[ RadSafe ] Fw: Re: [DU-WATCH] So RR, you're waking up? (The Folly of WISE and NIRS)

[Roger Helbig]

Radsafer's .. again I wanted you radiation professionals to know how the anti-DU crusaders paints any information that does not agree with their political purpose as being from traitors to their cause.

davey garland <thunderelf at yahoo.co.uk wrote of WISE and NIRS)
 
 this was recent cadu newsletter, add more to your  list!!
 
 Laka Finds No Evidence of DU in Lebanon  During and after the 33-day war in  Lebanon it was rumoured that the Israeli Defence  Forces (IDF) were using DU anti-tank shells  or other DU munitions. Much attention was focused  on an article by Mohammed Zaatari in the Daily  Star (August 21, 2006) in which nuclear  physicist Dr. Ali Kobeissi, a member of the Lebanese  National Council for Scientific Research  said that a crater caused by an Israeli  munition in Khiam contained a high degree of  unidentified radioactive materials. 
 
 Many people within the movement against  uranium weapons considered Kobeissi's   statements as evidence for the alleged use of DU by  the IDF. CADU had also been convinced by  photos of IDF members loading anti-tank shells  in early July.
 
 In order to test the claims that DU had  been used, Henk Van Der Keur from the Laka
 Foundation visited Lebanon as part of a delegation  from the Amsterdam based organisation  Dromen, Denk, Durven, Doen (Dreaming, Thinking, to  Dare, to Do), who work on human rights issues  in the Middle East.
 
 On September 25th he visited Dr. Kobeissi  in Nabatiyeh. He said that he had tested
 some deep pits made by Israeli weapons with a geiger counter from a local scrap dealer and that  his results indicated the presence of  uranium. He measured 50 nanosievert (nSv) per hour  in the outside rim of the pits and 300 nSv  in the heart of most pits with the exception of  one which measured 800 nsV/h. He also declared  that these dose rates in the pits decreased  considerably day by day. Henk suggested that the  higher rates could be due to the  concentration of uranium in the ash (concentrated  background radiation from the materials burnt  in the impact) he agreed that this  possibility is highly likely.
 
 Dr Kobeissi had collected tens of samples  from shrapnel and soil from more than 50
 different sites. None of these samples measured a  higher radiation dose rate than the
 background radiation rate. The samples were measured with a calibrated geiger counter from Laka  Foundation.
 
 Finally there is no reason to assume that  the IDF has used DU anti-tank shells.
 Firstly there were no armoured targets in Lebanon  and secondly mine clearance teams - present  in many places in the south of Lebanon -  because of the enormous numbers of cluster bombs  haven't found any spent DU anti-tank  shells.
 
 Extra:
 
 After CADU News had gone to press,  researchers Dai Williams and Chris Busby
 released a paper suggesting that traces of low  enriched uranium (LEU) had been found in  the Khiam crater. This is a surprising find  and there will be further analysis of the paper in  the next issue. CADU are awaiting  suggestions from Williams and Busby as to the likely  source of the find.
 
 A few days after their findings were  published (making headline news in the
 Independent newspaper) the United Nations  Environment Programme announced that they  too had found no evidence of DU or radioactive  materials in Lebanon. 
 
 
 upsilquitch <upsilquitch at yahoo.com wrote: 
 We see a much more effective campaign to rescue Israel from bad press 
 of using DU that was ever launched to support NATO.   Very impressive.
  Just who do you think pays for this? 
 
 Here are the pro-uranium team members (when uranium is used by 
 Israel, at least):
 
 Dan Fahey - Veterans for Common Sense 
 Jack Joppa - Nuclear Resister
 Peter Dihel - WISE Urnaium
 Frank Keur - LAKA and ICBUW
 Michael Mariotte - WISE
 Elizabeth May. Ottawa, Canada. Executive Director  of Sierra Club, 
 Canada
 Frank Van Shaik. 
 Harvey Wasserman. 
 
 Here are the recent suckers:
 Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, the Indigo Girls, Bob
 Weir, Mary Chapin 
 Carpenter, Whoopi Goldberg, Bruce Cockburn, Dean
 Stockwell, No War-No 
 DU, IDUST, CADU, etc, etc, etc
 
 The long list of suckers: 
 http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/10.html
 
 WISE and NIRS (the World Information Service on
 Energy and the  Nuclear Information & Resource Service) have, for
 reasons which are  far from clear, launched an ignorant and
 unscientific attack on  findings of enriched Uranium in the Lebanon. This
 is in an article  in the current issue of Nuclear Monitor - No. 650.
  We don't  intend to waste lot of time on this - it's a
 distraction from our  main purpose of drawing attention to the fact that
 dose is now seen  to be a meaningless term when applied to internal
 radioactivity, so  that regulators have no language in which to
 quantify the risks of  radioactive discharges. This is likely to prove
 fatal to the  prospects for a new generation of nuclear power
 stations and adds significance to the illegal status of nuclear
 weapons and Uranium weaponry.  We have to ask why a number of
 organisations (not only  WISE and NIRS) consistently deny evidence of
 Uranium in armaments.  We address aspects of the Nuclear Monitor article
 on www.llrc.org -  click on the Is this WISE? button.
 
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