1.   An American buyer of Russian enriched uranium could comply with the law by stockpiling an equivalent amount of domestic unenriched uranium.

2.   In the best of plausible worlds, he says, a privatized enrichment company would become just another bidder for Russian enriched uranium.

3.   That difficult job is now threatened by a misguided privatization plan that could undermine one of the central mechanisms for safeguarding highly enriched Russian uranium.

4.   The department has used creative accounting to assess huge penalties against everything from Colombian roses to Chinese honey to bomb-grade Russian uranium.

5.   The first delivery of the Russian uranium arrived at a plant in Portsmouth, Ohio last week.

6.   The reason is that the company cannot make a profit on imported Russian uranium, which costs substantially more than enriching American uranium.

7.   The U.S. State Department today denied a report that a complex deal to buy up Russian highly enriched uranium is close to faltering, Deutsche Presse Agentur reported.

8.   The White House argues that the government already has sufficient leverage to force the enrichment corporation to buy the Russian uranium at a fair price.

9.   Thus, from a purely commercial perspective, it behooves the corporation to limit its purchases of Russian uranium.

10.   Vice President Al Gore, who helped negotiate the Russian uranium deal, or President Clinton could stop it and should.