FOREWORD

The present report attempts to bring together the information found in various articles published on ACDN’s website www.acdn.net, in both French and in English, between 4 January and 12 February, 2009. It incorporates corrections and additions made possible by information received while our investigation was progressing - nearly every subsequent week has brought further details, rectifications, doubts, confirmations, surprises and revelations, right up to 20 May 2009. This report is still in no way definitive, since its subject remains largely veiled by industrial and military secrecy and because much is a stake, on the political, economical and military levels.

It relies essentially on analysis and cross-checking of information and documentation accessible to the public in the printed media or on the Internet. But it has also benefited from access to private sources which asked not to be quoted. One of these now agrees to be named: the person is M. Jean-François Fechino, a consultant on matters of diffuse pollution, and an expert accredited to the UN Environment Program. Fechino is the author of a hundred-page report on the effects of the use in Iraq of weapons containing Depleted Uranium (DU), and of a preliminary report on the weapons deployed in the Gaza Strip, a report submitted on 7 May 2009 to the UN Human Rights Council’s commission investigating facts concerning Gaza (the "Goldstone Commission"). With him and some other people, we have tried together to ascertain the truth by comparing our points of view - a method which does not, of course, rule out the dangers of errors or of deliberately planted misinformation. I thank Fechino in particular for the information that he shared with me with no restrictions other than those necessary for protecting his sources.

Many people deserve thanks. Let me name in particular Paolo Scampi the president of AIPRI, Alain Acariès the secretary of Avigolfe, Noha Rashwami of the Palestinian Delegation to Paris, Haytham Manna and Violette Daguerre of the Arab Commission for Human Rights, Gilles Devers the lawyer who initiated the group action lodged at the International Criminal Court concerning war crimes and crimes against humanity, Gideon Spiro and Yehuda Atai for their courageous stances in Israel, Peter Low, Francine Fèvre and Dan McCaughey for their translating work, Dr Rosalie Bertell for her encouragement at the darkest moment, my ACDN friends, notably Yves Laigle, and my family for their constant support and patience.

The current and future investigations mandated as urgent by the UN, by the International Criminal Court and by other organisations, will perhaps lift other corners of the veil, and make it possible perhaps
  to inform the courts of justice about what really happened in Gaza,
  to take concrete measures to neutralise the adverse effects of all radioactive weapons, in Gaza, Iraq and elsewhere, and
  to ban them completely and definitively, including nuclear weapons.

May this report contribute to that end.

Saintes, 20 May 2009

Jean-Marie Matagne Ph.D

President of ACDN (Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire /Action of Citizens for the total Dismantling of Nukes)

ACDN
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  Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire / NGO (JO du 6 juin 1996)
  Member of the Global Network « ABOLITION 2000 »

APOLOGIES

For technical reasons, we could not insert here various illustrations, documents or notes of reference which are included in the official report.

CONTENTS

  Foreword
  Media Alert
  First approach to the GBU-39
  Suspicion of uranium
  Alert on the ground
  The dilemma
  The Iraq lesson: the attack on "Forward Base Falcon"
  Return to Gaza
  The context
  The effects of DU
  Background of the GBU-39
  A licence full of vice
  Gaza as a testing-ground
  "The Genocide in Gaza has begun"
  Letter to Mr Ban Ki-Moon: the UN must investigate
  The art of dodging
  The GBU-39: portrait on 20 May 2009
  How much uranium, and where?
  Other weapons deployed in Gaza
  What is at stake
  The onus of proof
  At the last minute: the proof is there
  Conclusion: only one camp, that of Humanity

  APPENDICES

Media Alert

In the night of 28-29 January (Sunday-Monday), at 1.18 a.m., the Jerusalem Post published on its website www.israel.jpost.com an article in English which was then updated at 9.15 a.m.. It was headed:

"The Israeli Air Force is using a new intelligent bomb provided by the USA":

Its author, Yaakov Katz, wrote:

"The Israeli Air Force (IAF), in its strikes against Hamas, has been using a new bunker-buster recently received from the US, according to information gathered by the Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

"This missile, called the GBU-39, was developed in the USA in recent years as a small-diameter bomb with low cost, high precision and able to cause very little collateral damage.

"Israel received in September the authorisation of [US] Congress to buy 1000 of these, and Defense officials declared this Sunday that the first shipment arrived at the start of December and was used successfully to penetrate the underground launching sites for Kassam [Qassam] rockets in the Gaza Strip, during the heavy aerial bombardment of the Hamas infrastructures on Saturday. GBU-39s were also used on Sunday for bombing the tunnels at Rafah.

