Uranium Missing From Iraq Plant, Report Says

At least 22 pounds of uranium compounds may be missing from a looted Iraqi plant, said a report from U.N. nuclear inspectors obtained Tuesday. But they said the material couldn’t be used to make nuclear weapons.

The report from the International Atomic Energy Agency said the vast majority of uranium feared stolen from Iraq’s largest nuclear research facility at Tuwaitha after Iraqi troops fled on the eve of the U.S.-led war had been recovered, though it gave no figure.

The Tuwaitha facility was thought to contain hundreds of tons of natural uranium and nearly 2 tons of low-enriched uranium, which could be further processed for weapons use.

The IAEA report said the missing uranium compounds may have been dispersed as dust or particles when looters emptied about 200 containers at Tuwaitha, which has not operated for more than a decade.

“The quantity and type of uranium compounds dispersed are not sensitive from a proliferation point of view,” IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei said in the report to the U.N. Security Council.

The nuclear material at the Tuwaitha facility, about 15 miles south of Baghdad, had been monitored and inspected by the IAEA until the U.S.-led war.

But the facility was left unguarded after Iraqi troops fled the area. Looters stripped the facility of uranium storage barrels they later used to hold drinking water. The U.S.-led interim administration in Iraq allowed the IAEA to send a team last month to secure the uranium.

The assessment that almost all the uranium is accounted for is likely to allay concerns that looters specifically went after uranium to possibly use it for nuclear weapons, or that it fell into the wrong hands.