Yellow cake in Montreal…
The last major remnant of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program, a huge stockpile of concentrated natural uranium, reached Montreal on Saturday to complete a top-secret U.S. operation.
The removal of 550 metric tonnes of “yellowcake,” the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment, included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a voyage across two oceans.
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, 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,” Krahn said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 9,300-hectare yellowcake site since its discovery.
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.
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.
I like pie…