Last week, the U.S. military presented President Donald Trump with a plan to remove an estimated 450 kilograms of highly enriched uranium buried beneath the rubble of Iran’s nuclear program, two sources familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.
They said the plan, and its “significant operational risks,” were presented at Trump’s request.
The plan, according to experts interviewed by The Washington Post, would be an extremely complex task that has never been attempted in combat before. The operation would require the airlift of hundreds or thousands of troops and heavy equipment, including excavators, to dig up and extract radioactive materials. Former Pentagon officials and experts believe it could take weeks or even months, with the mission taking place under fire deep inside Iran.
One of the newspaper's sources said that to reach the buried storage facility in Isfahan, "you'd have to take farm equipment, break through the concrete and lead protection" and any other protective covering, "and then somehow get to the bottom of that bunker, remove the containers of nuclear material and transport them."
Reservist General Joseph Votel, former commander of U.S. Central Command and Special Operations Command, said the best option for retrieving uranium from the rubble would be after a ceasefire and with the support of the IAEA. But he stressed that "if you have to fight," that's also feasible. "There are a lot of risks. "It's a very complex process. There will probably be casualties," Votel said, adding that special operations forces have personnel trained to operate in such conditions.
A former Pentagon official familiar with Iran's military plans and special operations capabilities said that recovering most or all of the uranium from the rubble would require a temporary occupation of the territory, "barring a largely symbolic quick strike designed to demonstrate that we can do more."
The operation would likely begin with strikes on Iranian defense systems and equipment to provide the safest passage for ground troops, who would have to fly "hundreds of miles" to establish a defensive perimeter, The Washington Post reported. Engineers would then need to build a runway to accommodate excavation equipment and materials, some of which could be delivered by cargo planes or helicopters. In both cases, the transport plane could be exposed to enemy fire, the newspaper notes.
The radioactivity of the material to be seized would also be a risk, the article notes.
In early March, Axios reported that Washington could send special forces to seize uranium from Iran, citing "small raids" by units rather than large-scale operations. Three days ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump supported the operation to seize uranium from Iran, but had not yet made a final decision and was assessing the risks to the US military.
This refers to highly enriched uranium, which Tehran claims was found buried in the rubble of Iranian nuclear facilities after Israeli and US strikes last summer. This material is a key element in Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. Trump has said that preventing this is the main goal of the US.