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US Removes Last of Saddam's Uranium From Iraq

US completes months-long mission to secure material

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted Jul 6, 2008 9:53 AM CDT
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(Newser) – A secret US mission to remove 550 metric tons of concentrated uranium known as “yellowcake” from Iraq came to a close yesterday as the material arrived in Canada, AP reports. In an operation that quelled concerns over the yellowcake falling into insurgency hands, 37 flights took the remainder of Saddam Hussein's nuclear program to a British territory in the Indian Ocean before it was shipped 8,500 miles to Montreal.

“Everyone is very happy to have this safely out of Iraq,” said a US official. Seeking a place to deposit the yellowcake, the Iraqi government found a buyer in a Canadian company, which bought the material for “tens of millions of dollars,” the official said. The company says it will use its purchase “to produce clean electricity.”

Jordanian Baathists pass by a huge poster of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at a demonstration in Amman, Dec. 29, 2007. The last major relic of Saddam's nuclear program has been shipped to Canada.
Jordanian Baathists pass by a huge poster of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein at a demonstration in Amman, Dec. 29, 2007. The last major relic of Saddam's nuclear program has been shipped to Canada.   (AP Photo/Nader Daoud)
In a Monday June 9, 2003 file photo, UN inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) work at the nuclear facility in Tuwaitha, Iraq, 50 kms east of Baghdad.
In a Monday June 9, 2003 file photo, UN inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) work at the nuclear facility in Tuwaitha, Iraq, 50 kms east of Baghdad.   (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)
Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein reacts in court in this 2006 file photo in Baghdad, Iraq.
Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein reacts in court in this 2006 file photo in Baghdad, Iraq.   (AP Photo)
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Uranium settles in Canada
Ottawa Citizen

 
Iraq • Saddam Hussein • Canada • nuclear weapons • uranium

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