US Removes 550 Tons Of “Yellow Cake” Uranium From Iraq
ABC News
July 5, 2008
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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HMMM there was yellow cake there after all. I am sure that it must have been planted there by George W. and Cheney and Haliburton. Just had to be. At least that is what the Dems
and the drive by media will begin report.
Wonder how Hussein is going to flip-flop and spin this news?
July 5th, 2008 at 4:12 pmOh hell … Nothing to see here …
Does ANYONE else remember, besides me, shortly after we invaded Iraq our military sent out warnings to the Iraqi people NOT to use the cylindrical containers for storing food?
The ones that the Iraqi people had salvaged from wherever … that held YELLOW CAKE!!!???!!!???
July 5th, 2008 at 4:18 pmThat lying skunk Joe Wilson has cake crumbs on his shirt.
July 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pmI’m waiting to see how this will be spun. Hold on to your hats for a burst of creative spin-miestery.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:07 pm[…] More here […]
July 5th, 2008 at 5:07 pmI’ll tell you one thing this proves. If Cameco turns it into electricity, some of it could well be sold to the USA. And they said you were after oil!! It was electricity you wanted!!!! LOL!!!
July 5th, 2008 at 5:23 pmThis is the single biggest news story in the past several years, period–oddly enough broken on a Saturday during a holiday weekend and not on, say, a nice sunny Monday AM (imagine that).
So, with that said, it will be very interesting to see how this is spun/twisted/distorted by the usual suspects.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:29 pmSpeaking of Joe Wilson and cake crumbs, have any of you ever read this article by Hitch? Wowie ZahawieSorry everyone, but Iraq did go uranium shopping in Niger.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:33 pm“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 — ”
I am positively giddy reading this!
Woooohhhoooooo!
July 5th, 2008 at 5:41 pm…for some reason this story is not showing up on Twitter for PDYA. The other stories have.
July 5th, 2008 at 5:50 pmSo much for the “no WMD’s” theory. Add that item to the 500 barrels of Chem-Bio agents we found several years ago in Iraq.
It’s not a good day in libistan.
Oh, and fuck you Joe Wilson.
July 5th, 2008 at 6:23 pmI heard about this several years ago. I believe on this site. I have known there was over 500 tons of yellow cake in Iraq.
I wonder why the Bush administration sits on stories like this for years while taking a PR beating.
July 5th, 2008 at 7:15 pmThe article states that the yellow cake was there before 1991 Gulf war. That means Saddam only needed centrifuges to enrich it. They could be made for the aluminum tubes found after OIF began. I guess I’m just another Bible clutching Redneck, clinging to my conservative thinking?
July 5th, 2008 at 7:38 pm“Yellowcake doesn’t qualify as WMD” is probably the way they’ll spin it.
July 5th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Tom ,
July 5th, 2008 at 8:21 pmJust like the articles I have seen on the excessive amount of pesticides found at Iraqi military installations shortly after the the US routed the Saddams military. Pesticides easily converted to WMDs, but the MSM left that fact out.
this can’t be true,,,, i didn’t read about it in the newspaper or see it on cnn or msnbc… keith doberman never said anything about it…lies this is all lies…
July 5th, 2008 at 8:48 pmThe MSM will drag out the old mantra … “This is the most ’secretive administration … blah-blah-blah- … Cheney and Rove … blah-blah-blah … Waxman is demanding hearings to question key members of the administration … blah-blah-blah … What did Bush know and when did he know it? … blah-blah-blah … Worst Person In The World … oink-oink-oink …”
July 5th, 2008 at 8:54 pmYep, that’s what I was thinking…
“No war for oil!” will become “No war for Yellow Cake!”
“There were no WMD’s!” will become “I had no WMD’s with that woman!”
And
Obama will make a statement that “My Global ban on fissile materials did not include Yellow Cake because if I had been president Saddam would have complied!”
That’s what’s great about the Liberal position! It’s all about CHANGE! Changing the meaning of facts to meet their agenda that is…
July 5th, 2008 at 9:40 pmHere’s a detailed account from a former Soviet defector with inside knowledge of Russia’s involvement in Iraq’s wmd programs, and specifically removal of wmd’s.
The CIA also has documented transactions and breaches in procurement goods to Iraq here.
July 5th, 2008 at 9:40 pmSpin: WMD is not WMD.
I swear to God. The malcontents that shape the daily perception of our National condition so hate the country that they would rather see us all fail.
If we (The United States) were to suddenly fail, those exact self loathing non-Patriots would be the first to shriek of their new and ‘desired’ condition.
Its amazing that those squealing loudest for anarchy are those least prepared for it.
July 5th, 2008 at 10:32 pmIm guessing it doesnt taste like lemon cake?
July 5th, 2008 at 10:33 pmThanks… This will make a great read for some of those shit heads on my mailing list.
July 6th, 2008 at 4:16 amPat, this is one helluva site. Thanks so much for your work. And yes, I’ve already heard ‘yellowcake is not WMD’ and a few other things from the libtards and tinfoil hatters. The more information you give them, the more adamant they become that ‘Bush lied’.
When you take that WA Post article and show them that it was the RUSSIANS that started this whole no WMD’s in Iraq thing, it really flips them out. But no way will they stop their insane shrieking long enough to let the facts influence their thinking.
July 6th, 2008 at 7:29 am“declined to discuss the price, but said the yellowcake will be processed at facilities in Ontario for use in energy-producing reactors.”
and resailed to Pakistan
July 6th, 2008 at 8:03 amYou’re welcome, here’s another insightful op-ed by Pacepa (soviet defector) that highlights the KGB propaganda machine used during the Vietnam era, and how the Democrats have harnessed the same methods to fabricate war atrocities and lies to weaken and undermine American resolve. As we clearly see now with AQ in retreat and defeated, it’s the Dem’s who are the most invested agents of surrender and disinformation. They could never wholeheartedly support the troops with such agendas.
