Trump says US forces must enter Iran to retrieve buried nuclear stockpile

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that American forces would need to conduct a ground mission into Iran to secure enriched uranium that remains trapped beneath the rubble of nuclear facilities destroyed in last year’s joint U.S.-Israeli aerial campaign.

“Now we’re going to take a hit, because we have to make a journey down to Iran to take the nuclear weapon,” Trump told reporters.

The remarks mark a significant escalation in Washington’s posture toward Tehran following last June’s bombardments, which U.S. officials say buried Iran’s primary enrichment sites. Trump claimed the strikes had fundamentally dismantled Iran’s nuclear ambitions, saying the country’s capabilities had been “obliterated.”

Uranium stockpile confirmed under the rubble

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged that approximately 1,000 pounds, or roughly 453 kilograms, of enriched uranium remains buried under the debris of targeted facilities, with no immediate retrieval effort planned.

Trump argued the material was effectively inaccessible to Iranian authorities, saying it would take weeks for Tehran to reach it, and that the U.S. military, which he said maintains continuous surveillance over the sites, “wouldn’t let them dig down.”

The fate of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile carries considerable geopolitical weight. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency protocols, states are obligated to account for all fissile material, and unrecovered stockpiles in a conflict zone present significant verification and proliferation concerns for the international community.

Trump claims Tehran privately concedes defeat

Beyond the material question, Trump addressed what he described as a gap between Iran’s public messaging and its private communications with Washington. “They express it to me when I talk to them, then they get on television, they say how well they’re doing,” he said, suggesting Iranian officials privately acknowledge they have “no chance.”

The White House did not detail the nature or channel of those contacts. Iran has long maintained a posture of resistance in its public statements regarding negotiations and military pressure from the United States and Israel.

Surveillance and military posture remain central

Trump’s comments point to a continued, active U.S. military presence in and around Iran following the June strikes, with the president indicating that aerial or satellite surveillance of the destroyed sites remains ongoing.

The assertion that American forces could physically prevent Iranian excavation of the buried material implies a degree of operational control that the administration has not previously stated publicly.

Trump closed with a blunt summary of his read on the bilateral dynamic: “They don’t like playing games with us. They don’t like it at all.”

- Agencies