"The GBU-39, which has GPS guidance, is considered to be one of the world’s most precise bombs. Weighing 113kg, it has the same penetration capabilities as an ordinary bomb of 900kg, although it carries only 22.7kg of explosives. Only 1.75m long, its small size increases the number of bombs that a plane can carry and the number of targets it can attack on a single mission.

"The tests done in the USA has proved that it is capable of piercing at least 90cm of armoured concrete. The GBU-39 can be used in all weathers to a range of over 110 km, thanks to its fold-out wings." That is how, at the very start of the Israeli offensive against Gaza nicknamed "Cast Lead", the GBU-39 made its entry on the ground and in the press.

Apart from the improper use of the term "missile", the rapid portrait given by the Jerusalem Post exposes all its most flagrant traits, except for one, of course, which will be discussed shortly.

A comparative study of the articles published in the specialist press about this device which has been several years in development, and of the technical specifications (sometimes mutually contradictory) that can be found on the internet, enables us to better clarify its nature and history, while leaving some gray areas which we would try to reduce in the coming days and weeks.

This work of analysis soon led us to conclude that the GBU-39 must contain Depleted Uranium, a radioactive metal with known destructive effects on the human and animal genome, as attested by the large number of victims since it was first used in Iraq during the "Gulf War" of 1991. First approach to the GBU-39

Made by Boeing, the GBU-39 (Guided Bomb Unit-39, also called GBU-39B, since there was an earlier prototype 39A) is a bomb - it has no real autonomy of flight, unlike a self-propelled missile.

The GBU-39 is also designated as SDB1, and is the first of the Small Diameter Bombs: it is conceived as a cheap bomb which gives reduced collateral damage but is excellent at penetrating steel and reinforced concrete. Despite its small size, it is a "bunker-buster" bomb and it was sold to Israel as such.

(Photograph) Casing of the GBU-39/B - Wings of the GBU-39/B in folded-back position

On the public web there are two brief notices about it and several articles: one signed by Boeing’s research offices, the other on the website of GlobalSecurity (GS), which merely repeats some of Boeing’s data. The two overlap only partly, but they are in contradiction on one point: the bomb’s total weight, which according to GlobalSecurity is 113 kg (250lb) and according to Boeing is 130 kg (285 lb). Here one must follow Boeing (GS only stated the SDB1 was in the 250 lb class). Boeing gives the weight of the warhead as 93kg (206 lb), though without stating its length, and specifies that it is a "penetrating blast fragmentation" bomb. GS omits this point, but gives others, saying that the warhead has a "steel case for penetration" and that it contains 50 lbs of high explosive.

The GBU-39 looks like a long pencil. According to Boeing it is 70.8 inches long (1.8m) and only 7.5 inches in diameter (19cm). It has an advanced GPS guidance and positioning system able to resist interference. It is "smart": once dropped from an aircraft, it locks onto the target that was pre-set and corrects its trajectory, rather like a glider, thanks to its fins and the wings that unfold a few seconds after launch.

The GBU-39 belongs to the new generations of weapons that use "very special" steel of a composition which manufacturers nor officials are tight-lipped about. But it is obvious that to achieve limited price-tags and increasingly high performance, Depleted Uranium holds the trump cards. The penetration capacity of a projectile into a target depends on four factors: it is proportional to its mass, its speed and its hardness, and inversely proportional to its section surface (thus a sewing needle pierces a cloth better than thimble does; and a heavy javelin with a thin hard tip, launched at top speed, can penetrate the earth while a rubber ball cannot). DU fills all the criteria: it is very heavy and hard - much more than lead - and its density produces a maximum mass in a minimal volume, and therefore an impact surface reduced to the minimum.

Boeing states that GBU has a penetration capacity of " >3 feet of steel reinforced concrete". GS gives us two quotations to choose from: " more than three feet of steel-reinforced concrete" (the same as Boeing) and "six feet of reinforced concrete".

Contrary to appearances, these figures where one is double the other may not be contradictory. Jean-François Fechino explains that they may correspond to two kinds of concrete: High Performance and Extra High Performance.

In France, the BFUP concretes (fibred concrete with ultra-high performance) - so-called by the AFGC (French civil engineering association) - appeared in the 1990s with impetus from both Électricité de France and the Bouygues & Eiffage consortium, both subcontracted to rebuild the cooling towers of the CATTENOM and CIVAUX nuclear plants. Produced by scientific research, these concretes have the peculiarities of very high resistance ( 8-10 times conventional concrete), of not requiring the passive armatures, usually sources of corrosion, to be watertight, and of having exceptional durability. There is today a range of formulae, developed and patented by leading construction companies. The BTHP concretes (concretes of very high performance) and the BFUPs result from a synthesis of progress over the last 30 years in optimising the skeleton, adding auxiliary elements and using fibre reinforcement. As for resistance to compression, the BFUPs exceed 150 megapascals (following the AFGC’s definitions) and the BTHP performance is defined as lying between the BFUP and the BHP (high performance concrete), thus having mechanical resistance between 100 and 150 megapascals.

