Exclusive Analysis: Experts Warn Any US Ground Operation to Seize Iran’s Enriched Uranium Is Incredibly Risky and Likely Infeasible

U.S. President Donald Trump and senior defense leaders are actively debating a possible ground incursion into Iran to seize the country’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, multiple sources indicate. But the Trump administration has released almost no public details about critical components of the plan: which units would be deployed, how troops would extract the nuclear material, and where the material would be moved after recovery.

“People are going to have to go and get it,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated during a congressional briefing earlier this month, when referencing the potential mission.

There are growing signs that a military operation could be launched imminently. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported the Pentagon has finalized preliminary plans to deploy 3,000 brigade combat troops from the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division—an elite unit specialized in joint forcible entry operations—to the Middle East. As of this writing, no formal deployment order has been issued. The next day, Iran’s government formally rejected Trump’s 15-point proposal to end the ongoing conflict. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded that the president “is prepared to unleash hell” against Iran if a peace agreement is not reached, a threat that has already drawn concern from multiple sitting lawmakers.

Two security and military experts, drawing on declassified public intelligence and decades of professional experience, have outlined what a ground operation targeting Iran’s nuclear sites would likely look like. Speaking to WIRED, both experts agree that any iteration of such a mission would be extraordinarily complex and carry severe risks to the lives of deployed U.S. service members.

“I personally think a ground operation using special forces supported by a larger conventional force is extremely, extremely risky and ultimately infeasible,” Spencer Faragasso, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security, told WIRED.

Nuclear Ambitions

Experts note that any full-scale ground operation would likely take multiple weeks to complete, and require coordinated simultaneous action across multiple targets spread across significant distances across Iran. Jonathan Hackett, a former operations specialist for the U.S. Marine Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency, told WIRED that as many as 10 distinct nuclear-related sites would be targeted in a full mission: the research reactors at Isfahan, Arak, and Darkhovin; the enrichment facilities at Natanz, Fordow, and Parchin; the uranium mines at Saghand, Chine, and Yazd; and the Bushehr commercial nuclear power plant.

Per data from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the majority of Iran’s stockpile of 60% highly enriched uranium is held at Isfahan. While weapons-grade uranium is typically 90% enriched, 60% enriched material is capable of supporting a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. Hackett added that the other two major enrichment facilities also hold stores of 60% enriched uranium, while the Bushehr power plant and all three research reactors hold 20% enriched uranium—material that Faragasso stresses requires close scrutiny in any military operation.

According to Hackett, eight of the 10 targeted sites were mostly or partially buried following air raids last June. The two exceptions are the Isfahan facility, which remains largely intact deep underground, and Pickaxe Mountain, a relatively new enrichment site constructed near Natanz. Just before the current war began, Faragasso added, Iranian personnel backfilled the tunnel entrances to the Isfahan facility with compacted dirt to protect it from attack.

The highest-risk iteration of a ground operation would require U.S. troops to physically extract the nuclear material from its storage sites. Hackett explains that the enriched uranium is typically stored as uranium hexafluoride gas inside large concrete vats. Faragasso adds that there is no public clarity on how many of these vats may have cracked or been damaged during previous airstrikes. At damaged or buried sites, troops would need to bring in excavators and heavy industrial equipment to move massive amounts of compacted earth to reach the stored vats.

A comparatively lower-risk alternative would still require ground presence, Hackett says, but would center on using airstrikes to permanently entomb the nuclear material inside its existing facilities. Faragasso explains that this approach would focus on destroying access to underground sites and collapsing the internal roofs of facilities to make the material inaccessible for the short to medium term.

Softening the Battle Area

Hackett told WIRED that based on his professional experience and all available public information, Trump’s ongoing peace negotiations with Iran are “probably a ruse” designed to buy time for U.S. forces to reposition into attack positions.

A full operation would almost certainly open with sustained aerial bombardment of areas surrounding all target sites, Hackett says. These strike units would likely be drawn from the 82nd Airborne Division or the 11th or 31st Marine Expeditionary Units (MEU). Both the 11th MEU, a dedicated rapid-response force, and the 31st MEU, the only Marine unit permanently deployed to strategic global regions, have already been repositioned to the Middle East in recent weeks, according to public reports.

