No conclusions are reached, but if Israel is using a new uranium weapon, it would be a very distressing development. From John Helmer and Christopher Busby at johnhelmer.net:
The neutron bomb was invented in 1958 by Samuel Cohen (lead image, left) of the Livermore Laboratory of California and then RAND.
In 1984 he proposed that Israel construct a neutron radiation wall around the country. “What I am suggesting is the construction of a border barrier whose most effective component is an extremely intense field of nuclear radiation (produced by the operation of underground nuclear reactors), sharply confined to the barrier zone, which practically guarantees the death of anyone attempting to breach the barrier. Establishing such a ‘nuclear wall’ at the borders of a threatened country can make virtually impossible any successful penetration by ground forces – as well as a preemptive ground attack by the threatened country.”
Cohen, who described himself as an “unbelieving Jew”, believed that by creating this radiation barrier around Israel, no Arab state army would attack. He also believed that by deterring that form of escalation, Cohen’s neutron wall would be protecting the US because, in the end, Cohen believed the US would abandon Israel to its fate if the US were threatened directly. “If the Soviets intrude again in an Arab-Israeli war, “ Cohen wrote, “this time with vastly improved nuclear capabilities to back up their actions, the survival of the United States would be at stake. Clearly this is a situation where it would be irrational—indeed, intolerable—for us to remain committed to Israel. Clearly, the most responsible thing the United States can do, to ensure its own security, is to make drastic changes in its military assistance to Israel (and to other Mideast countries as well) to prevent such a situation from ever arising. Otherwise, based on the wretched history of this turbulent arena, there is every reason to expect that one of these days a nuclear showdown will arise.”
What Cohen was proposing was a neutron bomb to be deployed by Israel except that, because there was no detonation, no explosion, he claimed there was no neutron bomb.
