Nearly two tons of uranium and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb have been removed from Iraq , the US Energy Department said today.
The nuclear material was secured from Iraq 's former nuclear research facility and airlifted out of the country in a secret operation last month to an undisclosed Energy Department laboratory for further analysis, the department said.
Energy Secretary Mr Spencer Abraham described the previously undisclosed operation as "a major achievement" in an attempt to "keep potentially dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists".
The haul included a "huge range" of radioactive items used for medical and industrial purposes, said Mr Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Much of the material "was in powdered form, which is easily dispersed", said Mr Wilkes.
Few details about the material were provided, but the department "roughly 1,000 highly radioactive sources" that "could potentially be used in a radiological dispersal device", were removed in the airlift.
The material had been used in Iraq for a range of medical and industrial purposes, such as testing oil wells and pipelines. Uranium is not suitable for making a dirty bomb but some of the other radioactive material - including cesium-137, colbalt-60 and strontium - could have been valuable to a terrorist.
AP