US failed to remove weapon grade uranium due to Pak delaying tactics

Washington, Dec 1 (ANI): The United States failed to remove from Pakistan a stash of highly enriched uranium capable of providing enough material for multiple "dirty bombs".

The uranium has been waiting in Pakistan for removal by an American team for more than three years but has been held up by the Pakistani Government, according to leaked classified US State Department documents.

The WikiLeaks documents made available to a number of news outlets shows the US Government's struggles to work with Pakistan.

US Ambassador Anne Patterson wrote in a classified 2009 cable that the Pakistani government was dragging its feet in giving Americans access to remove the material left over from a decades-old reactor, the New York Times reported.

Pakistani officials told her that the potential for public outcry was part of their criteria for not moving quickly.

Reporters in the country would "certainly portray it as it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons," one official told Patterson.

In the cables, the Pakistani government's popularity and strength doesn't compare to that of its military and intelligence agency, the paper reported.

One cable quotes President Asif Ali Zardari telling Vice President Joe Biden that the military might "take me out". (ANI)