Trump suggests US, Iran could work together to remove 'nuclear dust'
While many details of the two-week U.S. ceasefire deal with Iran are still unclear, President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested the two countries could work together to "dig up" Tehran's enriched uranium now buried deep underground.
Not allowing Iran to have or make the fuel to make a nuclear weapon has been one of Trump's stated objectives in the war.
"There will be no enrichment of Uranium, and the United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried (B-2 Bombers) Nuclear 'Dust,'" he said on Wednesday morning in a social media post, referring to the material covered in rubble from last June's strikes against the Fordo and other nuclear facilities during Operation Midnight Hammer.
"It is now, and has been, under very exacting Satellite Surveillance (Space Force!)" Trump added. "Nothing has been touched from the date of attack."
He previously had not ruled out using U.S. ground troops to seize the material -- which military analysts say would be risky, involving a large American special operations force.
Iranian officials have not spoken publicly about any deal with the U.S. to work with the U.S. to remove nuclear material.
At a Pentagon briefing Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed up Trump's post.
"Under the terms, any nuclear material ... they should not have will be removed," he told reporters.
"Right now the dust is deeply buried and watched 24-7 overhead," he added.
"We know exactly what they have, and they know that, and they will either give it to us, which the president has laid out, they'll give it to us voluntarily. We'll get it, we'll take it, we'll take it out," Hegseth said. "Or, if we have to do something else ourselves, like we did in Midnight Hammer or something like that, we reserve that opportunity."
