Iran Nuclear Threat: US Forces & Stockpile Security?

The Trump administration is considering the deployment of special forces into Iran to secure its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), enough to potentially create at least 10 nuclear warheads, according to reports. Preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon has been a stated aim of the Trump administration.

Securing Iran’s Uranium Stockpile

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told Congress that action will be needed to secure the uranium stockpile, stating, “people are going to have to go and get it.” Reports from the U.S. and Israel indicate discussions between the two countries regarding a potential mission involving special forces from either or both militaries. Experts caution that such an operation would be complex and carry significant risk.

Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stated Monday that the UN watchdog believes 200kg of Iran’s HEU is stored in deep tunnels at a nuclear complex outside Isfahan. An additional, unspecified amount of HEU is located at another nuclear center in Natanz, where Iranians have constructed a new fortified facility known as Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, or Pickaxe Mountain, according to western analysts.

The HEU is in the form of uranium hexafluoride, which is solid at room temperature but can be converted into a gas when heated for further enrichment. It is believed to be stored in metal canisters, approximately the size of scuba diving tanks, stored deep underground.

Challenges of a Special Forces Operation

U.S. and Israeli special forces have trained for missions to extract nuclear materials from hostile environments. The U.S. has also developed the Mobile Uranium Facility, designed to contain and remove HEU. However, deploying this equipment and a protective force would require major ground operations at at least two sites within Iran.

“That would be tough. It is pretty well defended and it’s large and bulky, so you’re not going to just go in and pick it up,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Lewis questioned the feasibility of the operation, asking, “Is a C-17 [military transport plane] going to land in the desert and you’re going to set up a security perimeter and cranes are going to drive off it? Or maybe you go in and blow it up and make a mess? All of these options seem fanciful to me.”

Trump Acknowledges Difficulty

Donald Trump acknowledged the challenges involved in securing the uranium, suggesting such an operation was not imminent. He stated that U.S. troops would not be deployed until Iranian defenses were “so decimated that they wouldn’t be able to fight on the ground level.”

While not ruling out a ground operation, Trump indicated it would be considered at a later stage in any conflict, saying, “At some point maybe we will… We haven’t gone after it. We wouldn’t do it now. Maybe we will do it later.”

Criticism of Planning

Critics have expressed surprise that a plan to secure the HEU did not appear to be in place before the recent conflict began. Congressman Bill Foster, after a classified briefing, stated he had heard nothing about a plan to address Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium should be the administration’s primary focus. That is clearly not the case,” Foster said.

Matthew Bunn, a nuclear policy analyst at the Harvard Kennedy School, called it “just shocking to launch a military operation like this, justified by the nuclear danger, and not have a plan for dealing with the most urgent part of the nuclear danger.” He suggested a postwar deal involving dilution or removal of the HEU would be the best solution, a possibility that was being discussed in US-Iranian talks brokered by Oman before the recent attacks.

Experts note that attempting to ship the HEU without Iranian cooperation, destroying it in place, or preventing its removal all present significant problems. Currently, the U.S. and Israel are reportedly monitoring the sites to prevent the removal of the canisters.

“As long as it stays in Iran, the plan is that if anyone gets near it, they will be killed. That is the strategy as it stands,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iran expert at Reichman University in Israel. He cautioned that this monitoring strategy is not foolproof, as tunnels could be used to seize the material.

Even if the HEU were moved, the remaining Iranian regime would face risks if they attempted to quickly develop a nuclear weapon. Further enrichment, shaping the uranium, building an explosive device, and mounting it on a delivery system could theoretically be done in months, but doing so undetected would be difficult.

Robert Malley, former US special envoy to Iran, noted that the Iranian regime had been seriously considering acquiring a bomb. “I think the problem was always from the moment you make the decision to the moment you acquire the bomb, that’s the zone of maximum danger when you’re likely to be detected,” he said. “And if you’re detected you’re almost certain to be bombed. And that problem hasn’t evaporated.”