The US military has briefed President Donald Trump on a highly complex special operations plan to extract nearly 1,000 pounds (453.6 kilograms) of highly enriched uranium buried deep inside Iran, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Trump requested the plan, according to the newspaper, signaling his interest in permanently neutralizing Iran's nuclear capabilities.
The proposed mission would require airlifting potentially thousands of troops and heavy excavation equipment into Iran, in an operation that could take weeks to complete, said former defense officials.
Teams would first need to strike Iranian defenses and establish a beachhead, possibly through a parachute assault by the Army's 82nd Airborne and Rangers to seize ground and construct an airstrip for supplies, according to people familiar with the plan.
One former operator described the process as "slow, meticulous and can be an extremely deadly process."
The target is Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%, below weapons-grade level. Much of it lies beneath nuclear sites already struck in a US operation last June. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has confirmed the material is "under the rubble" with no immediate plans to retrieve it.
CBS News reported that the Trump administration was exploring options to secure or extract the stockpile, with discussions centered on deploying the elite Joint Special Operations Command.
Asked whether recovering the uranium was a condition for declaring victory, Trump was noncommittal, noting that even Iran had been unable to access the material before the war began.
