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500 Tons of Uranium Shipped from Iraq, Pentagon Says * Story Highlights * Pentagon: U.S. secretly shipped Iraq's low-grade uranium dating back to Hussein era * Officials: U.S. military spent $70 million for the transport of materials to Canada * "Yellowcake" uranium transfer was requested by the Iraqi government. From Brianna Keilar and Larry Shaughnessy CNN WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States secretly shipped out of Iraq more than 500 tons of low-grade uranium dating back to the Saddam Hussein era, the Pentagon said Monday. The U.S. military spent $70 million ensuring the safe transportation of 550 metric tons of the uranium from Iraq to Canada, said Pentagon spokesman Brian Whitman. The shipment, which until recently was kept secret, involved a U.S. truck convoy, 37 cargo flights out of Baghdad to a transitional location, and then a transoceanic voyage on board a U.S.-government-owned ship designed to carry troops to a war zone, he said. The "yellowcake" uranium transfer was requested by the Iraqi government at the encouragement of the U.S. government, Whitman said. The United States approached Canadian company Cameco to bid for the material, according Cameco spokesman Lyle Krahn. He would not disclose the winning bid amount. Krahn admitted that this was not a "routine transaction," but he said the agreement was approved by the Canadian government and was carefully monitored. The undertaking, named "Operation McCall" by Pentagon officials, was in the planning stages for months and was completed Saturday after the material had been in transit for weeks, according to Whitman. He said yellowcake uranium is a commonly traded commodity used for nuclear power generation. It is not enriched and cannot be used without first going through a complicated enrichment process, he said, but because of the unstable nature of Iraq, the United States and the Iraqi government decided it should be moved out of that country. Iraq has no nuclear power generating plants. The uranium was packed into 110 shipping containers moved by convoy from a facility in Tuwaitha, Iraq, about 12 miles south of Baghdad. The containers were first moved to the secure International Zone in central Baghdad and then to Baghdad International Airport, where thery were loaded onto C-17 cargo planes. It took 37 flights to move the shipping containers out of Iraq to a "third country," Whitman said. A Pentagon official who asked not to be named said that third country was Diego Garcia, a British territory in the Indian Ocean where the United Kingdom and the United States operate a joint military base. From that third country, Whitman said, the containers were loaded onto the SS Gopher State, a U.S.-owned crane ship normally used to haul equipment in and out of war zones. The ship carried the uranium to Canada, where it was bought by Cameco, a private firm. The uranium will be sent by truck to two processing plants in Ontario, Krahn said. Once it has been enriched for energy use it will be sold to power plant operators, he said. The United States is Cameco's largest customer, Krahn said, but he did not specify if the Iraq yellowcake would ultimately end up in the United States. Whitman said the Department of Defense's cost of securing and transporting the uranium from Tuwaitha to Canada was $70 million, and the government of Iraq had agreed in principal to reimburse the United States for part of that cost. He said he could not say how much Iraq intends to repay the United States..

Iraqis Lead Final Purge of Al-Qaeda Marie Colvin in Mosul American and Iraqi forces are driving Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of its last redoubt in the north of the country in the culmination of one of the most spectacular victories of the war on terror. After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul. A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10. Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects. The group has been reduced to hit-and-run attacks, including one that killed two off-duty policemen yesterday, and sporadic bombings aimed at killing large numbers of officials and civilians. Last Friday I joined the 2nd Iraqi Division as it supported local police in a house-to-house search for one such bomb after intelligence pointed to a large explosion today. Even in the district of Zanjali, previously a hotbed of the insurgency, it was possible to accompany an Iraqi colonel on foot through streets of breeze-block houses studded with bullet holes. Hundreds of houses were searched without resistance but no bomb was found, only 60kg of explosives. American and Iraqi leaders believe that while it would be premature to write off Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Sunni group has lost control of its last urban base in Mosul and its remnants have been largely driven into the countryside to the south. Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, who has also led a crackdown on the Shi’ite Mahdi Army in Basra and Baghdad in recent months, claimed yesterday that his government had “defeated” terrorism. “They were intending to besiege Baghdad and control it,” Maliki said. “But thanks to the will of the tribes, security forces, army and all Iraqis, we defeated them.” The number of foreign fighters coming over the border from Syria to bolster Al-Qaeda’s numbers is thought to have declined to as few as 20 a month, compared with 120 a month at its peak. Brigadier General Abdullah Abdul, a senior Iraqi commander, said: “We’ve limited their movements with check-points. They are doing small attacks and trying big ones, but they’re mostly not succeeding.” Major-General Mark Hertling, American commander in the north, said: “I think we’re at the irreversible point.”.

