US removes uranium from Iraq
July 6, 2008 (AP) 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.