This is where tin-foil hatters don’t realize the extent to which they’ve been manipulated and convinced to hate their own country over and over, adnauseum.
Until they are upstanding, say their name aloud and admit their wrongful contempt for America - it’s then, they can begin to love the freest, bravest most generous and prosperous nation in all history again.
July 6th, 2008 at 10:00 amRussians helping Iraqis? Well maybe, because the whole Cold War was a joke of people playing both sides…but, of course there were WMD in Iraq. And who would know better than the men who shook hands with Saddam and gave him the weapons.
Rumsfeld.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/press.htm
http://www.rense.com/general35/rums.htm
July 6th, 2008 at 7:30 pmuh, funny, I thought it was France’s
July 7th, 2008 at 3:53 amSo here are some Liberal lines I am now dealing with regarding this story. It amazes me the amount of thought and energy that Libs put into denying the truth.
“Do people still continue to obfuscate the difference between pre-1991 activities and post-1991 activities? There are plenty of time lines around about this stuff. Handy things they are.”
“It is both pathetic and pathological how they continually prove us right,
while taking credit for proving us wrong.”
“They didn’t. Even the frontpagemag article you’ve got there that’s desperately trying to make a case they ignored it can’t. The press didn’t go very far into exactly what was known to be posessed by the IAEA, and the idea that they “lied” about 2 tons out of 1000 to prevent (what would they be preventing again?) is just silly. Terrible article from Horowitz’s bunch, one that relies on never stating the obvious- we didn’t hear much about it because it was already known and too esoteric to communicate effectively (which is what front page mag is trying to do- throw out enough information to obfuscate the point that they have nothing to argue about).”
July 7th, 2008 at 5:20 amThe vast majority of Saddam’s amassed munitions were Russian, Chinese and some French. Also Singapore, Egypt and India were the largest foreign sources of precursors for the procurement of chemical agents during Saddam’s dictatorship. Russia also trained Saddam’s forces in the use of chemical weapons warfare and supplied them with Russian made anti-chemical suits.
With regards to the tragic gassing of Kurds, it is well known to the Kurds in the north that Saddam used Russian Sukhoi-22 jets armed with Warsaw Pact-designed chemical warheads between 80-88. He also used specially fitted MIG and Sukhoi aircraft, plus French helicopters equipped with chemical sprayers to commit their heinous crimes upon the Kurds at Halabja and elsewhere.
- French and Russian oil and gas contracts worth 20 billion signed with the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq “will not be honored, the new Iraqi government should respect those who stood by us, and not those who stood beside the dictator.” Kurdish Prime Minister Barhim Salih said in Washington Friday. – March 14, 2003
It’s no coincidence that these same nations were vetoing the removal of Saddam’s Baath regime in the weeks prior to invasion. It’s also no coincidence that the specially fitted MIG jets and Russian designed FROG-7 missiles capable of delivering chemical munitions were the first targets to be destroyed by coalition forces.
Russia, China and India also happen to supply the majority of Iran’s chemical warfare stockpile and have for the last 30 odd years.
My simple question to libtards is, why is it so hard to accept that the USA is not responsible for atrocities committed BY Saddam’s regime, and that the removal of Saddam was a long held and welcomed desire of the Iraqi people?
July 7th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Steve Smith
July 7th, 2008 at 7:43 amRense.com as a source? Really? When are the MIB’s or black hellicopters going to show up?
RC
the arms that the Frenchs sold to Saddam were before the EMBARGO, so did almost the incrimined States, though the ones that carried on selling arms were effectively Russians Chineses…
Now there about 200 Cies from world wide that made different benefits on the “oil for food” autorisation. The french allegated one should be the bank “BNP Parisbas”, though thre isn’t evident proof ; one should investigate all the “paradisiac” banks, I am sure there are surprises to find there.
So, I Would say, all the western wellfared economies (y compris the US) wetted their hands “in a hidden way” in the merchandises trade “oil for food”, though that was as individualities, not as states : it is noticable and funny how suddenly the net spread in Egypt, Jordania… the deals went mostly through this new born technology for “pièces détachées”
That is how Saddam could get rechange pieces for his planes…
you could therefore find a candidate for the traffic anywhere in the world, cause saddam paid the “highest” price ; anyway, he hadn’t any other solution left.
So the crap that were launched against the French was mere neo “con” propaganda, (not a christian one ?)
July 7th, 2008 at 7:58 amFranchie,
I wasn’t singling out France, as you see I acknowledge the role of a quite a few nations..
I also don’t pretend to speak for the Kurdish PM either who I quote above.
The point I was making is that the US isn’t solely to blame for what happened during Saddam’s reign of terror on his own people - this happens to be a common held view of libtards, who seem to think that all or most of Iraq’s agony is due to the US. It’s utter nonsense and lacks all and any real objectivity, and especially today when the opposite sentiments ring true for many Iraqis who are openly grateful for all the US has done and continues to do.
The only unappreciative folk are defeatist surrender-monkey leftards, goat fucking mullahs and commie marxist pukes.. that’s one pathetic pansy assed losers club. Boo-fucking-hoo.
God Bless America, Iraqis and all allies!
July 7th, 2008 at 9:14 amRC, I made these precisions ; it wasn’t not clear for all the people that the frenchs weren’t guilty !
July 7th, 2008 at 10:07 am