New Military Hospital Ward for Injured Soldiers Is To Be Built, The Ministry of Defence Has Announced Defence Under Secretary Derek Twigg announced the plans during a visit to the site of the proposed ward at a new hospital in Birmingham. Birmingham New Hospital, set to open in 2010, will be part of the University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, which manages the city's Selly Oak Hospital where the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM) is based. Speaking from the construction site of the new hospital, Mr Twigg said the new ward would be a "magnificent addition". He said: "We are immensely grateful for all that our defence medical staff do. What I'd like to say today is how magnificent the NHS has been in making sure our injured service personnel receive first class care and our staff have the training they need when they go to Afghanistan and Iraq to save life and limb. We are grateful for the care and attention given by the NHS staff. This partnership with the NHS has been crucial to us. They key thing today of course is seeing the new hospital. This ward will be a magnificent addition to the services we already have. We can also make sure that as a military wing we can separate it out from the rest of the hospital if that is what is required."

Betancourt Rescued As Rebels Fooled Colombian spies have tricked leftist rebels into handing over kidnapped presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three US military contractors in a daring helicopter rescue so successful that not a single shot was fired. Ms Betancourt, who was seized on the campaign trail six years ago, appeared thin but surprisingly healthy as she strode down the stairs of a military plane and held her mother in a long embrace. "God, this is a miracle," Ms Betancourt said. "Such a perfect operation is unprecedented." Eleven Colombian police and soldiers were also freed in the most serious blow ever dealt to the 44-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which considered the four hostages their most valuable bargaining chips. The FARC is already reeling from the deaths of key commanders and the loss of much of the territory it once held. The Americans -- Marc Gonsalves, Thomas Howes and Keith Stansell -- were flown directly to the United States to reunite with their families and undergo tests and treatment at Brooke Army Medical Centre in San Antonio, Texas. Nowhere in the world have American hostages currently in captivity been held longer, according to the US Embassy in Bogota. Colombian defence minister Juan Manuel Santos said military intelligence agents infiltrated the guerrilla ranks and led the local commander in charge of the hostages to believe they were going to take them to Alfonso Cano, the guerrillas' supreme leader. The hostages were taken to a rendezvous where two disguised MI-17 helicopters - piloted by Colombian military agents - were waiting. Ms Betancourt said only when they were airborne was she told the truth - that they were free. "The helicopter almost fell from the sky because we were jumping up and down, yelling, crying, hugging one another. We couldn't believe it.".

