Quote:
Originally Posted by ProfessorMurder
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.
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
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.
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.
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Would it be possible to quote the source??
We know Cameco oh too well!!
I know exactly where the shipment of 'yellowcake' that is destined to Montrιal then to Ontario will go! (Chalk River)
I wonder which method they used to transport the 3,500 barrels to Bagdad..........(hum an sacrife?)
The tailings too............how are they being contained?
hmmm.........Where is that Uranium deposit?
Thanks for this information!