Here is how IsraelValley, the official website of the France/Israel Chamber of Commerce, announced these purchases on 16 September 2008, referring to the press review by the Israeli Embassy in Paris: "The US Ministry of Defense has approved the sale to Israel of 1000 penetrating bombs of the GBU-39 type built by Boeing and considered the most modern in the world, so Maariv reports. These bombs are capable of penetrating a 90-centimeter layer of reinforced concrete with great precision (a perimeter of 3 meters). The newspaper notes that before ratification this sale must still be approved by the US Congress. According to an Israeli military source quoted by the paper, the combination of these bombs with the defense force’s forthcoming fighter planes, the FS-35s, will considerably strengthen the capacities of the Israeli air force."

According to Jean-François Fechino, the "90 cm of armoured concrete", or "three feet of armoured reinforced concrete" that Boeing says is the minimum that the GBU-39 can pierce amounts to 4 or 5 metres of the concrete of the Atlantic Wall.

Suspicion of uranium

Reading all their technical characteristics, one sees that these weapons are based on metallic DU. Steel, even exceptional steel, would not achieve what is claimed for such a small bomb with a length well under 2 metres - unlike the GBU-28s, for example, which get their penetration power from a bomb casing made of special steel, which is slender (the first GBU-28s were made hastily during the Gulf War from artillery cannon barrels!), which are very heavy (4000 pounds is nearly 2 tonnes), and very long (over 5m for the warhead).

The word "steel", not present in Boeing technical description, and added by GS to describe the casing of the warhead - a "steel case for penetration" is quite inappropriate - unless it means an unspecified metallic compound (which would be called an alloy).The word serves to mask an obvious and certainly deliberate gap in the manufacturers specifications.

When one asks for bombs with:
  focused local impact (so as to speak of "surgical strike");
  limited collateral effects (so as to speak of "clean war"); but also
  very high penetration power (equal to a bunker-buster 8 or 16 times heavier) which can strike into the heart of a fortified or deeply-buried target;
  reduced weight, but very great mass-to-volume ratio, giving extreme compactness;
  low cost, and
  the capacity to be mass-produced, by making use of a material that is plentiful...

... then there is every chance they will consist of metallic DU. The proportion, according to Jean-François Fechino, will be 75-85%, with the rest being tungsten, titanium or molybdenum ... all special rare metals.

It is true that metallic DU could have a serious competitor: tungsten. But DU has two advantages. It is much cheaper, and is available in large quantities that one doesn’t know what to do with (50 000 tonnes of DU are produced annually in the world, as a by-product of the nuclear industry, whereas tungsten is still a rare metal). Secondly and above all, DU is pyrophoric, whereas tungsten is not. This means DU ignites on impact. So, a bomb tipped with DU will not only fly apart from the explosion but it will itself burn up inside the target. Thus this pyrophoric nature enables the "DU penetrator" to burst into flames simply by scraping the "perforation hole" that it makes, even before the ignition systems of the explosive are activated. Thus, the first effect of these weapons is to unleash "a hellish fire" of nearly 1200°C. The occupants of a tank hit by a DU shell are not torn to bits - not unless the fire causes munitions on board to explode - but burnt to a cinder. What remains of the tank is highly radioactive. The GIs who in 1991 approached Iraqi tanks contaminated in this way were to discover this after returning to the USA, sometimes years later.

Being very conscious of everything that concerns nuclear technology, radioactive weapons, Depleted Uranium, and weapons of mass destruction in general, we realised immediately the size of the silent invisible drama that was unfolding, beyond the immediate victims and obvious destruction, and that would play out in Gaza in the medium and long term, if the Israeli offensive were to continue and go on using radioactive weapons of this type.

Alert on the ground

Sunday 4 January 2009, 13.16 hours GMT - The Iranian media agency Press TV broadcast a report entitled: "Depleted Uranium found in victims in Gaza".

Here we read that "Norwegian doctors told a correspondent of Press TV, Akram al-Sattari, that they had found traces of Depleted Uranium in some people wounded at the start of the Israeli offensive launched on 27 December on the Gaza Strip." This testimony comes after the Israeli tanks and troops crossed the border in the night of Saturday-Sunday and launched a ground offensive, after eight days of intensive bombardment by the Israeli air force and navy."

The report adds that "Israel’s Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, issued a warning on Sunday that the offensive would be "full of surprises"." Is the report suggesting that the use of Depleted Uranium (DU) could be one of these surprises?

