US removes uranium from Iraq

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AP Exclusive: US removes uranium from Iraq

By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer 53 minutes ago

The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program — a huge
stockpile of concentrated natural uranium — reached a Canadian port
Saturday to complete a secret U.S. operation that included a two-week
airlift from Baghdad and a ship voyage crossing two oceans.

The removal of 550 metric tons of "yellowcake" — the seed material for
higher-grade nuclear enrichment — was a significant step toward closing
the books on Saddam's nuclear legacy. It also brought relief to U.S. and
Iraqi authorities who had worried the cache would reach insurgents or
smugglers crossing to Iran to aid its nuclear ambitions.

What's now left is the final and complicated push to clean up the
remaining radioactive debris at the former Tuwaitha nuclear complex
about 12 miles south of Baghdad — using teams that include Iraqi experts
recently trained in the Chernobyl fallout zone in Ukraine.

"Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq," said a senior
U.S. official who outlined the nearly three-month operation to The
Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because
of the sensitivity of the subject.

While yellowcake alone is not considered potent enough for a so-called
"dirty bomb" — a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive
material — it could stir widespread panic if incorporated in a blast.
Yellowcake also can be enriched for use in reactors and, at higher
levels, nuclear weapons using sophisticated equipment.

The Iraqi government sold the yellowcake to a Canadian uranium producer,
Cameco Corp., in a transaction the official described as worth "tens of
millions of dollars." A Cameco spokesman, Lyle Krahn, declined to
discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at
facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.

"We are pleased ... that we have taken (the yellowcake) from a volatile
region into a stable area to produce clean electricity," he said.

The deal culminated more than a year of intense diplomatic and military
initiatives — kept hushed in fear of ambushes or attacks once the
convoys were under way: first carrying 3,500 barrels by road to Baghdad,
then on 37 military flights to the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia
and finally aboard a U.S.-flagged ship for a 8,500-mile trip to Montreal.

And, in a symbolic way, the mission linked the current attempts to
stabilize Iraq with some of the high-profile claims about Saddam's
weapons capabilities in the buildup to the 2003 invasion.

Accusations that Saddam had tried to purchase more yellowcake from the
African nation of Niger — and an article by a former U.S. ambassador
refuting the claims — led to a wide-ranging probe into Washington leaks
that reached high into the Bush administration.

Tuwaitha and an adjacent research facility were well known for decades
as the centerpiece of Saddam's nuclear efforts.

Israeli warplanes bombed a reactor project at the site in 1981. Later,
U.N. inspectors documented and safeguarded the yellowcake, which had
been stored in aging drums and containers since before the 1991 Gulf
War. There was no evidence of any yellowcake dating from after 1991, the
official said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 23,000-acre site — surrounded by
huge sand berms — following a wave of looting after Saddam's fall that
included villagers toting away yellowcake storage barrels for use as
drinking water cisterns.

Yellowcake is obtained by using various solutions to leach out uranium
from raw ore and can have a corn meal-like color and consistency. It
poses no severe risk if stored and sealed properly. But exposure carries
well-documented health concerns associated with heavy metals such as
damage to internal organs, experts say.

"The big problem comes with any inhalation of any of the yellowcake
dust," said Doug Brugge, a professor of public health issues at the
Tufts University School of Medicine.

Moving the yellowcake faced numerous hurdles.

Diplomats and military leaders first weighed the idea of shipping the
yellowcake overland to Kuwait's port on the Persian Gulf. Such a route,
however, would pass through Iraq's Shiite heartland and within easy
range of extremist factions, including some that Washington claims are
aided by Iran. The ship also would need to clear the narrow Strait of
Hormuz at the mouth of the Gulf, where U.S. and Iranian ships often come
in close contact.

Kuwaiti authorities, too, were reluctant to open their borders to the
shipment despite top-level lobbying from Washington.

An alternative plan took shape: shipping out the yellowcake on cargo planes.

But the yellowcake still needed a final destination. Iraqi government
officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices
spiked at about $120 per pound last year. It's currently selling for
about half that. The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year, the
official said.

At that point, U.S.-led crews began removing the yellowcake from the
Saddam-era containers — some leaking or weakened by corrosion — and
reloading the material into about 3,500 secure barrels.

In April, truck convoys started moving the yellowcake from Tuwaitha to
Baghdad's international airport, the official said. Then, for two weeks
in May, it was ferried in 37 flights to Diego Garcia, a speck of British
territory in the Indian Ocean where the U.S. military maintains a base.

On June 3, an American ship left the island for Montreal, said the
official, who declined to give further details about the operation.

The yellowcake wasn't the only dangerous item removed from Tuwaitha.

Earlier this year, the military withdrew four devices for controlled
radiation exposure from the former nuclear complex. The lead-enclosed
irradiation units, used to decontaminate food and other items, contain
elements of high radioactivity that could potentially be used in a
weapon, according to the official. Their Ottawa-based manufacturer, MDS
Nordion, took them back for free, the official said.

The yellowcake was the last major stockpile from Saddam's nuclear
efforts, but years of final cleanup is ahead for Tuwaitha and other
smaller sites.

The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency plans to offer technical
expertise.

Last month, a team of Iraqi nuclear experts completed training in the
Ukrainian ghost town of Pripyat, which once housed the Chernobyl workers
before the deadly meltdown in 1986, said an IAEA official who spoke on
condition of anonymity because the decontamination plan has not yet been
publicly announced.

But the job ahead is enormous, complicated by digging out radioactive
"hot zones" entombed in concrete during Saddam's rule, said the IAEA
official. Last year, an IAEA safety expert, Dennis Reisenweaver,
predicted the cleanup could take "many years."

The yellowcake issue also is one of the many troubling footnotes of the
war for Washington.

A CIA officer, Valerie Plame, claimed her identity was leaked to
journalists to retaliate against her husband, former Ambassador Joe
Wilson, who wrote that he had found no evidence to support assertions
that Iraq tried to buy additional yellowcake from Niger.

A federal investigation led to the conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of
perjury and obstruction of justice.

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