Project Sapphire

Not to be confused with the Metropolitan Police Service's Project Sapphire—see also Sexual violence in the United Kingdom.

Project Sapphire was a successful 1994 covert operation of the United States government to remove 1,278 pounds (581 kilos) of weapons-grade enriched uranium for Alfa class submarines (enough to build over 1,000 nuclear weapons) from a warehouse at the Ulba Metallurgical Plant outside Ust-Kamenogorsk in the former Soviet republic of far eastern Kazakhstan, with the assistance of that country's government, in order to prevent nuclear proliferation.

See also

• Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction—the source of the funds for Project Sapphire

References

• Hoffman, David E. (September 21, 2009). "Half a Ton of Uranium -- and a Long Flight". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/09/20/ST2009092002315.html.  (Part of a series: "The Dead Hand". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/the-dead-hand/index.html. )

Further reading

• Hoffman, David E. (2009). "Chapter 21: Project Sapphire". The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. New York: Doubleday. pp. 439–458. ISBN 0385524374. OCLC 320432478. http://books.google.com/books?id=JQGHqScEFtoC&pg=PA439#v=onepage&q=&f=false. 
• Carter, Ashton B.; William J. Perry (1999). "Chapter 2: Project Sapphire, the Nunn-Lugar Program, and Arms Control". Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press. pp. 65–91. ISBN 081571307X. OCLC 237337170. http://books.google.com/books?id=IWKa4BLJ8WIC&pg=PA65&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=9#v=onepage&f=false.