In fact, the statement by the Norwegian doctors quoted by Press TV after some delay seems to correspond with the TV interview given by Dr Mads Gilbert and rebroadcast by Al-Jazeera in the night of 31 December (http://www.gnn.tv/B30595). It is from that date that the Norwegian doctor mentions traces of radioactivity in the wounded, and therefore in victims of the first phase of the Israeli offensive, at the time of the very first aerial bombardments.

During that phase, the Israeli authorities revealed that they had made considerable use of GBU-39’s, which are, as we know, US-made bombs recently delivered (1000 units) at the start of December, from the USA to Israel. The "miraculous" features of these avant-garde bombs were vaunted widely in the Israeli press, but no mention was made of the key point, the only point that can explain the "performance" of these terror weapons: the fact that they must contain Depleted Uranium - a conclusion we had already reached.

Several questions arise: How, given the difficult conditions they are working under, did Dr Gilbert and his colleagues detect "traces of radioactivity" and more precisely of "Depleted Uranium"? Did they have the necessary time to carry out the complex analyses? Were they able to sample the necessary tissues or organic fluids? That type of analysis usually takes some weeks in specialised laboratories. How could these emergency medical staff carry them out? Nobody knows, and we had no way of contacting the Norwegian doctors where they were working.

The dilemma

We obviously could not count on the Israeli authorities to confirm Dr Gilbert’s assertions, or the international media, which the Israelis are not letting into the Gaza Strip. So we contacted the Palestinian Delegation in Paris, hoping through it to obtain some appropriate samples of earth or other materials from Gaza, so as to have these analysed in independent laboratories (as we had done for Baghdad, as will be seen below). While waiting for these samples, we had to adopt another approach to try to verify the accusations of the Norwegian doctors: further study of the weapons which could have wounded the Gazan victims, notably the GBU-39s. Did they contain DU? There also, we could not count on confirmation from the US Department of Defense (DoD) or from the manufacturer Boeing.

We therefore faced a dilemma.

Should we, while lacking formal proof, denounce the use of these weapons, which we were convinced were radioactive, despite an ever-present doubt in our minds? We would risk the retaliation by outcry and scathing denials from whatever agents serve the military-industrial complex - and even reluctant criticism from some allies in the anti-nuclear, "abolitionist" peace movement, where some activists know nothing of the problem, where others know it badly and care little, and where some who know it well want to avoid the risk of making errors and thus tarnishing their image or that of their NGO.

The alternative risk was to wait for indisputable proof - which might mean seeing the Gazans and their regional neighbours, including the Israelis, being the victims or unwitting perpetrators of a "delayed-action" genocide, while the military chiefs, the political leaders and the scientists in the pocket of the military-complex continued to maintain a complicitous silence?

We preferred the first risk to the second. ACDN brings together citizens of the world who wish to act so as to contribute, as far as they can, to improving the fate of humankind and the survival of the species, which is threatened by nuclear and radioactive weapons. ACDN since 1996 (and its president since 1986) have been trying to get people to realise the imperious necessity of abolishing these weapons. It has been a 23-year "crossing of the desert": we have become aware that such is often the fate of "whistle-blowers". In the case of Gaza, as in others, we considered it imperative to sound the alarm-bell before the disaster become irreversible and incommensurable.

It is essential to avoid a repeat of the Iraqi experience.

See: The Iraq lesson: the attack on "Forward Base Falcon"

Return to Gaza

Now jump again to Gaza in January 2009. Just like the Iraqis, the Gazans underwent an inhuman blockade followed by an air and ground offensive. Would they too suffer from uranium contamination? Wiser from experience, we decided this time to proceed differently. We decided to affirm what we considered highly probable as if we were certain of it. That was supposed to touch some sectors of public opinion, and even some curious journalists (there must be a few somewhere), and that might lead some political leaders to demand a public investigation. That was more or less what would happen.

On January 4, 2009 we published an article entitled:

  Parallèlement à l’offensive terrestre
  A Gaza, le génocide à l’Uranium Appauvri a commencé
  avec les bombes "GBU-39" fournies par les Etats-Unis

It was translated and published on January 6:

  It runs parallel with the ground offensive
  In Gaza, Genocide by Depleted Uranium has begun
  using "GBU-39" bombs provided by the USA

The article concludes: « A veritable crime against humanity is being committed under our eyes". It called on the President of France, who was expected in Egypt the next day, to do everything possible to stop the crime, but also to set an example by banning from France’s armed forces all weapons containing Depleted Uranium and by forbidding the sale of them: "France must stop this crime against humanity... France must work for a complete ban on Depleted Uranium weapons."

