By Michael R. Gordon and Laurence Norman
WASHINGTON -- President Trump has said preventing Iran from ever developing nuclear weapons is a central aim of the war he is waging. In the absence of regime change -- or at least a deal to hand over its enriched uranium by Tehran's leaders -- that could mean seizing the country's fissile material.
Accomplishing that in the face of resistance from Iranian forces would be a complex military operation that could require the deployment of hundreds of troops at one or more sites for days, former U.S. military officers and experts said.
The U.S. military has elite teams specially trained to remove radioactive material from a conflict zone. But locating and seizing the hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium that Iran possesses would require an intricate choreography and could be fraught with risk.
President Trump has said he would not rule out sending ground troops into Iran if necessary. But on Friday, he signaled an operation to seize the country's enriched uranium wasn't imminent.
"We're not focused on that, but at some point we might be," Trump said on Fox News Radio. "Right now we're focused on knocking the hell out of their missiles and their drones."
Before Israel and the U.S. conducted a series of airstrikes on Iran in June last year, the country was believed to have more than 400 kilograms of 60% highly enriched uranium, and another nearly 200 kilograms of 20% fissile material, which is easily converted into 90% weapons-grade uranium.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi has said he thinks the uranium is mainly at two of the three sites that the U.S. and Israel attacked in June: an underground tunnel at the nuclear complex in Isfahan and a cache at Natanz. Around half the 60% material was in the Isfahan tunnels, Grossi recently said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has acknowledged that Iran isn't currently enriching uranium. Grossi's agency hasn't seen any signs that the Iranians have sought to move that material. Iran's leaders insist publicly that they don't want a bomb.
But if those caches remain in the hands of an Iranian government looking to ensure its survival, they could be used to pursue a bomb. The Iranians have centrifuges to enrich uranium and the capability to set up a new underground enrichment site, experts said.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that Iran's highly enriched uranium still lies under the rubble from the U.S. and Israeli strikes in June. He said Tehran currently has no plan to retrieve the material and would only consider doing so under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. "For the time being, we have no program," Araghchi said. "We have no plan to recover them from under the rubbles."
Top military officials have rattled off statistics about how U.S. airstrikes are degrading Iran's navy and its arsenal of missiles and drones but have said little about the Trump administration's hopes to dismantle what remains of Iran's nuclear program.
"We retain options across the spectrum," Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday. "The president has kept his eye focused on nuclear capabilities. And I will say we have a range of options, up to and including Iran deciding that they will give those up."
The White House could decide to leave the stockpile in Iran's hands, with a warning that any attempt to remove it or to resume enrichment would trigger further U.S. military strikes. Given Israel's penetration of Iran's nuclear program and U.S. satellite reconnaissance, there is a good chance Tehran's work would be caught.
If Trump decides to try to grab the uranium, retired Adm. James Stavridis, who served as the NATO commander and the former head of Southern Command, said it could require "potentially the largest special forces operation in history."
Army Rangers or other combat troops would be needed to secure perimeters, former military officials said. Engineers with excavating equipment would be needed to dig through the tons of debris blocking entrances to Iran's subterranean nuclear complexes and check for mines and booby traps.
If a local airfield wasn't available, a makeshift one would need to be set up to fly equipment in and the material out. And ground forces and aircraft would need to be prepared to head off Iranian drone and missile attacks. A quick response force would need to be on hand in case more troops had to rush to the scene, former military officials said.
Richard Nephew, a former Iran director at the National Security Council, said any operation would be "very large and very complicated." He said you would need upward of 1,000 personnel to perform the operation at one site.
"I'm worried about the drone strikes, IED and similar traps, contamination risks, and the long time we'd need to have people onsite," Nephew said.
Nephew said if time was short, the U.S. could also seek to dilute the material on site by mixing it with natural uranium or destroy it, although that could cause chemical contaminations in the area.
Eyal Hulata, a former head of Israel's National Security Council who is a senior international fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said if the war ends without the U.S. taking care of the fissile material stockpile or an underground tunnel network where Iran could start enriching again, known as Pickaxe, "it's a serious problem."
"But the U.S. and Israel will need to figure out a path to deal with them one way or the other."
Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 15, 2026 14:33 ET (18:33 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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