The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Post Conflict mission in the Lebanon has reported its findings, denying the presence of any significantly elevated levels of Uranium and claiming that all Uranium found was of natural origin.

During the conflict in the summer of 2006 there was evidence that some of the weapons used by the Israeli Defence Force contained Uranium. In September environmental consultants Green Audit obtained soil samples and the engine air filter from an ambulance which had been used in southern Beirut for the first 16 days of the conflict. Laboratories in Harwell and University of Wales, Bangor showed Uranium at high levels; isotopic ratios unequivocally indicated the presence of enriched Uranium.

Following publication of Green Audit's results UNEP returned to the Lebanon. Green Audit published a report showing that the instruments UNEP were using were completely inadequate.

Green Audit undertook a second mission to coincide with UNEP's. GA took further soil samples and samples of groundwater and surface water from the same locations as UNEP and at the same time. Some were actually taken by UNEP technicians and handed to GA.

UNEP's conclusion is:

“The results confirmed the original findings that no DU, enriched uranium or higher than natural uranium levels are present at the site, and that the readings are due to natural causes.” (UNEP Lebanon, page 151)

Water

GA's water samples show levels of Uranium ranging between 4000 and 6400 nanogrammes/litre (ng/l); the one figure given by UNEP is 5300 ng/l. For comparison these values are at least 16 times higher than is ever found by official environmental borehole monitoring in UK; it is at least twice as high as peak values in surface water inside the perimeter fence at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Burghfield (nr. Aldermaston, Berkshire, England).
UNEP's one reported water sample — which they took at the same time as they took one for Green Audit — has an isotope ratio close to that of natural Uranium; Green Audit's is significantly enriched. It looks like someone switched the UNEP sample, or the lab fouled up. It needs explanation.

Soil

Almost all samples (both UNEP and GA) show high levels — between 10 and 20 times what is expected in a limestone geology such as the Lebanon.
UNEP reports isotope ratios close to that of natural Uranium, but there is significantly enriched Uranium in GA's samples from the first mission and some from the second.

Moving the evidence around

By the time UNEP and Green Audit returned to Lebanon in November the craters had been filled in and some house sites had been scraped down to undisturbed sub-soil. One of the craters was dug out again so samples could be taken. Some of the soil samples from inside the crater, where the first visit yielded enriched Uranium, now showed unenriched Uranium. However, water seeping into the re-excavated hole tested positive for significantly enriched Uranium. It is inconceivable that this had come from the natural Uranium in the infill.

Fudged data

It is known that UNEP took many more samples than they reported. Comparing figures in the final report with data that had earlier appeared on the UNEP web site shows evidence that Uranium concentrations in soil samples have been averaged out. In the earlier data a series of samples from the vicinity of a suspect crater clearly showed a trend, with samples from inside and close to the crater being more contaminated than those up to 70 metres away; but the final report has a single figure. By an astronomically unlikely coincidence it is exactly the mean of all the samples in the interim data.
UNEP has, without explanation, changed its method of calculating isotope ratios. In Kosovo in 1999-2000 they used the ratio of U234/U238; now they use the ratio of U235/U238 which has the effect of making the result more closely resemble natural Uranium.

Hidden data.

UNEP's web site is changed frequently. The effect is to make data difficult to obtain. UNEP has a track record of doing this. The large table of data informing the 2001 Kosovo report was never included in the report itself, but was a separate sheet. It was not available at the press launch, was briefly accessible on the internet (from where GA downloaded it) and has now disappeared. In response to a recent request from LLRC UNEP has found hard copy but they say they're still looking for the original electronic file. The Kosovo missions were similar to the Lebanon, in that UNEP initially denied finding Depleted Uranium (DU) but following a Green Audit mission which did find DU (a fact covered by BBC TV and Nippon TV) UNEP returned to Kosovo. Since it is the data table that provides proof that the second mission's samples contain DU we conclude that its loss is not an accident; the public is left only with the spin and denials in their glossy, data-free book. They have a Don't look, don't find agenda which can only be politically motivated.

Why?

Yet another war has been followed by the discovery of Uranium in the débris; this time it's enriched. It is not LLRC's job to explain why but we have proposed the simplest, most robust possibility — that the military (especially US and UK forces) want to continue using DU for its amazing qualities when built into armour piercing and bunker busting weapons. DU is illegal on account of its indiscriminate effects, and people die horribly afterwards. The isotopic ratio makes it relatively simple to show where and when DU has been used. The hypothesis is that, in order to disguise the isotopic ratio and achieve deniability, the military purchases a proportion of armour piercing and bunker busting weapons which are made with natural or enriched Uranium. There are other possibilities but it's the job of international authorities like the UN to do the investigations. Their first job is to put their own house in order.
Whatever the source of the Uranium, the Lebanon findings sit in the context of other conflicts as well as the Balkans. Measurements made by Asaf Durakovic in Afghanistan and by the UK Ministry of Defence on veterans of the second Gulf War in 2003 show high levels of Uranium in urine of those involved, but with a natural isotope ratio. For several months after GW2 the US did not let the International Atomic Energy Agency enter Iraq with measuring instruments yet eyewitnesses said the military were excavating bomb craters and impact sites and trucking the material into the desert. Why would they do this? What is certain is that enriched Uranium is present in Lebanon. There is evidence from two water samples, an ambulance air filter and soil from a radioactive crater. All have been measured using different techniques by two different laboratories with international reputations. If both DU and EU bombs were used in Lebanon, then this could conceivably explain the soil results from UNEP. Nothing can easily explain their water sample result.

Green Audit's report on the UNEP findings is here

Green Audit is preparing a further report with extended discussion of the data, the background and the sampling. It will include maps, locations and photographs. We will announce it when it's available.

There is a basic guide to Uranium isotope ratios and what they mean here (a short version and a link to a more complete one).

We have UNEP's Lebanon data (all pdf files between 50 – 70 kb):
Sites and instruments
Smear sample results
Soil samples
GPS data

Back to the beginning of the Lebanon issue in September 2006
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