TUWAITHA, June 24: Environmentalists presented US forces in Iraq with what they said was a looted radioactive canister on Tuesday and slammed the occupiers for leaving more radioactive material at large.

The campaigners from Greenpeace handed over a large, abandoned canister of “yellow cake” — low-enriched uranium peroxide powder used as raw material for radioactive fuel.

They also took journalists to a metal container they said was giving off levels of radiation 10,000 times above normal found in the ramshackle home of a labourer and his family.

Looters plundered the Tuwaitha nuclear complex in the chaotic aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s toppling by US forces in April. —Reuters