BUYING RUSSIAN URANIUM: PROFITS OVER SECURITY?

U.S. Enrichment Corp., the government-owned corporation charged in 1993 with buying and reselling as civilian nuclear reactor fuel much of Russia’s military stockpile of uranium, may be putting its own financial interests ahead of U.S. national security. According to a report in yesterday’s New York Times, USEC this year has repeatedly refused to buy the Russian uranium, which costs more than the American uranium that the corporation is also permitted to buy and resell to utilities. The company’s behavior has led U.S. senator Pete Domenici to charge that "USEC is acting directly contrary to the national security interests of the United States." The issue of the company’s motives is further complicated by the fact that USEC is scheduled to be sold to private investors, perhaps as early as this winter. That transfer reportedly still enjoys strong support both in the White House and among congressional Republicans, but it has increased concern that USEC executives will be looking first to profits rather than to the less lucrative national security goal of stopping nuclear proliferation. (The New York Times, AP, August 28)

Azerbaijan-Iran Ambivalence.