Trump considers ground invasion to extract uranium from Iran, says newspaper

Uranium enrichment centrifuges at Iran’s Natanz plant. IRIB via AP, File President Trump is considering a military operation to extract nearly a thousand pounds of uranium from Iran, according to U.S. officials, The Wall Street Journal reports. This mission would be complex and risky as it would involve ground incursion into the region by American troops for days or more. Trump has not yet made a decision on whether to issue the order, officials told the newspaper. The hesitation would be justified by the danger to US troops. But the president remains open to the idea, according to officials interviewed by The Wall Street Journal. This is because it could help achieve its central objective of preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon. The president has also encouraged his advisers to pressure Iran into agreeing to hand over material as a condition of ending the war, according to a person familiar with Trump’s thinking. Trump was clear in conversations with political allies that the Iranians cannot keep the material and discussed seizing it by force if Iran did not hand it over to the negotiating table, the newspaper said. Foreign ministers from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt met this Sunday (29), in Islamabad, to discuss ways to end the war, which has lasted a month and left thousands dead. “It is the Pentagon’s duty to make preparations to give the commander in chief maximum options. This does not mean the president has made a decision,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. The Pentagon did not comment, and a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command declined to comment. Before Israel and the US carried out a series of airstrikes against Iran in June last year. At the time, the country was believed to have more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium at 60%, and almost 200 kilograms of fissile material at 20%, which is easily converted into 90% uranium (weapons grade). International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said he believes the uranium is mainly concentrated in two of the three sites the US and Israel attacked in June: an underground tunnel at the nuclear complex in Isfahan and a cache in Natanz. The Iranians have centrifuges to enrich uranium and the ability to establish a new underground enrichment site, experts said. The president and at least some of his allies have said privately that it would be possible to seize the material in a targeted operation that would not significantly extend the war timeline and would still allow the U.S. to end the conflict by mid-April, according to the person familiar with the discussions.

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