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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Thursday the United States would help it clean up all the weapons-grade nuclear material spread across the globe to keep it from being used in bombs.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei met with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to follow up on discussions he had with President Bush on Wednesday.

ElBaradei told reporters after the meeting at the Department of Energy that he and Abraham discussed a number of issues, particularly a plan to clean up highly enriched uranium and plutonium still in civilian sites.

"There's about a 100 facilities in 40 countries with research reactors and others that still use highly enriched uranium (HEU). The president agreed that this is unacceptable," ElBaradei said.

The atomic energy agency is pushing a plan under which reactors fueled by HEU would be converted to ones using low-enriched uranium, which would not be suitable for a bomb. The weapons-grade material would be evacuated to Russia, the United States or elsewhere.

Both the United States and Russia made reactors that used highly enriched uranium, though such reactors have become obsolete.

"A lot of it's Russian," ElBaradei said. "There are 21 Russian HEU reactors around the world."

However, he said, "Irrespective of whether it's Russian, irrespective of whether it's American, we need to clean up the mess, if you like, clean up the potential threat."

Asked who would pay for the recovery of the HEU and conversion of the plants, ElBaradei said: "I don't think the resources are an issue."

Earlier this month, the IAEA supervised an airlift to Russia of enriched uranium from a reactor near Tripoli, the Libyan capital. It said the metal was almost pure enough to be used in a nuclear weapon. Libya has agreed to give up its weapons of mass destruction programs.

The IAEA has often said the chances of terrorists being able to build a full-scale nuclear weapon were slim. It says the real danger was that terrorists would make a "dirty bomb" -- a conventional bomb laced with radioactive material.

A dirty bomb would cause more panic than actual physical damage, nuclear experts say.

It would take 55 to 80 pounds of highly enriched uranium to make a conventional nuclear bomb, but a Vienna-based nuclear expert that it would be possible to make a crude nuclear-fission device with "just a few kilos" of HEU.

The result would be "a very badly done, but done nuclear weapon," he said.

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