By Daniel Bush,
Washington correspondent and Bernd Debusmann Jr,
White House reporter
US troops storming a secretive, underground nuclear facility to seize Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium may sound far-fetched, but it is an option President Donald Trump is reportedly considering to achieve his main objective in the war: preventing the regime from developing nuclear weapons.
Such an operation would be extremely challenging and fraught with danger, according to military experts and former US defence officials who spoke to the BBC. They said it would require the deployment of ground troops and could take several days or even weeks to complete.
Removing the uranium stockpile would be one of the “most complicated special operations in history,” said Mick Mulroy, a former deputy assistant secretary of defence for the Middle East.
The scenario is just one of several military actions that Trump could take in Iran.
Others include the US taking control of Kharg Island in an effort to pressure Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The administration may also be using the threat of new military operations to pressure Iran to the negotiating table.
In a telephone interview with the BBC’s US partner CBS News on Tuesday, President Trump declined to say whether it would be possible to declare victory in the war without removing or destroying Iran’s enriched uranium. But he appeared to play down the significance of the stockpile, pointing to the damage caused in US-Israeli strikes last June. “That’s so deeply buried it’s gonna be very hard for anybody,” Trump said. “It’s down there deep. So… it’s pretty safe. But, you know, we’ll make a
determination.”..
Source: bbc.com/news
