Following on President Trump's statement Wednesday morning that the US "will dig up and remove" Iran's highly enriched uranium, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says Iran has two options: hand it over or risk a US raid to grab it. At the Pentagon on Wednesday, the New York Times reports that Hegseth demanded Tehran surrender about 970 pounds of uranium buried at a bombed-out site in Isfahan, warning that Trump could still authorize a commando operation to remove material he said could be quickly converted into a nuclear weapon. (Video of the press conference is here.) "They will either give it to us, or we'll take it out," Hegseth said, adding that the details of such a mission were "something the president is going to solve." Further, he said, per CBS News, "we'll be hanging around" to ensure Iran adheres to the ceasefire.
Appearing with Gen. Dan Caine, the Joint Chiefs chairman, Hegseth cast the 38-day air campaign as "a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield." Caine said US strikes wiped out most of Iran's air defenses, hundreds of drone and missile storage sites, and much of its industrial base. Yet Iran has been able to fire missiles and drones, downed two US jets, and disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Critics questioned the administration's metrics for success and warned that talk of hitting civilian infrastructure—which legal experts say could constitute war crimes—points to a conflict with unclear strategic ends.
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