NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS
July 9,
2008: In a secret operation, Canada
completed the movement of 550 tons Iraqi uranium oxide, from Iraq to Canada.
The Canadians will process the uranium oxide into fuel for nuclear power
plants. The U.S. did most of the work to transport the 3,500 barrels of uranium
oxide from Iraq, to Diego Garcia island in the Indian Ocean, and then, via a
U.S. merchant ship, to Montreal, Canada.
The
uranium oxide was what remained of Saddam's original 1980s nuclear program, the
one that was halted by an Israeli air raid in 1981, which destroyed the Iraqi
nuclear reactor. The uranium oxide has been in storage ever since, and was
checked by UN inspectors after the 1991 war. If further refined, the Iraqi
uranium oxide could produce enough weapons grade uranium for over 100 nuclear
bombs.
Uranium
oxide is produced by refining tons of dirt (ore) containing uranium to produce
"yellowcake" (uranium oxide.) To do this, the dirt is crushed and bathed in
sulfuric acid, dried and filtered to produce a yellowish powder, which is where
the term "yellowcake" came from.
The
yellowcake must then be processed further, using anhydrous hydrogen fluoride
and fluorine gas, to form Uranium Hexafluoride. This stuff, while not very
radioactive, is nasty and must be kept in air tight containers. If Uranium
Hexafluoride gets in contact with water, if forms poisonous and corrosive
gasses. Uranium Hexafluoride is used to obtain, via some more rather tricky
refining, the highly radioactive Uranium 238 and
Uranium 235
material that can be used in nuclear
power plants and nuclear bombs.
Yellowcake
is not very radioactive, a bit more so than the granite commonly used as a
building material (and not considered a health hazard.) However, because
yellowcake is a powder, it can easily be inhaled. This is dangerous in the long
term. Even workers in uranium mines developed higher rates of cancer years
later because they inhaled the dirt containing uranium.
Saddam
never developed the engineering capability to build the plants to refine
yellowcake into Uranium 238. He would have done so eventually, just as the
Iranians are doing right now.
