The Donald Trump administration is considering deploying troops on the ground in Iran to secure the country’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU), news reports say.
“People are going to have to go and get it,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a Congressional briefing Tuesday about securing Tehran’s stockpile of uranium.
Other news publications such as Axios said Israeli and U.S. officials said Trump’s team was considering various options – including sending special operations units into Iran to either remove the material; or bring nuclear experts, such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in to dilute the material at the sites.
Trump also told reporters on Air Force One on March 7 “at some point maybe we will” send ground troops, but “we haven’t gone after it… we wouldn’t do it now. Maybe we’d do it later.”
The IAEA, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, estimated Iran had around 441 kilograms, or 972 pounds, of HEU enriched to 60%. If that material was then enriched up to 90%, or weapons grade, it would be enough for 10-11 nuclear warheads. This estimate was as of June 2025, around the time of the Trump administration’s Operation Midnight Hammer strike on Iran’s three main nuclear facilities Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.