We sent this to numerous French press and media outlets, and to the ICBUW (International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons) of which ACDN is a member; we disseminated it widely on the « abolitionist », « antinuclear » and « peace movement » communities. Unable to interest French journalists - who breathed not a word on the subject during the whole of "Operation Cast Lead" and even to this day - the article was picked up by numerous French-language and English-language sites, thus helping to alert part of public opinion, especially (unsurprisingly) those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

The next day, 5 January, a new interview appeared with Dr Mads Gilbert, from the Iranian agency PressTV. We learnt of it immediately.

PHOTO - Norwegian Doctor Mads Gilbert

The journalist asked him: "What can you say about what you have found concerning uranium?" He replied: "I cannot say much about our finds concerning uranium, but I can say this: it is proven that the Israelis are using a new type of weapon with a powerful explosive called 'Dense Inert Metal Explosive’ (DIME) made of a tungsten alloy. These weapons have immense explosive power."

Did this mean that Dr Gilbert knew nothing of uranium? We tend to another explanation: he simply did not possess the analyses - how could he under the circumstances? - and had no indisputable proof that the radioactivity he has spoken of on 31 December was due to particles of uranium. Meanwhile, he preferred to say nothing of it and to draw attention to another kind of non-conventional weapon whose ravages he was trying to repair, the almost unknown explosive DIME.

On January 6, to our great surprise, ICBUW released (without warning us) a statement taking a different view from ours and contesting Dr Gilbert’s expertise. Now it is true that his experiences as a humanitarian surgeon familiar with theatres of war do not confer omniscience. But that is not a reason to make him say that he "knows nothing of the uses of depleted uranium", and that "tungsten is radioactive". Not when his exact words were: "In the long term these weapons will have a carcinogenic effect on the survivors. They will develop cancers, we think. There has been very little research on this subject, but some studies, including some in the US, have shown a higher tendency to provoke cancer". To state that tungsten, and therefore DIME, are carcinogenic does not say that they are radioactive! Has anyone ever claimed that asbestos is radioactive because it is carcinogenic?

We contacted the coordinator of ICBUW. Our correspondence did not convince us that his reasons for doubting the presence of DU in the GBU-39s came even close to making us change our opinions. But the authority of ICBUW imposed silence on the other NGOs, throwing doubt on the seriousness of our allegations. And that suited the pro-DU lobby very nicely ("even our opponents don’t believe it!"), and that lobby doesn’t care much about the Gazan victims.

The Global Context

In his report about Depleted Uranium in Iraq, Jean-François Fechino described the situation in the following way.

"The problems of depleted uranium lie in the competence of scientists (nuclear research scientists) and military figures.

"The scientists are physicists and chemists who have generally had long professional experience and considerable prominence. For many lay-people, these are Men of Science who have gained Knowledge. For this reason they are seen as men of responsibility who cannot lie, all the more so because the use analyses that are a priori objective and approved by experts linked to international agencies. Well, what do these scientists say? That Depleted Uranium is not really a danger for the environment or for human beings, except in rare exceptional cases with some points of contamination. For all (or almost all) of this scientific community, DU is « 40% less contaminating than natural uranium ».

"The military figures (users but also arms researchers) rest their knowledge on the scientists’ research reports (aforementioned), whose affirmations they use for their own purposes. Furthermore, during the all the development phases of these weapons, no specific precaution is used (no protective mask, special suit, decontamination by showering...), and even less during actual battles. So the men are handling with no precautions all the material to be loaded (artillery shells, gear to attach the missiles under aircraft wings, transfer of missile heads into the weapons holds of tanks, loading the machine-guns on board the planes...) as if they were handling conventional materials.

"These attitudes and gestures, relayed by the media, can only reinforce the sense of safety which civilian populations and their leaders feel with regard to public opinion in general and local populations in particular. It is a feeling very deeply anchored in the public’s mind, especially since the scientists’ discourse is deliberately reassuring whenever these problems are mentioned.

"Furthermore, the media themselves are present to 'add a coat of paint’. When we see TV journalists standing by piles of smoking rubble after a bombardment, with no protection, how can we get civilian populations to understand the dangers they face - dangers that are invisible, with neither smell nor taste? Besides, the results of these dangers are not always visible at once and do not show direct physical damage... The contaminations resulting from DU are not as spectacular as those of napalm (the photo of a Vietnamese girl walking naked with her skin peeling off after a US napalm bombing was a shock image that stirred the world’s conscience and sped up the peace process in Vietnam).

