Niger's Security on Uranium
Shipments Under Scrutiny

Several times a week, a convoy of flatbed trucks loaded with drums of mined uranium heads south from Niger's Sahara Desert on a 10-day journey to the port of Cotonou in neighboring Benin.

Two lightly armed Nigerien gendarmes accompany the tarp-covered trucks on their 1.240 mile trip. They have no cell phones or other ways to communicate in case of trouble. On their prearragned stops for the night the drivers must notify the mining companies, but they take no special precautions to secure the drums against theft.

This low quality security for the powder that can be processed into high-grade uranium for nuclear bombs provides a view of how the world's second poorest country manages radioactive materials. Since the Bush administration accused Iraq of trying to buy uranium here, closer observation has been given to the security of uranium shipments.

A U.N. nuclear agency team plans to visit Niger in the next few months, in an attempt to speed government approval of an agreement that would permit in-depth monitoring of uranium exports.

Without this safeguards agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency can't require Niger to tighten security and has no authority to inspect production or shipments.

Niger produces what is called yellowcake - lightly processed uranium, the raw material for enriched uranium used as fuel for nuclear reactors, or the guts of an atomic bomb.

Despite worldwide fears that terrorist or so-called rogue nations could acquire ingredients of a bomb, the U.N. agency doesn't see Niger as a major risk.

Spokesman for the Agency, Mark Gwozdecky said that Niger's yellowcake "would require considerable conversion and processing to be useable for nuclear weapons." He went on to say that "We don't start tracking this stuff until it's in a form suitable for reactor fuel."

The IAEA relies on the governments of countries that import uranium shipments from Niger to report them as obligated under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.