Iraq's Yellowcake

Yellowcake From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Yellowcake Other names urania Properties Molecular formula U3O8 Density 2.055 g/cm3, solid Melting point 2878°C Except where noted otherwise, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 °C, 100 kPa) Infobox disclaimer and references Yellowcakes (also called urania) are uranium concentrates obtained from leach solutions. They represent an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores. Typically yellowcakes are obtained through the milling and chemical processing of uranium ore forming a coarse powder which is insoluble in water and contains about 80% uranium oxide and which melts at approximately 2878°C. The ore is first crushed to a fine powder by passing raw uranium ore through crushers and grinders to produce "pulped" ore. This is further processed with concentrated acid, alkaline, or peroxide solutions to leach out the uranium. Yellowcake is what remains after drying and filtering. The yellowcake produced by most modern mills is actually brown or black, not yellow; the name comes from the colour and texture of the concentrates produced by early mining operations. Initially, the compounds formed in yellowcakes were not identified; in 1970, the U.S. Bureau of Mines still referred to yellowcakes as the final precipitate formed in the milling process and considered it to be ammonium diuranate or sodium diuranate. The compositions were variable and depended upon the leachant and subsequent precipitating conditions. Among the compounds identified in yellowcakes include: uranyl hydroxide, uranyl sulfate, sodium para-uranate, and uranyl peroxide, along with various uranium oxides. Modern yellowcake typically contains 70 to 90 percent triuranium octoxide (U3O8) by weight. (Other uranium oxides, such as uranium dioxide (UO2) and uranium trioxide (UO3), exist) Yellowcake is used in the preparation of fuel for nuclear reactors, where it is processed into purified UO2 for use in fuel rods for PHWR and other systems using unenriched uranium. It may also be enriched, by being converted to uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6), by isotope separation through gaseous diffusion or in a gas centrifuge to produce enriched uranium suitable for use in weapons and reactors. Yellowcake is produced by all countries in which uranium is mined

What more can I say? Bush is a liar.  We went to war on a lie.  Our soldiers died because of a lie.  Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction.  Joe Wilson, Husband of Valerie Plame, returned from Africa to tell the world that Saddam wasn't trying to buy Yellow Cake from Niger.  Valerie Plame, who had not been a CIA field agent for over 6 years, but she was "outed" by Scooter Libby.  Bush Lied.  Will you liberals EVER get it right?  Will you EVER tell the truth?  Or will you continue to distort history and continue to weaken America for your own political agenda? Shame on the mainstream media for never reporting this story.  Shame on all of you for destroying my country. 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium worth tens of millions of dollars were shipped out of Iraq to Canada. The material was transported in 37 military flights in 3,500 secure barrels, according to the Associated Press. Click to enlarge image Jacob Silberberg/AP SADDAM HUSSEIN There hasn't been much of a fuss about this material because it had been discovered already by United Nations inspectors after the first Gulf War. But it took a second American war in Iraq to move the material out of the Middle East. For all the talk about America's failure to discover Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, this is a big deal. We've reported on claims by top Israeli officials speaking on the record that Iraq smuggled its chemical weapons to Syria before America invaded in 2003. The uranium issue is not a trivial one, because Iraq, sitting on vast oil reserves, has no peaceful need for nuclear power. Saddam Hussein had already invaded Kuwait, launched missiles into Israeli cities, and harbored a terrorist group, the PKK, hostile to America's NATO ally, Turkey. To leave this nuclear material sitting around the Middle East in the hands of Saddam and the same corrupt United Nations that failed to stop the genocide in Darfur and was guilty of the oil-for-food scandal would have been too big a risk. From the beginning we have called for making the Iraq War a case study in democratization rather than disarmament, realizing that nuclear weapons, like any other weapons, are only dangerous in the hands of outlaws. Iraq's government is no longer hostile to America. It is grateful to us for freeing them from Saddam, who would rather spend money on palaces and yellowcake than on feeding the Iraqi people. But should America retreat prematurely from Iraq and a hostile regime again take hold there, we all will be safer for the act that 550 tons of nuclear fuel are now being put to peaceful use in Canada rather than being stored a few miles from Baghdad