WASHINGTON — Former 2024 GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley said that the US will “probably” need to dispatch a special forces team to retrieve Iran’s uranium stockpile.
“That’s probably what it’s going to come down to. I mean, this is a special force mission. It would take about a week to ten days to get done. They know how to do it. It’s dangerous,” Haley told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“It’s not something that we can, you know, just sit and think is casual. I think they have to do it. But once they do that, they’re taking away literally one arm of the Iranian regime to where they no longer can threaten any of our allies.”
President Trump has reportedly considered greenlighting a high-risk operation to retrieve Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles, which are thought to be buried deep underground after the US hit its nuclear sites with super-heavy bunker buster bombs.
However, so far, Trump has refrained from approving that operation. Instead, he has publicly warned Iran that the US is monitoring its nuclear sites via satellite and will strike if Iran attempts to recover its stockpiles.
Experts have suggested that if Iran’s stockpiles of uranium were fully enriched to 90%, they’d have enough material for at least 10 nuclear bombs.
Iranian state media indicated that it has deployed its Navy special forces on the southern coast amid concerns that the US will put boots on the ground.
Trump has sent thousands of troops to the Middle East to buttress those already stationed there.
Trump has also repeatedly refused to rule out the possibility of a ground assault, telling The Post last month, “I don’t have the yips with respect to boots on the ground.”
Haley, who ran against Trump in 2024 for the GOP nomination, has largely supported the president’s military campaign against Iran. She indicated Sunday that she is not eyeing a 2028 presidential run and argued it’s too early to think about whom she may support.
“I will not,” she said when asked about running.
Last week, Trump announced a two-week cease-fire against Iran after threatening that a “whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran failed to cut a deal with his administration.
That led to negotiations in Islamabad, Pakistan. On Saturday, Vice President JD Vance announced that “we have not reached an agreement,” and US officials left. The president then declared that the US will establish a blockade in the Strait of Hormuz until Iran stops trying to collect tolls.
“In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our Military Operations to conclusion, but all of those points don’t matter compared to allowing Nuclear Power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people,” Trump claimed in a Truth Social post. “That doesn’t matter because they were very unyielding as to the single most important issue.”
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned that any attempt to retrieve the nuclear material via special forces would be very complicated.
“These are canisters, 1,000 pounds, very volatile, it would not be some simple operation. It would take 10,000 troops on the ground guarding a perimeter,” Warned told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
“We’d have to send special operators in, and the Iranians could then bomb their own facility, potentially trapping our troops, and this volatile uranium would be very, very dangerous.”
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