said that Israel committed war crimes when it attacked civilians, but that Hizbollah was also guilty of such crimes because it fired missiles into Israel which were also filled with ball-bearings, turning their rockets into primitive one-time-only cluster bombs.

Many Lebanese, however, long ago concluded that the latest Lebanon war was a weapons testing ground for the Americans and Iranians, who respectively supply Israel and Hizbollah with munitions. Just as Israel used hitherto-unproven US missiles in its attacks, so the Iranians were able to test-fire a rocket which hit an Israeli corvette off the Lebanese coast, killing four Israeli sailors and almost sinking the vessel after it suffered a 15-hour on-board fire.

What the weapons manufacturers make of the latest scientific findings of potential uranium weapons use in southern Lebanon is not yet known. Nor is their effect on civilians.

[above published with]:

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1935931.ece
The Independent – 28th October 2006

An enigma that only the Israelis can fully explain
by Chris Bellamy*

The initial tests on samples taken from the site of the Israeli strike on Khiam present an enigma which will only be solved when the people who produced and deployed the weapon explain themselves. Speculation that the device was some form of “dirty bomb” or micro-yield nuclear weapon can probably be dismissed. The radiation levels and the amount of Uranium-235 in the sample clearly indicate that it was not a nuclear fission weapon.

Uranium has been widely used in conventional weapons – and on the battlefield – for the past 30 years, for three reasons. Firstly, uranium is very dense – 70 per cent denser than lead. Therefore, a smaller projectile delivers more kinetic energy, making it ideal for armour-piercing shot. Secondly, it is pyrophoric, which means that when slammed into a target at high speed it liquefies and ignites spontaneously. Thirdly, the type of uranium most widely used in weapons, depleted uranium (DU), is plentiful. It is a by-product of uranium enrichment, which produces the fuel for nuclear power stations and nuclear weapons. Because there is so much of it about, it makes sense for those who have it to turn DU into armour-piercing munitions.

The only logical military reason for the presence of traces of uranium, of any kind, would be the use of that element to make a hard, dense penetrator for an armour-piercing or “bunker-busting” device. Natural uranium consists of three isotopes – Uranium-238 (99.27 per cent), U-235 – the crucial component of fissionable material (0.72 per cent) and U-234 (0.0054 per cent). To make the fuel for a nuclear reactor this needs to be enriched to three or four per cent U-235, and the resulting waste product, with only 0.25 per cent U-235 and 99.8 per cent U-238, is DU. To make a bomb you would need up to 90 per cent U-235 – hence the concern about Iran’s uranium enrichment programme.

The Khiam sample, with 108 parts U-238 to one of U-235 – just under one per cent – is clearly enriched – but not much. So, in the absence of any palpable military advantage, in terms of its mass and its ability to generate heat and fire compared with DU or natural uranium, why was this enigmatic material used? There are several possibilities. The first is that there was a simple mistake – that uranium with an elevated U-235 content was used instead of DU or natural uranium. The Khiam sample was very small – 25 grams. Contamination with soil could easily obscure a higher degree of enrichment. Spent nuclear fuel – after the power has been generated – typically contains 2.5 per cent U-235, but it can be as low as 1.5 per cent – close to the Khiam sample level. So the uranium in the Khiam projectile could just have been spent nuclear fuel.

One way to dispose of enriched uranium safely is to blend it with natural uranium, in such a way that the U-235 is extremely difficult to re-extract. That might well produce a substance with just under one per cent U-235, which was a component of the Israeli Khiam bomb.

It is also uncertain whether the munition was made in the US or by the Israelis themselves. If the Israelis or the Americans want to avoid accusations, at the very least, of a cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products, they need to explain what was in that bomb and why it was there.

Chris Bellamy is professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University

The initial tests on samples taken from the site of the Israeli strike on Khiam present an enigma which will only be solved when the people who produced and deployed the weapon explain themselves. Speculation that the device was some form of “dirty bomb” or micro-yield nuclear weapon can probably be dismissed. The radiation levels and the amount of Uranium-235 in the sample clearly indicate that it was not a nuclear fission weapon.

Uranium has been widely used in conventional weapons – and on the battlefield – for the past 30 years, for three reasons. Firstly, uranium is very dense – 70 per cent denser than lead. Therefore, a smaller projectile delivers more kinetic energy, making it ideal for armour-piercing shot. Secondly, it is pyrophoric, which means that when slammed into a target at high speed it liquefies and ignites spontaneously. Thirdly, the type of uranium most widely used in weapons, depleted uranium (DU), is plentiful. It is a by-product of uranium enrichment, which produces the fuel for nuclear power stations and nuclear weapons. Because there is so much of it about, it makes sense for those who have it to turn DU into armour-piercing munitions.

The only logical military reason for the presence of traces of uranium, of any kind, would be the use of that element to make a hard, dense penetrator for an armour-piercing or “bunker-busting” device. Natural uranium consists of three isotopes – Uranium-238 (99.27 per cent), U-235 – the crucial component of fissionable material (0.72 per cent) and U-234 (0.0054 per cent). To make the fuel for a nuclear reactor this needs to be enriched to three or four per cent U-235, and the resulting waste product, with only 0.25 per cent U-235 and 99.8 per cent U-238, is DU. To make a bomb you would need up to 90 per cent U-235 – hence the concern about Iran’s uranium enrichment programme.