My Heart on the Line By Frank Schaeffer The Washington Post A GOOD READ Before my son became a Marine, I never thought much about who was defending me. Now when I read of the war on terrorism or the coming conflict in Iraq , it cuts to my heart. When I see a picture of a member of our military who has been killed, I read his or her name very carefully. Sometimes I cry. In 1999, when the barrel-chested Marine recruiter showed up in dress blues and bedazzled my son John, I did not stand in the way. John was headstrong, and he seemed to understand these stern, clean men with straight backs and flawless uniforms. I did not. I live in the Volvo-driving, higher education- worshiping North Shore of Boston. I write novels for a living. I have never served in the military. It had been hard enough sending my two older children off to Georgetown and New York University . John's enlisting was unexpected, so deeply unsettling. I did not relish the prospect of answering the question, "So where is John going to college?" from the parents who were itching to tell me all about how their son or daughter was going to Harvard. At the private high school John attended, no other students were going into the military. "But aren't the Marines terribly Southern?" asked one perplexed mother while standing next to me at the brunch following graduation. "What a waste, he was such a good student," said another parent. One parent (a professor at a nearby and rather famous university) spoke up at a school meeting and suggested that the school should "carefully evaluate what went wrong." When John graduated from three months of boot camp on Parris Island, 3,000 parents and friends were on the parade deck stands. We parents and our Marines not only were of many races but also were representative of many economic classes. Many were poor. Some arrived crammed in the backs of pickups, others by bus. John told me that a lot of parents could not afford the trip. We in the audience were white and Native American. We were Hispanic, Arab and African American and Asian. We were former Marines wearing the scars of battle, or at least baseball caps emblazoned with battles' names. We were Southern whites from Nashville and skinheads from New Jersey, black kids from Cleveland wearing ghetto rags and white ex-cons with ham-hock forearms defaced by jailhouse tattoos. We would not have been mistaken for the educated and well-heeled parents gathered on the lawns of John's private school a half-year before. After graduation one new Marine told John, "Before I was a Marine, if I had ever seen you on my block I would've probably killed you just because you were standing there." This was a serious statement from one of John's good friends, an African American ex-gang member from Detroit who, as John said, "would die for me now, just like I'd die for him." My son has connected me to my country in a way that I was too selfish and insular to experience before. I feel closer to the waitress at our local diner than to some of my oldest friends. She has two sons in the Corps. They are facing the same dangers as my boy. When the guy who fixes my car asks me how John is doing, I know he means it. His younger brother is in the Navy. Why were I and the other parents at my son's private school so surprised by his choice? During World War II, the sons and daughters of the most powerful and educated families did their bit. If the idea of the immorality of the Vietnam War was the only reason those lucky enough to go to college dodged the draft, why did we not encourage our children to volunteer for military service once that war was done? Have we wealthy and educated Americans all become pacifists? Is the world a safe place? Or have we just gotten used to having somebody else defend us? What is the future of our democracy when the sons and daughters of the janitors at our elite universities are far more likely to be put in harm's way than are any of the students whose dorms their parents clean? I feel shame because it took my son's joining the Marine Corps to make me take notice of who is defending me. I feel hope because perhaps my son is part of a future "greatest generation." As the storm clouds of war gather, at least I know that I can look the men and women in uniform in the eye. My son is one of them. He is the best I have to offer. He is my heart.

Gurkhas Lose Pension Court Battle Three ex-Gurkha soldiers have lost a High Court challenge to the British government over a pensions deal. Kumar Shrestha, Kamal Purja and Sambahadur Gurung said they had been treated unlawfully and unfairly. They said years of service for Gurkhas who signed up before July 1997 but retired after that date were valued at between 24% and 36% of British rates. But Mr Justice Ouseley ruled that the Ministry of Defence's pension valuation had been "justified and proportionate". Medical Grounds The court battle followed an offer by the MoD in March 2007 to transfer Gurkhas' pensions from the existing Gurkha Pension Scheme (GPS) into one of the mainstream Armed Forces Pension Schemes (AFPS). The three men involved in bringing the case argued that the deal discriminated against them on the grounds of age. Gurkhas, who come from Nepal, have served in the British army for more than 200 years and have won 13 Victoria crosses. Solicitor Philippa Tuckman, of law firm Bolt Burdon Kemp, who represented the three men, said she was "saddened" by the result and intended to appeal. She added that a Gurkha who retired in 2007 on medical grounds with 17 years' service would receive £4,650 a year, but a British soldier in the same position would be given about £6,400. "Gurkhas have served in theatres of war, in danger and in hardship," she said. "They should be valued for it, not penalised." At the time of the deal, ministers argued that satisfying the demands of all former Gurkhas would be "unaffordable" and have ramifications throughout the public sector. Following the judgement, an MoD spokesman said: "The Ministry of Defence welcomes the ruling, which confirms that the recent pensions transfer offer to serving and eligible retired Gurkhas was fair and reasonable." He added that the transfer offer had been taken up by almost all serving Gurkhas, and that 73% of eligible retired Gurkhas had switched to the AFPS. The Brigade of Gurkhas is based at Shorncliffe, near Folkestone, Kent, although one infantry battalion has its barracks in Brunei. The brigade was stationed in Hong Kong until the former British colony was given back to China in 1997..