Chile sent weapons grade uranium, to become nuclear fuel for USA

The Associated Press documented the transfer, agreeing to keep the details secret until the material arrived safely in the United States.

The mission will be the first of many if Obama is to keep his promise.

Chile gives its last weapons-grade uranium to US By MICHAEL WARREN and MEG KINNARD (AP) – Google News Hostimg 12 April The Associated Press: Chile gives its last weapons-grade uranium to US.…..”It” is highly enriched uranium 235, HEU for short. It’s the material that most worries anti-terrorism experts. Just 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of it in a nuclear bomb could devastate an entire city, in the same way the United States destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

President Barack Obama’s major shift in U.S. nuclear strategy puts a new emphasis on securing this kind of weapons-grade nuclear material……Obama has proposed a 68 percent increase in the Global Threat Reduction Initiative’s budget to $559 million next year, to recover more HEU and fight smuggling of nuclear material by strengthening border controls and port security. But the U.S. needs extensive cooperation from other nations to get the job done……

Chile was among the first to agree to surrender its last HEU, 18 kilograms (40 pounds) it got from Britain and France for its two research reactors. A team of Americans finally shipped it out last month just after the country’s massive earthquake, weaving a convoy of trucks around shattered highways in the middle of the night to reach a functioning port.

The Associated Press documented the transfer, agreeing to keep the details secret until the material arrived safely in the United States.

The mission will be the first of many if Obama is to keep his promise.

The Associated Press: Chile gives its last weapons-grade uranium to US