By Joseph Trevithick
As Israel’s campaign of strikes on Iran continues, a question emerges about whether some level of additional action may be required on the ground to meet the stated goal of preventing the regime in Tehran from being able to acquire nuclear weapons. Even if unique U.S. conventional strike capabilities are brought to bear, there could still be significant targeting challenges, especially if the Iranians move to disperse elements of their nuclear program. If the Iranian government were to collapse, and do so suddenly, there would be further impetus to ensure enriched uranium and other dangerous nuclear materials are secured. Though many actors could play a role, U.S. special operations forces, in particular, have been actively training to respond to scenarios exactly like these for years.
In 2016, the Department of Defense formally designated U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as the lead entity for the Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) mission, a role that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had previously held. Decades before then, the U.S. special operations community, especially the secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), had been training to take a newly active role in tackling potential ‘loose nukes’ or other nuclear contingencies. This was driven in large part by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had left nuclear weapons and other material scattered across a number of newly independent nations.
Today, the U.S. military also has non-special operations units that could be called upon to support CWMD missions. Other entities within the U.S. government, like the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice (to include the Federal Bureau of Investigation), also have elements that can be deployed overseas as part of CWMD missions.
When it comes to Iran, it’s important to note that the exact current state of that country’s nuclear program, including efforts to develop nuclear weapons, is a matter of dispute, including between U.S. and Israeli intelligence services. The regime in Tehran also has a long history of, at best, obfuscating and, at worst, actively lying about its nuclear ambitions.
What is not in question is that, prior to the current conflict with Israel, the Iranian government had amassed a significant stockpile of enriched uranium and established facilities capable of producing more at an appreciable scale. As of May, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had a stockpile of close to 901 pounds, at least, of uranium enriched to 60% purity, which presents clear proliferation concerns.
The 60% enrichment level is well above what is required for civilian power generation (typically between 3% and 5%), but also below the level for it to be considered highly enriched or weapons-grade (90%). At the same time, it is understood to be a relatively short step, technically speaking, to get uranium from 60% to 90% purity. As a standard metric, the IAEA says that 92.5 pounds of 60% uranium is sufficient for further enrichment into enough weapons-grade material for one nuclear bomb.
Lower-grade nuclear material could also be fashioned into a so-called ‘dirty bomb’ designed just to spread radioactive contamination across an area. In addition to any immediate effects from the detonation of such a device, it could cause widespread panic and would require significant effort to clean up.
Whether or not Iran is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon now, the country is understood to have been working toward that goal at least prior to 2003. Specialized equipment and other physical elements of the program, active or not, could also present proliferation risks.
Israeli forces have already struck a number of Iranian nuclear sites as part of their ongoing campaign, but there are also ones that currently remain untouched, most notably the deeply-buried enrichment facility at Fordo. Questions around whether or not the U.S. military might soon enter the conflict more actively on the side of Israel center heavily around its unique ability to prosecute targets like Fordo with 30,000-pound GBU-57/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs dropped from B-2 stealth bombers.
This all, in turn, raises additional questions about whether or not Iranian authorities might seek to disperse nuclear material and other assets to a wide array of locations in the face of these growing threats, if they haven’t already, at least to some degree. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said over the weekend that unspecified “special measures” had been taken to protect the country’s nuclear program, and that these would not be communicated to the IAEA.
“I’m not so sure,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told Bloomberg Television today when asked about the current potential whereabouts of Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. “In a time of war, all nuclear sites are closed. No inspections, no normal activity can take place.”
“Iran’s 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of highly-enriched uranium could fit in three or four easily-concealed cylinders,” Bloomberg had also reported on Monday, citing nuclear-weapons engineer and former IAEA inspector Robert Kelley. “Even if Israel destroys Iran’s enrichment infrastructure, the location of that material will still need to be verified.”
Prior to the outbreak of the current conflict, Israeli authorities reportedly also raised the possibility of Iran transferring nuclear assets to Houthi militants in Yemen with their American counterparts, who said they had no evidence of any such plans. As noted, a collapse of the regime in Tehran, especially if it is precipitous, would present clear further impetus to try to secure whatever might be left of Iran’s nuclear program from falling into the wrong hands.
