Expert predicts thousands of US troops would be needed to secure Iran's highly enriched uranium
Andrew Weber played a role in removing enriched uranium from Kazakhstan in the 1990s
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Andrew Weber, a national security expert, revealed on Sunday that removing Iran's highly enriched uranium would likely take thousands of U.S. troops and experts to evacuate the material from the country.
Weber served as the assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs under former President Barack Obama and played a role in removing enriched uranium from Kazakhstan that was left behind by the Soviet Union.
CBS News' Cecilia Vega asked Weber during a "60 Minutes" interview if the same sort of mission would be possible in Iran.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"In Iran, we couldn't send a team in to do this unilaterally without great risk," he said. "You would need to set up in the middle of the country a secure perimeter. It would probably take thousands of U.S. troops to secure the facility while our experts excavated the HEU that's located inside deep tunnels at a place called Isfahan."
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Andrew Weber, who served as the assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical & Biological Defense Programs under former President Barack Obama, spoke to "60 Minutes" about what would be involved in removing highly enriched uranium from Iran. (Screenshot/"60 Minutes")
Matthew Bunn, a nuclear policy analyst and former White House adviser, said forces in the U.S. have been training for something like this.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It's not like Iran hasn't thought about the possibility that we might do this. But U.S. Special Forces have been training for deep underground facilities of one kind or another for a long, long, long time," Bunn told CBS.
Vega also asked about President Donald Trump, after the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear facility in 2025, saying that Iran's program had been completely obliterated.
"Yeah, that statement is just not true," Bunn said. "You can't say that a program that still has enough nuclear material for a bunch of nuclear bombs is obliterated. Unfortunately. There's no doubt that the combination of the strikes in June of last year, and the ongoing war, have seriously set back Iran's capabilities. But the remaining capabilities are substantial. You can't bomb away their knowledge."
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President Donald Trump has said the U.S. could take Iran's enriched uranium. (Alex Brandon/Pool/AP)
Trump has said the U.S. could take Iran's enriched uranium.
"Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, and we're going to get the dust back. We'll get it back. Either we'll get it back from them or we'll take it," Trump said at the White House in March.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The President has made his position on uranium enrichment and the status of the highly enriched uranium in Iran absolutely clear. We will not negotiate through the press," a White House official told Fox News Digital.
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Satellite imagery taken on Jan. 30, 2026, shows a new roof over a previously destroyed building at the Natanz nuclear site. (Planet Labs PBC/Reuters)
Peace talks with Iran were expected to begin in Pakistan on Tuesday, but recent reports from Iranian state media have thrown the meetings into doubt. The fragile two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran will expire on Wednesday, and there has been no news on extending the truce.
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Trump has said repeatedly that his goal in going to war with Iran was to ensure that the country does not build a nuclear weapon.