President Donald Trump confirmed Saturday that the United States has not ruled out deploying ground forces into Iran as part of the ongoing military campaign aimed at preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, according to new reports.
Trump made the remarks aboard Air Force One while speaking with reporters, indicating that a ground operation remained a potential option for a later phase of the conflict.
“Right now we’re just decimating them, but we haven’t gone after it,” Trump said, referring to Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
“But something we could do later on. We wouldn’t do it now.”
Axios reported Saturday that American and Israeli officials have held discussions about inserting special operations forces into Iran to take physical control of the regime’s enriched uranium once its military capabilities are sufficiently degraded.
Iran currently holds approximately 450 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, according to the Axios report — material that officials say could be converted to weapons-grade fuel within a matter of weeks.
Discussions among officials have centered on two possible approaches: physically removing the uranium from Iranian territory or diluting it on site using nuclear specialists working alongside special operations units.
Those specialists could potentially include scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to the Axios report.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the challenge earlier this week during a congressional briefing when lawmakers asked whether Iran’s uranium stockpile would be secured.
“People are going to have to go and get it,” Rubio said, without identifying which nation’s forces would carry out such a mission.
A U.S. official told Axios that the operational logistics remain deeply complicated, including pinpointing the exact location of the uranium and determining how troops would reach and secure it safely.
“The first question is, where is it?” the official said. “The second question is, how do we get to it and how do we get physical control?”
Semafor reported Friday that the possibility of a special operations raid on Iranian nuclear facilities has been studied by the U.S. military and Israel for years, with U.S. Central Command having developed contingency plans for commando operations targeting sites including Isfahan.
Elite military units such as the Army’s Delta Force conduct training for what are described as counter-WMD missions — operations designed to locate and secure nuclear material or related infrastructure from hostile territory.
Jonathan Hackett, a former Marine Corps interrogator and special operations specialist, told Semafor those units are well-prepared for exactly that kind of mission.
“They practice that. They’re proficient at that,” Hackett said, describing the type of commando operation that could be applied against Iranian nuclear sites.
Earlier versions of comparable plans were reportedly considered during the Obama administration, when Israeli officials proposed sending commandos to nuclear facilities including Isfahan, Fordow, and Qom — proposals that U.S. officials at the time dismissed as carrying too great a risk.
American intelligence agencies have raised concerns that Tehran may still be capable of retrieving highly enriched uranium buried beneath nuclear facilities struck during the recent U.S.-Israeli air campaign.
The New York Times reported Saturday that intelligence assessments suggest Iran could potentially access uranium entombed beneath the Isfahan nuclear complex through a narrow opening, raising questions about how quickly the material might be recovered or relocated.
U.S. officials told the newspaper that intelligence agencies are maintaining continuous surveillance of the site and believe they would detect any Iranian attempt to retrieve the material.
Most of the enriched uranium is believed to be stored in underground tunnels at Isfahan, with smaller amounts held at facilities in Fordow and Natanz, according to American officials.
The Times reported that while those sites were targeted in the prior air campaign, the United States did not attempt to retrieve the uranium at that time due to the dangers involved.
Any future commando operation would require Iran’s remaining air defenses and military capabilities to be further degraded before troops could be inserted, officials said.
Trump acknowledged those conditions Saturday, stating that any ground operation would only proceed once Iranian forces were weakened enough to make it viable.
“I would say if we ever did that, they would be so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight at the ground level,” Trump said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios that the president has deliberately kept every military option on the table throughout the campaign.
“President Trump wisely keeps all options available to him open and does not rule things out,” Leavitt said.
Officials say the central objective of the U.S. campaign remains ensuring Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon — whether that outcome is achieved by seizing the uranium, destroying it, or forcing its surrender to whatever governing authority ultimately emerges in Tehran.
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