"So there’s no shock image for Depleted Uranium... Anyway, we are dealing with the concept of a 'clean war’, presented in the media through careful orchestration by the PR services of the US forces... This makes it easy to imagine how hard it is for an ordinary citizen to contradict and merely doubt the words of experts, scientists and high officers, or of other levels in the hierarchy. What weight can one person’s words have when, officially, the expert statements declare peremptorily that their weapons are virtually innocuous...?"

The Effects of DU

In August 1996 the UN’s sub-commission for Human Rights classed DU weapons among the weapons thought to produce "excessively traumatic effects" to strike "civilian populations indiscriminately" and to cause "serious and lasting damage to the environment" in the terms of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCCW, known as the Convention on Inhumane Weapons) adopted by the UN in 1980 and in force since December 1983. This places them alongside fragmentation weapons, incendiary and blinding weapons, and anti-personnel mines... However, for lack of a "specific additional protocol" to that Convention, the sub-commission’s Resolution N° 96-16 had no concrete effect. Besides, this type of weapon is not mentioned in any international protocol for declaration, limitation or banning of strategic nuclear weapons because, although uranium is used, the fact that this uranium is depleted of U-235 (the key isotope for nuclear weapons) enables it to escape the restrictions. Thus, the only concrete effect of that 1996 classification was that Depleted Uranium disappeared from the military’s vocabulary, and the manufacturers’ catalogues and advertisements - but not from the weapons being made or being developed. And when some customs document asks an indiscreet question, the exporters happily declare that tungsten is present and not uranium.

Although its role is systematically minimised, DU is high on the list of possible cumulative causes of "Gulf War Syndrome", which brings together various symptoms and illnesses. This syndrome is now officially recognised, in the USA, as an indisputable reality. In November 2008, the « Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses » submitted to the Senate and published on the US government presses its final report entitled « The Gulf War Illness and the health of veterans of the Gulf War (scientific data and recommendations) »

The Committee, answerable to the Secretary for Veterans’ Affairs, comprised some fifteen specialists, mostly doctors. Its report runs to 465 pages. It recognises that out of approximately 700 000 US military personnel deployed in SW Asia in 1990-91 during the operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm together known as the « Gulf War», between 185 000 and 210 000 have fallen ill. It does not state the number of deaths resulting from the various illnesses, but other evidence tells us that they exceed 18 000, and that most struck men and women who were young, in the prime of life.

More than one US soldier in four was ill after the conflict - and according to other equally credible sources nearly one in two! Thousands dead as a result of these illnesses! Such post-conflict carnage is an unprecedented phenomenon in world military history.

As for the role of Depleted Uranium, this is what the report says (page 224):

"Depleted uranium (DU). Low-level exposure to spent DU munitions and dust is thought to have been widespread during the Gulf War and was most prominent among ground troops in forward locations. Recent animal studies have demonstrated acute effects of soluble forms of DU on the brain and behavior, but persistent effects of short term, low-dose exposures like those encountered by the majority of Gulf War veterans have only minimally been assessed. There is little information from Gulf War or other human studies concerning chronic symptomatic illness in relation to DU or uranium exposure. Exposure to DU in post-Gulf War deployments, including current conflicts in the Middle East, has not been associated with widespread multisymptom illness. This suggests that exposure to DU munitions is not likely a primary cause of Gulf War illness. Questions remain about long-term health effects of higherdose exposures to DU, however, particularly in relation to other health outcomes."

In short, according to this Report, almost nothing is known of the causal link between DU and the Gulf War Syndrome, since it hasn’t really been studied, but we can say a priori that it is not the prime cause, although we may one day learn that it is that after all ... These intellectual contortions have difficulty concealing the embarrassment of the official investigators when confronted by the conclusion which numerous independent researchers had already reached -and even by the findings they gave themselves from page 85 to 100 of their Report.

For example, Dan Bishop, who has a doctorate in chemistry and chairs the International Depleted Uranium Study Team (Colorado, USA), says: "The studies on sick US veterans of the Gulf War showed that they had each absorbed an initial dose of 0.34 mg of DU, which remains permanently in the tissue of their lungs. The alpha activity for 0.34g of DU is 5.2 Becquerels (5.2 alpha disintegrations per second, 160 million per year), amounting to a total activity (alpha, beta and gamma) equal to 26 disintegrations per second, or 800 million radioactive events per year." Now there is no doubt possible about the health consequences of these millions of 'events’: since they cannot all be "repaired", the damage to the cells, the splitting of chromosomes, the alterations to DNA - all demonstrated in the lab, including by the "recent studies on animals" mentioned in the Report - have the effect of provoking symptoms of illnesses (cancers, leukemias, lymphomas, diabetes, sterility, foetal malformations...) which become irreversible.

