VIENNA — The United States should decide to send military forces to secure it Iran’s uranium stockIt will be a complex, risky and long operation, fraught with radiation and chemical risks, according to experts and former government officials.
US President Donald Trump presented it Variable causes The United States has supported the war in Iran, but has consistently said the primary goal is to ensure the country does so “You will never have a nuclear weapon.” What is less clear is the lengths to which he is willing to go to seize Iranian nuclear materials.
Given the risks of bringing up to a thousand specially trained troops into a war zone to remove the stockpile, the other option is to reach a negotiated settlement with Iran that allows the materials to be delivered and secured without the use of force.
Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% purity, a short technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the report. international Atomic Energy Agency, International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations.
This stockpile could allow Iran to build up to 10 nuclear bombs, if it decided to weaponize its program, International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi told The Associated Press last year. He added that this does not mean that Iran possesses such a weapon.
Iran has long insisted that its program is peaceful, but the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western countries say Tehran had an organized nuclear weapons program until 2003.
International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have not been able to verify the presence of near weapons-grade uranium since June 2025, when Israeli and American strikes It greatly weakened Iran’s air defenses, military leadership, and nuclear program. The lack of inspections has made it difficult to know its exact whereabouts.
Grossi said the International Atomic Energy Agency believes a stockpile of about 200 kilograms (about 440 pounds) of highly enriched uranium is stored in tunnels at Iran’s nuclear complex outside Isfahan. The site was mainly known for producing uranium gas that was fed into centrifuges to be spun and purified.
He said he believes additional quantities are at the Natanz nuclear site and smaller quantities may be stored at a facility in Fordow.
It is unclear whether additional quantities may be present elsewhere.
US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a House hearing on March 19 that the US intelligence community has “high confidence” that it knows the location of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile.
Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium can be placed in containers that each weigh about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) when full. The substance is in the form of uranium hexafluoride gas. Estimates of the number of refills range from 26 to about twice that number, depending on how full each cylinder is.
David Albright, a former nuclear weapons inspector in Iraq and founder of the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, said the packages holding HEU are “very strong” and designed for storage and transportation.
But he warned that “safety issues become paramount” if packages are damaged – for example, by air raids – allowing moisture to get inside.
In such a scenario, there would be a risk from fluorine, a highly toxic chemical that corrodes the skin, eyes and lungs. Albright said that anyone entering the tunnels seeking to recover the devices “would have to wear hazmat suits.”
He added that it would also be necessary to maintain distance between the different packages to avoid a critical, self-sustaining nuclear reaction that could result in a “large amount of radiation.”
He added that to avoid such a radiation accident, the packages must be placed in containers that provide space between them during transportation.
Albright said the preferred option for dealing with uranium is to remove it from Iran by private military aircraft and then “reduce” it — that is, mix it with low-enriched materials to reach levels suitable for civilian use.
He added that reducing the volume of materials inside Iran may not be possible, given that the infrastructure necessary for the operation may not be intact due to the war.
Daria Dolzikova, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, agreed.
She said downsizing inside Iran “is probably not the most likely option simply because it is a very complex and lengthy process and requires specialized equipment.”
Christine E. said: Wormuth, who was Secretary of the Army under former US President Joe Biden, said securing Iranian nuclear materials with ground forces would be a “very complex and high-risk military operation.”
Wormuth, who is now president and CEO of the Washington-based Nuclear Threat Initiative, added that this is because the material may have been located in multiple locations and that the mission was “likely to result in casualties.”
She added that the size and scope of the operation in Isfahan alone would easily require 1,000 soldiers.
Given that the tunnel entrances may be buried under rubble, it would be necessary for helicopters to fly heavy equipment, such as excavators, and U.S. forces might have to build a nearby airstrip to land all the equipment and troops, Wormuth said.
Special forces, possibly including the 75th Ranger Regiment, would have to work “alongside” nuclear experts who would search underground for the devices, she said, adding that special forces would likely set up a security perimeter in the event of potential attacks.
Wormuth said the 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives Command’s nuclear deactivation teams would be one potential unit that could be used in such an operation.
“I’m sure the Iranians have thought carefully about this, and they will try to make it as difficult as possible to do this in a quick manner,” she said. “So I imagine it would be a very painstaking effort to go underground, direct, and try to discern…which packages are the real ones, and which ones might be booby traps, to try to avoid booby traps.”
The best option is “to reach an agreement with the (Iranian) government to remove all that material,” said Scott Rucker, former director of the Office of Nuclear Material Removal at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a semi-independent agency within the US Department of Energy.
A similar mission occurred in 1994 when the United States, in partnership with the government of Kazakhstan, secretly transferred 600 kilograms (about 1,322 pounds) of weapons-grade uranium from the former Soviet republic in an operation dubbed “Project Sapphire.” Material from the Soviet Union’s nuclear program has been left behind.
The Energy Department’s mobile packaging unit was built through the trial in Kazakhstan, said Rucker, who now serves as vice president of the Nuclear Materials Security Program at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. It has safely removed nuclear material from several countries, including from Georgia in 1998 and from Iraq in 2004, 2007, and 2008.
The unit consists of technical experts and specialized equipment that can be deployed anywhere to safely remove nuclear materials, and Rucker said it would be ideally placed to remove uranium under an agreement being negotiated with Iran. Tehran remains suspicious of Washington, which it was in the Trump era Withdrew from the nuclear agreement He was attacked twice during high-level negotiations.
Under a negotiated solution, IAEA inspectors could participate in a mission. “We are considering those options, of course,” the IAEA’s Grossi said March 22 on CBS’ “Face the Nation” when asked about such a scenario.
He added that Iran has a “contractual obligation to allow inspectors entry.” “Of course, there is common sense. Nothing can happen while the bombs are falling.”
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