The Khiam sample, with 108 parts U-238 to one of U-235 – just under one per cent – is clearly enriched – but not much. So, in the absence of any palpable military advantage, in terms of its mass and its ability to generate heat and fire compared with DU or natural uranium, why was this enigmatic material used? There are several possibilities. The first is that there was a simple mistake – that uranium with an elevated U-235 content was used instead of DU or natural uranium. The Khiam sample was very small – 25 grams. Contamination with soil could easily obscure a higher degree of enrichment. Spent nuclear fuel – after the power has been generated – typically contains 2.5 per cent U-235, but it can be as low as 1.5 per cent – close to the Khiam sample level. So the uranium in the Khiam projectile could just have been spent nuclear fuel.

One way to dispose of enriched uranium safely is to blend it with natural uranium, in such a way that the U-235 is extremely difficult to re-extract. That might well produce a substance with just under one per cent U-235, which was a component of the Israeli Khiam bomb.

It is also uncertain whether the munition was made in the US or by the Israelis themselves. If the Israelis or the Americans want to avoid accusations, at the very least, of a cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products, they need to explain what was in that bomb and why it was there.
———————–
*Chris Bellamy is professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University
==================================

[Extract]
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/777549. html
Haaretz – 25th October 2006

Israel Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs in Lebanon

Israel has acknowledged for the first time that it attacked Hezbollah targets during the second Lebanon war with phosphorus shells.

White phosphorus causes very painful and often lethal chemical burns to those hit by it, and until recently Israel maintained that it only uses such bombs to mark targets or territory.

The announcement that the Israel Defense Forces had used phosphorus bombs in the war in Lebanon was made by Minister Jacob Edery, in charge of government-Knesset relations.
==================================

Daily Telegraph – 28th October 2006

US provides Israel with £9bn array of high-tech weapons
By Harry de Quetteville, in Jerusalem

Israel’s warning of a dramatic new bombing campaign will raise fresh
questions over the arming and supplying of a military whose tactics
have already been widely criticised as “disproportionate”.

Britain has been drawn into the controversy after Prestwick airport,
near Glasgow, was used as a stop-over point for the delivery of
American- built precision guided missiles to Israel.

America supplies the vast majority of equipment to Israel’s army. A
new report by the Arms Trade Resource Centre, in New York, says that
American-built weaponry in Israel’s arsenal includes 236 F16 and 89 F15
combat aircraft of the type that is leading the bombardment of Lebanon.

The US has also supplied 136 attack helicopters, including 40 of the
Apaches used in “targeted assassinations” of militants in the Palestinian
territories. Those helicopters are providing air support for troops
fighting street to street in Lebanon. Three have crashed in 10 days, two
in a mid-air collision and one in what Israel said was a power line
accident. Hizbollah claimed to have shot it down.

Despite an American law preventing arms sales other than for
“self-defence and internal security”, the US has also supplied an
unknown number of Hellfire, Walleye and Maverick air-to-ground missiles,
as well as air-to-air Sparrows and Sidewinders. The arms centre report
says that Israel has received more than £9.4 billion worth of military
aid and equipment since President George W Bush was elected in 2001. But
despite its huge arsenal, Israel has urgently requested fresh supplies,
in particular powerful bunker-busting bombs, as it strives to kill
Hizbollah leaders sheltering underground.

As the controversy over such deliveries grows, America may decide to
make future deliveries through its military base in Qatar, its command
centre for the Iraq war.

The rush to re-supply Israel is in marked contrast to the US attitude
during Israel’s last Lebanese incursion in the early 1980s. Then, the
Reagan administration cut aid and froze weapons sales while it decided
whether the weapons were being used for self-defence. The aid was
restarted after Alexander Haig, the secretary of state, said “you could
argue until eternity” about whether arms were used for defensive or
aggressive purposes.

Israel has a formidable arms industry of its own, which employs more
than 50,000 people. It is based on three major firms, all state-owned.
It also has a thriving private sector of 150 firms whose products,
particularly in electronics, have proved highly successful in the
international market.

Chief among the home-grown weapons being used in the present conflict
are Merkava tanks, designed to end reliance on vulnerable Sherman and
Centurion tanks from the US and Britain, which suffered heavy casualties
in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. However, the Merkava has also proved
vulnerable. All four crew members of one tank were killed when it hit a
Hizbollah mine on the first day of the fighting.

Of all the peoples of the world, which loves torture the most? Jews, of course! A study by Globescan reveals that 43 percent of Israelis give the thumbs-up to torture in interrogations, by far higher than the 29 percent world average.

Let us remember the old Jewish excuse for torture: suppose terrorists are about to blow up a plane or somethin’, and you have captured one of them, and it is a matter of hours before a lot of innocents are going to die. Won’t ya approve of torturing the guy then, to learn where his comrades have placed the bomb? Wont ya? Only, in all the years Israel has been torturing thousands of Israeli and Lebanese prisoners, not once has that oft-cited situation occurred.

http://199.202.238.2/news_archives/bbctorture06/

Amazing how one group of people was hated and still is hated all over the world for hundreds and thousands of years because of their low morals and rather creative ways of producing “revenue enhancements”. Martin Luther wrote a nice book about those friends hundreds of years ago.