The Brits have been looking at soil samples. UK Independent:

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”.

The soil sample from Khiam … was a piece of impacted red earth from an explosion; the isotope ratio was 108, indicative of the presence of enriched uranium.

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.”

Enriched uranium is bad for you (and it’s not the same thing as “depleted” uranium, which is bad enough:

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.

The best and worst case scenarios:

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.”

“A remarkably cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear waste products…” Don’t you just love that dry, dry British understatement?

So, was Israel testing the bunker busters Bush is going to use against Iran? Just asking…

We’re not the only one struck by an analogy between the war in Lebanon and the Spanish Civil war, which was a testing ground for weapons and tactics used in World War II:

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.

Do not adjust your set. This is only a test.