In any of the aforementioned scenarios, the U.S. special operations community, especially so-called “tier one” units like the U.S. Army’s Delta Force and the U.S. Navy’s SEAL Team Six, could come into play.
U.S. special operations units are ideally suited to rapidly and discreetly infiltrate into a target area to extract items of interest from an objective like a nuclear facility in Iran. If the items in question are too large to be moved by the special operations force, depending on what they are, they could then be destroyed in place or secured until a larger follow-on force arrives. Conventional supporting forces and interagency elements offering unique capabilities could accompany special operations forces on initial raids, as well.
The NDTs are a prime example of conventional U.S. military units that could be called upon to support real-world special operations CWMD missions. The Army has three of these teams, all assigned to the 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Command headquarters at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. These units are made up of personnel specially trained “to exploit and disable nuclear and radiological Weapons of Mass Destruction infrastructure and components to deny near-term capability to adversaries,” according to the Army.
“The possibility of dealing with a damaged nuclear power station or emergencies involving nuclear reactors in a hostile environment is an emerging threat,” Army Capt. David Manzanares, a Nuclear Medical Science officer from NDT 1, said after the 2023 exercise at the Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant. “This training event was complex, dynamic and challenged our technical expertise.”
“NPPs [nuclear power plants] are a key part of the nuclear fuel cycle. It is the place all plutonium is produced. Therefore, reactors are a key area in nuclear weapon pathway defeat,” Army Maj. Aaron Heffelfinger, then-deputy chief of NDT 1, also said at that time. “The NDT’s ability to assess the state of a reactor, and if needed, control and shut it down, is crucial for our mission success and those we are directly supporting.”
TWZ has also reported in recent years on efforts by the U.S. special operations community to hone other skill sets that could be particularly relevant to operations in Iran and its nuclear facilities, many of which are deep underground.
In its annual budget request for the 2021 Fiscal Year, published in 2020, the Pentagon asked for $14.4 million for a new dedicated 19,200-square-foot site to help JSOC train to raid “complex, hardened facility targets.” Whether or not that facility has since been built is unclear.
In 2021, the Army’s 1st Special Forces Command (Airborne), or 1st SFC (A), also published an unclassified white paper that included details about a plan to establish “Hard Target Defeat Companies” of Green Berets. These would supplant existing Special Forces crisis response units, and be “uniquely organized to counter near-peer adversary campaigns” and “operate with regional partners to defeat hard targets in sensitive and constricted environments.” How those plans may have evolved since then is not immediately clear.
There are also examples of the U.S. military, more broadly, conducting relevant missions in post-conflict environments. For instance, in 2008, American forces, including NDT members, helped remove 550 metric tons of so-called “yellowcake” uranium oxide from the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center in Iraq. Yellowcake is an intermediate step in the refinement of uranium ore into fissile material. There are numerous instances of the U.S. government helping to secure nuclear material in circumstances entirely removed from conflicts, as well.
All of this is also relevant when it comes to potential new non-nuclear proliferating risks that might now emerge from Iran, including in the aftermath of a sudden collapse of the regime in Tehran. For instance, there have been concerns about potential Iranian chemical and biological weapons developments over the years. In 2011, U.S. troops were deployed to guard chemical weapons sites in Libya following the downfall there of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Libya’s chemical weapons and related materials were subsequently destroyed in place, a process that took some three years to complete. American forces supported a failed effort to fully destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile in 2013.
Iran also has expansive stockpiles of ballistic, cruise, and other missiles, as well as other conventional weapons that the United States and others would not want to see make their way to other hostile actors or otherwise end up on the black market. The Iranian government already has an extensive history of proliferating ballistic and cruise missiles, drones, air defense systems, and other conventional capabilities to its proxies across the Middle East.
In the meantime, the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran continues to rapidly evolve. Questions similarly continue to mount about what the United States’ role, including any potential employment of U.S. special operations forces on the ground, might be going forward.