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It's entombed: Trump says US can retrieve Iran's uranium without a deal, but has no reason to

On 5 June 2026, The Times of Israel published "It's entombed: Trump says US can retrieve Iran's uranium without a deal, but has no reason to". Staff reporters wrote up remarks President Donald Trump gave reporters in the Oval Office the day before. He said American forces could go into Iran and take buried enriched uranium, and he described a plan he said he did not approve. An American family should care because a president is talking about soldiers on Iranian soil for weeks, not only about bombs from the air. He also said he turned that plan down while the fighting was still going.

Background for new readers: On 28 February 2026 the United States and Israel began a joint air war on Iran. The Pentagon calls its part Operation Epic Fury; Israel calls its part Operation Roaring Lion. It came eight months after a shorter war in June 2025, when US bombers hit Iran's nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The question running through this section is whether the air war turns into American soldiers fighting on Iranian soil. This article is filed under Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid; the full article index lists every article on this shelf.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. This rates Trump's own account, given to reporters in the Oval Office and reported by The Times of Israel with Reuters, of a ground plan he says he did not approve.

What the article says​

The Times of Israel reports that Trump said the United States could remove Iran's enriched uranium without a deal, and that there was "no reason to," because he said the regime could not reach it. The paper says he revealed, for the first time, a plan he did not approve. That plan would have sent American troops into Iran to collect what he calls "nuclear dust."

He told reporters the job would not be a short raid. He said the force would have to stay, and that the equipment would have to be flown in.

This is different. You have to be there for two weeks. You'd need massive equipment. You'd have to airlift the equipment.

Donald Trump, speaking to reporters, as reported by The Times of Israel, 5 June 2026.

The article says he compared the risk to Jimmy Carter. Carter was the US president whose 1980 attempt to rescue 52 American embassy staff held in Iran failed. Trump said, "I didn't feel like being like Jimmy Carter." He also said, "I don't want to do it if we're in conflict. I don't want to put men in that kind of danger."

The paper says there was a moment at the very beginning of the war when his side thought about going in, because Iran would not have been watching at first, but would have found out. He said the material was "entombed," that cameras watched three underground sites, and that if anyone went there the sites would be hit again. He still said he wanted the material. He also said that, as things stood, the United States would go in "in the not too distant future." The paper adds its own gloss in brackets, that he meant dealing with the stockpile later by agreement. Those words are the newspaper's, not Trump's.

The article says Iran has denied accepting a deal to remove or dispose of the uranium. It says Israel and the United States began the campaign on 28 February. Reuters contributed to the report.

What other reporting adds​

What Netanyahu said a month earlier. Israel's prime minister had already put the idea in Trump's mouth. On CBS's 60 Minutes in May 2026, asked how the enriched uranium would be removed, Netanyahu said: "You go in, and you take it out." Pressed on whose special forces, he said: "Well, I'm not gonna talk about military means, but the pres-- what President Trump has said to me, 'I want to go in there.' and I think it can be done physically." (CBS News transcript, 10 May 2026; research capture: twitter/t13__v145.md). Middle East Eye headlined that interview "Netanyahu hints at US troop deployment against Iran" (Middle East Eye, 11 May 2026). The words in quotation marks are Netanyahu's account of what Trump told him. Trump's own words on this page, a month later, are that he turned the plan down.

The plan did not go away. Seven weeks after this article, the New York Post reported, citing "a source familiar with military planning," that seizing the uranium "would involve thousands of ground troops storming Iran's nuclear facilities." Former National Security Council official Richard Goldberg told the Post a special-operations mission inside Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified underground site, would make sense only if "you don't think you can collapse the facility by airstrike." (New York Post story as pasted by @OwenGregorian on X, 25 July 2026; research capture: twitter/t52__v613.md).

What it shows​

In his own words, the President confirmed that a plan existed to send American troops into Iran for weeks: "You have to be there for two weeks. You'd need massive equipment." He said going in was considered at the very start of the war, and that the United States would go in "in the not too distant future" (by agreement, in the paper's reading).

A month earlier Netanyahu had told 60 Minutes, "You go in, and you take it out," and quoted Trump: "I want to go in there." Seven weeks later the New York Post reported the raid would take "thousands of ground troops." The plan was set aside, not dropped, and the troops in it are American. See Kharg Island and the Uranium Raid.

Check it yourself​

The sources after the first come from this investigation's research captures. Their quotes are in the section above.

Status: Donald Trump is alive.

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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