It goes without saying that the Iraqi population has also taken a heavy blow from the DU disseminated there. According to Dr Jawad Al-Ali, of the Basra Oncology Centre, cancer deaths in the Basra region went from about 25 in 1988 to over 600 in 1998. Deformities in newborn babies have increased hugely and have taken monstrous forms.

And what would happen in Gaza? There, despite UN Security Council resolution 1860 of January 9 demanding an immediate ceasefire, the massacre continued. Reassured in our conclusions by information from a serious and reliable source, we published on 14 January a second article summarising the facts then known to us:

  Genocide by Depleted Uranium in Gaza: the dossier

  Genocide by Depleted Uranium in Gaza: the dossier

That publication prompted strong reactions.

Background of the GBU-39

Unlike "gravitational" bombs, which are dropped by a plane flying over or near its target and which fall more or less vertically, the "GBU-39 intelligent bomb" is capable, thanks to the wings it unfolds when launched from the plane, of using its kinetic energy to "glide" on its way down, and to hit a target (depending on the plane’s altitude) as much as 60 nautical miles (110 km) ahead or 40 miles (75 km) to the left or right of the plane that releases it. It can even, by operating an arc of circle, strike a target located behind the plane. Furthermore, it can modify its trajectory to strike within a few metres of its target. It is guided by a system that it carries for GPS positioning and trajectory calculation, a system which is pre-programmed but can be reprogrammed by the crew just before launching. Each bomb may have its own target. The Boeing Corporation, in response to an earlier tendering process, gained a contract in August 2003 to develop this "small diameter bomb" (SDB) after strong competition in which it was accused and found guilty of corruption.

The SDB-1 or GBU-39 received its certification in September 2005; its series production began in April 2006; and the first examples were delivered to the US Air Force in early September 2006, ahead of schedule and at a lower price than predicted.

On that occasion, Major-General Jeffrey Riemer, in charge of programme coordination between different civilian and military laboratories and suppliers, declared:

"We are excited by the deployment of the weapons, the SDB-1, which adds to the various lethal options of the F-15E (Strike Eagle) in the war against terrorism."

According to him, the margin of error at point of impact was no greater than 1.2 meter.

The SDB-1 or GBU-39/B is a tube of about 1.8 metres long and 19cm in diameter. Once launched, it uses rear and lateral fins to stabilize its trajectory. It weighs 130kg, of which 93kg are the warhead.

A F-15E aircraft can carry four of these under its fuselage, with a BRU-61 undercarriage giving a total laden charge of 664kg, instead of a single bomb that would usually be much heavier. Each bomb is launched pneumatically and not by explosive cartridge - this requires no regular maintenance, facilitates handling and speeds up the plane’s reloading when it completes its mission. So the plane can carry out multiple strikes with faster rotation.

The GBU-39’s precision, reliability and limited explosive charge - therefore also its lower "lethality" (or killing capacity) - greatly reduce the risks of "collateral damage". This makes possible certain hitherto forbidden uses: against enemy combatants located close to "friendly troops" or in the middle of a civilian population, be it friendly, neutral or hostile, since such populations are supposed to be spared according to the "rules of war" and international law. Thus these missiles are ideal for "anti-guerrilla" or "anti-terrorist" war.

As early as 5 October 2006, one month after delivery in the USA, they were used for the first time against real targets - by two F-15E "Strike Eagles" of the 494th Combat Squadron in South-East Asia, supporting ground troops in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Gary L. North, the Combined Forces Air Component commander, celebrated the event in these terms: "Because of its small size, our aircraft are able to carry more individual weapons into battle, benefiting the Soldiers on the ground with more opportunities to defend their positions, while precisely destroying targets that would threaten American, coalition and Iraqi lives. "The SDB is uniquely qualified for urban targets that call for precision accuracy and reduced collateral damage and in close-air-support missions that our aircrews find themselves in during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. We now have the ability to put ordnance in places where collateral damage might be a concern." On 19 December 2006, Boeing announced that the US Air Force was paying it 80 million dollars - probably as an advance - for a first order of 1600 SDB1s and various equipment associated with the bomb. This was only a first contract, since it was stated that: "Boeing will manufacture more than 24,000 SDB 1 weapons and 2,000 carriages for the Air Force, with deliveries planned beyond 2015."

A licence full of vice

A "small-diameter guided bomb", the GBU-39 perfectly matches the "small smart bomb" and other "weapons systems using the same principle", which is specified in the patent (US Patent App.11/541,207, 2006). This patent was granted to SD Roererman and JP Volpi - men unknown to the internet but surely known to Boeing. It was published on 12 July 2007 but certainly goes back to November 2006, the month preceding the order sent by the Air Force to Boeing for 1600 bombs. In any case, it is certainly the GBU-39 that is intended and protected by the patent : it is named at § 43 and in table 2, continued on page 8 in the column « Remarks », where its effective weight is given as 285 pounds for the SDB for which patent is given.

