Defense Personnel Transport Uranium Ore Out of Iraq

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

July 7, 2008 - Defense personnel have completed the transfer of 550 metric tons of Iraqi uranium ore to Canada, Defense officials said here today. The Iraqi government asked the United States to help transfer the yellowcake -- as the ore is known -- from Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center near Baghdad to its buyer in Canada, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today.

The military dubbed the movement Operation McCall, and it ended July 5. DoD's portion of the operation involved the transfer of the ore.

Yellowcake is a uranium ore that can be processed to become nuclear fuel. State and Energy Department personnel also participated in the transfer.

Officials transferred the uranium by convoy from Tuwaitha nuclear research facility to a secure location in Baghdad's International Zone, Whitman said. The ore was in 110 shipping containers. The shipping containers were placed aboard Air Force C-17 Globemaster III airlifters and taken to an intermediate location. It took 37 sorties to transfer the yellowcake.

At the intermediate location -- which Whitman could not name -- the ore was loaded aboard the SS Gopher State, a Military Sealift Command ship, which took it to Montreal.

"This was material that was discovered when we initially went in to Tuwaitha," Whitman said. "It was under the control of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency since that time."

Whitman stressed that yellowcake is not of direct use in a nuclear weapon. "It is a commodity that is traded routinely in the global nuclear energy sector," he said. "It can be used as a feed material for nuclear weapons if a country has access to the necessary fuel technology."

The cost of the transfer was $70 million, and the government of Iraq will reimburse the United States for a portion of the cost, Whitman said.