U.S. SPIRITS NUKE CACHE FROM EX-USSR REPUBLIC

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The United States today announced completion of a secret deal with Kazakhstan -- a one-time Soviet republic -- to transfer more than 1,000 pounds ofbomb-grade uraniumout of the Central Asian country and into a U.S. energy plant in Tennessee -- a move that U.S. officials said was reassuring amid a burgeoning black market for U.S.S.R. nuclear materials. "One more threat of nuclear terrorism and proliferation has been removed from the world," President Clinton said. Defense Secretary William Perry, who announced the deal, said the cache constituted enough to make about two dozen nuclear warheads. More than 30 U.S. engineers who flew into Kazakhstan undercover -- on a cargo plane carrying humanitarian aid -- worked day and night for six weeks to secure the material in 1,400 steel canisters. A member of the U.S. team, Alex Reidy, an arms control analyst for a branch of Martin Marietta that runs the Energy Department's storage facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn., said the material was quite accessible. "It does not take a great deal of sophistication to work with some of this material," he said, "so here was a real significant proliferation threat."Post your opinion on theInternationalbulletin board.