BAGHDAD — American and Iraqi officials have completed nearly the last chapter in dismantling Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program with the removal of hundreds of tons of natural uranium from the country’s main nuclear site.

The uranium, which was removed several weeks ago, arrived in Canada over the weekend, according to officials. The removal was first reported by The Associated Press.

Although the material cannot be used in its current form for a nuclear weapon or even a so-called dirty bomb, officials decided that in Iraq’s unstable environment, it was important to make sure it did not fall into the wrong hands.

There are also health dangers associated with concentrated forms of natural uranium, and since little is secure in Iraq, officials wanted to remove it.

American military personnel helped move about 600 tons of uranium in the form called yellowcake. It had been stored at Tuwaitha, an installation 12 miles south of Baghdad, which had been the site of Iraq’s nuclear program.

Cameco, a Canadian company that produces uranium and sells it around the world, bought the material, according to foreign officials knowledgeable about the transaction.

“The Iraqi government requested our help; we helped them,” said Leslie Phillips, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Baghdad. “It was their decision and we were happy to assist, at their request. This is a good example of Iraqis working with international companies to get done what they want to get done.”

There has been a continuing international effort to remove nuclear material from countries that are no longer using it. The International Atomic Energy Agency has helped a number of countries, including Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, get rid of highly enriched uranium and spent nuclear fuel.

The yellowcake removed from Iraq — which was not the same yellowcake that President Bush claimed, in a now discredited section of his 2003 State of the Union address, that Mr. Hussein was trying to purchase in Africa — is used in an early stage of the nuclear fuel cycle. Only after intensive processing does it become low-enriched uranium, which can fuel reactors producing power. Highly enriched uranium can be used in nuclear bombs.

The only neighboring country known to have the technology to process yellowcake is Iran, but Iran has its own stores of the uranium. A State Department official said that there was no indication that Iran had been seeking the material or was interested in using it.

This was not the first time that the United States intervened to remove potentially harmful nuclear material from Iraq. Just a few days before the Americans formally transferred sovereignty back to Iraq in June 2004, they removed 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium, as well as other radioactive sources, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The material was taken to the United States.

The vast Tuwaitha site has been bombed repeatedly since 1981, when Israeli warplanes destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor there before it could be used to make weapons-grade uranium. American warplanes bombed the site in 1991 during the first gulf war.

After the American invasion in 2003, Tuwaitha was looted. Barrels used to store the yellowcake were stolen and sold to local people, who used them to store water and food and to wash clothes, according to a report by the atomic energy agency.

Most of the barrels have been recovered, but there is still concern that people might become ill by ingesting food or water stored in the barrels and from contamination in the area around Tuwaitha, where more than 1,000 people live, according to the atomic energy agency.

The final step in closing down Mr. Hussein’s nuclear program will be the cleanup of any traces of radioactive contamination at Tuwaitha.

In other developments on Sunday, the United Arab Emirates announced that it was canceling nearly $7 billion of Iraqi debt, making it the first Arab nation on the Persian Gulf to do so.

The United States has been pressing Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Arab gulf states to forgive Iraqi debt. While most of Iraq’s international debt has been forgiven, much of what remains is owed to countries in the gulf region.

There was also scattered violence in Iraq on Sunday. A bomb exploded in a parked car in Shaab, a neighborhood in Baghdad, killing six civilians and wounding 14 people, according to the Interior Ministry. The bomb was apparently intended for an Iraqi police convoy, and three police commandos were among the wounded.

In Diyala Province, Muhammed Ramadan Isa, a local official for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, was killed by a roadside bomb as he headed to a village in the northern part of the province, a local police official said.

The explosion also killed five of Mr. Isa’s family members, including his wife and three children, as well as two bodyguards.

And in Salahuddin Province, an Iraqi Army captain was killed by gunmen while on the way home to Dhuluiya, north of Baghdad, according to a local police official. Two suspects were arrested.

Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed reporting from Baghdad, Kut, Baquba and Salahuddin Province, Iraq.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company