The core goal of the opening bombardment, Hackett says, is to “soften” the area of enemy defenses so ground troops can advance “unopposed.” Operations would almost certainly launch under the “cover of darkness,” ideally on nights with minimal moonlight to avoid detection. Even with preparatory bombardment, Hackett notes that troops would almost certainly face armed Iranian resistance along their advance to target sites.

Faragasso says that establishing and holding a secure perimeter around heavily defended nuclear sites “comes with lots of risk to ground forces,” adding that “casualties would be unsurprising” even in the best-case scenario.

Once target sites are secured by conventional forces, the core mission would be taken over by a special operations unit under the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), Hackett says. Of all JSOC’s elite units, the most likely candidates for the mission are Delta Force or the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, better known as SEAL Team 6—the same unit that carried out the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Hackett notes that both units receive specialized training for counter-proliferation missions focused on disabling or seizing weapons of mass destruction.

Training exercises for both units involve receiving a full mission briefing, then being rapidly deployed to a domestic training site constructed to exactly replicate the layout and terrain of Iranian nuclear sites. Hackett says these elite operators typically receive “less than 72-hour notice” before a live mission, and “they don't know what the mission's gonna be until they show up.”

“There's a lot of uncertainty and unfamiliarity with the sand, the mountains, the atmosphere,” Hackett says. “All these things that seem simple to the outsider can really get in there and mess things up, especially doing it at night.”

The Extraction Mission

JSOC operators would lead the initial breach of any facility holding nuclear material, Hackett explains. After the breach is secured, specialized support teams would move in to complete tasks specific to handling nuclear material. These specialists can include Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) technicians, who are trained to disarm and handle nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional explosive devices.

Faragasso adds that many of these specialists would likely be drawn from the U.S. Army’s 20th CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and high-yield Explosives) Command, which hosts the U.S. military’s only three dedicated Nuclear Disablement Teams (NDT).

“These forces are well trained on how to handle nuclear materials and will be prepared with relevant equipment, including personal protective equipment like hazmat suits and detection equipment” should they be deployed, Faragasso says.

The U.S. Army has released very little detailed information about the specific tools and tactics NDTs are trained to use. But public Army blog posts have shared general details of their training exercises, which are run alongside Army Rangers and other special operations forces. Training scenarios include shutting down an unsecured, poorly managed nuclear reactor, and operating under enemy fire at clandestine facilities that produce radiological dispersal devices (commonly called dirty bombs) or test pulse radiation facilities with high-power fast-burst reactors. During exercises, teams use standard gear including night vision technology, portable radiation detectors, and nuclear decontamination kits.

If troops encounter broken or unsealed radioactive material during a mission, Faragasso says the safest course of action would be to leave the contaminated material in place rather than attempt to move it.

Transporting and Storing Recovered Material

If troops successfully recover intact nuclear material, U.S. leaders would still need to decide where to move it. During a White House news briefing earlier this month, an unnamed senior administration official said that the president, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency would make a final decision on whether troops “physically transport it or dilute it on premises.”

In Faragasso’s view, the safest possible option for the U.S. would be to transport the enriched uranium back to the United States, where it would be blended down to reduce its enrichment level to non-weapons grade.

Hackett told WIRED that the U.S. Department of Energy would almost certainly take possession of any recovered nuclear material, with support from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to ensure safe, secure storage. The material would likely be held at a highly classified site, most likely in a Western state like New Mexico or Colorado, where the U.S. already manages secure nuclear storage facilities. Any time the material needs to be moved between locations, Hackett adds, it would be escorted by specialized troops from the Marine Corps Security Force Regiment.

Faragasso reiterated to WIRED that any ground operation that tasks U.S. troops with retrieving Iran’s nuclear material would be “very dangerous” and ultimately “infeasible.”

“There's pluses and minuses to this, and right now, the president has shown his appetite for risky operations,” Faragasso says. “But this would be a very large and very risky undertaking.”