On page 7 of this document, § 33 cites « zirconium » as an example of « pyrophoric material » that could be incorporated into a « small smart bomb ». § 34 explains that « the non-explosive materials applied herein are substantially inert in environments that are normal under benign conditions ». This means that « in normal handling » they do not threaten « to become destructive in an explosive or an incendiary manner » because « the potentially lethal explosive factor is minimal or non-existent. »

And here is the list of « selected materials » cited as examples for their « inertness » : - « e.g. tungsten, hardened steel, zirconium, copper, depleted uranium and other like materials ».

Depleted uranium... in a legal text where every word counts and can cost or earn millions of dollars, nothing is left to chance. In that case, why mention something as « ill-famed » as depleted uranium ? Is it there mistakenly, inadvertently, or because it would be a model example ? Certainly not. It is there because they have to mention it at least once in the « patent » so that its use would in future be legally protected from competitors. Once, but no more than that, and in a listing, so as not to attract attention to this kind of material.

That is probably the reason why it is not named again in Table 1, which, on the same page, lists the materials involved in the « small smart bomb », giving, for each, its function, nature, density, weight and volume. Those mentioned are : in line one, tungsten, as a ballast (so it is named here chiefly for its weight, which is precisely the chief merit of DU). Then aluminium, pyrex, steel, various electronic materials, polymers and finally the explosive (with no indication of weight). The name of the bomb is not given. The total weight, stated with astonishing precision, is also ridiculously small (25.036 pounds). In fact we must multiply this by ten (and the weight of the materials likewise) to get the real weight : 250 pounds, not counting the weight of the explosive. What we must note above all in the Table is the weight relationship between different materials. Out of 25.036 pounds, the « tungsten ballast » alone accounts for 20.239, which is over 80% of the total weight (without the explosive). If we multiply by ten, we get 202.39 pounds, which is 91.8 kg.

Our hypothesis: the « depleted uranium » mentioned in § 33 has been replaced in Table 1 by the word « tungsten ». Work backwards, replace « tungsten » with «depleted uranium » and you have the DU weight in the SDB1 : 91.8 kg. Or perhaps a little less, if it is part of an alloy with other components - for example tungsten, the only one mentioned, on account of "commercial secrecy". This is of course only a hypothesis!

Gaza as a testing-ground

The low cost of the GBU-39s (still estimated at between $35000 and $100000 each) is attractive for customers in general and Israel in particular (one source mentions $67000). It is even possible that Israel, in exchange for its massive experimentation in the field, benefited from a fat refund or even perhaps a free delivery. The real conditions of the transfer are of course unknown... and Boeing has officially denied that it happened!

Its total profile of characteristics makes the GBU-39, version SDB1, the ideal weapon for the offensive against Gaza.

Another version capable of hitting mobile targets (the SDB2) was ordered from Boeing also, this time in association with Lockheed. Its development was planned to end in late 2009, with tests programmed for April 2009. We have no reason to think that the Israeli Air Force possessed such devices in December 2008 - it did not need them - unless of course "Cast Lead" also served as a testing-ground for some SDB2 prototypes.

The penetration capacity of the GBU-39 enables it to destroy the underground rocket-launching sites and also the tunnels or underground passages of the "Philadelphia Corridor."

Its precision enables it to hit predefined fixed targets while reducing the "collateral damage" to the civilian population - which receives warnings also by leaflets or cell-phones to evacuate the sites immediately, these being the houses or sites which the Israeli forces link to the infrastructures of Hamas, and to the making, stocking and launching of the Qassam (or Kassam) rockets against the south of Israel. This reduces the political, judicial and diplomatic risk of being accused of committing massacres and war crimes.

The availability and mastery of the GBU-39s by the Israeli Air Force helps to explain the timing of the operation - along with the partial power-vacuum in the USA during the transition from the Bush to the Obama administration, the latter being presumed much less favourable to a military action (note that Israel interrupted "Cast Lead" two days before Obama’s investiture), with the expiry of the truce that Hamas had agreed to six months earlier, with the end-of-year festivals likely to distract world attention. As we saw, the US Congress in September 2008 authorised the sale of 1000 to Israel. They were delivered at the start of December. They had to be made operational - by mounting the racks on the F15E aircraft, preparing logistic support, and training the crews. On December 19 the truce expired. On December 27 the air offensive began. It was a Saturday, a Sabbath - which increased the surprise.

The problem is that the GBU-39, although it limits the risks of war crimes, leads to crimes against humanity. In fact there is a "serious concern" which is mentioned