CiviLIED Nations

Israel�s nuclear tactical weapons

FAUZIA QURESHI
Of all the statistics to emerge from Israel�s recent war on Lebanon, the most shocking concerns are the number of cluster bombs that Israel dropped on Lebanon. More striking is the fact that these weren�t ordinary cluster bombs but rather small nuclear tactical weapons manufactured in the United States of America. 
All was fine till the weapons were used after all they were given to be used. Then why suddenly the US State Department felt the need to investigate whether Israel had used US manufactured cluster bombs in Lebanon? Why is the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) asked to confirm whether uranium-based munitions were used by Israel? Can the US answer these questions?
What is shocking and immoral is the fact that 90 percent of the cluster bombs were dropped by Israel on Lebanon in the last seventy-two hours of the conflict, when everyone knew there would be an end or a resolution to this war. Not that much morality is expected by the US or Israel but why didn�t anyone raise this question? The United Nation�s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Jan Egeland has remarked, �the majority of these bombs were dropped in the last three days of the war- a time when the UN resolution to end the fighting had been agreed on, when the war was virtually over, when it was clear that Israel had failed to accomplish its declared objectives in launching this campaign.� 
I wonder dropped so late in the war, what specific military objective these bombs could possibly have? Israel carried out 7,000 air raids and fired 160,000 artillery projectiles into this tiny country called Lebanon and still didn�t achieve its objective. That�s about two air raids and 40 projectiles per square mile. I thought of my earlier article, �US : A loser in the Lebanon-Israel War,� in which I had written about a letter published in one of the leading English newspapers, which wrote on the US anger on Israel�s use of cluster bombs. The writer had pointed out that it was not Israel�s use of the cluster bombs which had irked the US but rather the irresponsible use of the most sophisticated small nuclear tactical weapon(US made) with a potential range of 20-30 km by the Israelis.
It has become public now that 40 percent of the bomblets dropped by Israel(lets not forget US made) didn�t explode in the air or on impact with the ground. So what really happened to these so-called cluster bombs? According to the current UN estimate a million bomblets have yet to explode out of the 2 to 3 million dropped by Israel. In fact, it is estimated that there are more unexploded bomblets in southern Lebanon than there are people. By the way, cluster bombs are by definition, inaccurate weapons that are designed to affect a very wide area unpredictably. So that means they don�t differentiate between civilian and military targets when they are dropped.
Then this raises the question that if cluster bombs were used then Israel and the US(as it is the provider) need to answer whether this war was against Hezbollah or the entire Lebanese civilian population? If there is more to this story as there surely is, as the UNEP has been asked to investigate whether uranium-based munitions were used by Israel in Lebanon, then the US has to answer many questions. Why did the US in the first place provide an already nuclear state(Israel) with cluster bombs? If the munitions didn�t comprise of cluster bombs but rather most sophisticated small nuclear tactical weapons with
a potential range of 20-30 km then all the more reason that answers are due. If however, as guessed by me the small nuclear tactical weapon was a neutron bomb which didn�t explode when used by Israel then the picture fits in. It explains United States anger with Israel on the irresponsible use of such a sophisticated device.
This also explains the current confirmation by Britain�s Defence Ministry of uranium isotopes in the samples of soil taken after Israeli bombing in Lebanon. The samples show �elevated� radiation signatures, suggesting that uranium based munitions were used. Why is the US now interested in making it public that Israel had in fact violated its agreement with the US restricting the use of such weapons? After all if the US provided these weapons to Israel, then Israel was meant to use them. So whats all the fuss about? Or is it that wrong weapons have fallen into the wrong hands? What if a terrorist organisation like Hezbollah has it? Who knows where and when these weapons may be used? But then who is responsible for this? Who has acted irresponsibly and made the world a more dangerous place? Of course, the United States only.