By Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, Erin Banco and Gram Slattery
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration is considering deploying thousands of U.S. troops to reinforce its operation in the Middle East, as the U.S. military prepares for possible next steps in its campaign against Iran, said a U.S. official and three people familiar with the matter.
The deployments could help provide Trump with additional options as he weighs expanding U.S. operations, with the Iran war well into its third week.
Those options include securing safe passage for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, a mission that would be accomplished primarily through air and naval forces, the sources said. But securing the Strait could also mean deploying U.S. troops to Iran’s shoreline, said four sources, including two U.S. officials.
Reuters granted the sources anonymity to speak about military planning.
The Trump administration has also discussed options to send ground forces to Iran’s Kharg Island, the hub for 90% of Iran’s oil exports, the three people familiar with the matter and three U.S. officials said. One of the officials said such an operation would be very risky. Iran has the ability to reach the island with missiles and drones.
The United States carried out strikes against military targets on the island on March 13 and Trump has threatened to also strike its critical oil infrastructure. However, given its vital role in Iran’s economy, controlling the island would likely be viewed as a better option than destroying it, military experts say.
Any use of U.S. ground troops – even for a limited mission – could pose significant political risks for Trump, given low support among the American public for the Iran campaign and Trump’s own campaign promises to avoid entangling the U.S. in new Middle East conflicts.
Trump administration officials have also discussed the possibility of deploying U.S. forces to secure Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
The sources did not believe a deployment of ground forces anywhere in Iran was imminent but declined to discuss specifics of U.S. operational planning. Experts say the task of securing Iran’s uranium stockpiles would be highly complex and risky, even for U.S. special operations forces.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “There has been no decision to send ground troops at this time, but President Trump wisely keeps all options at his disposal.
“The president is focused on achieving all of the defined objectives of Operation Epic Fury: destroy Iran’s ballistic missile capacity, annihilate their navy, ensure their terrorist proxies cannot destabilize the region, and guarantee that Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon.”
The Pentagon declined to comment.
The discussions come as the U.S. military continues to attack Iran’s navy, its missile and drone stockpiles and its defense industry.
The U.S. has carried out more than 7,800 strikes since launching the war on February 28 and damaged or destroyed more than 120 Iranian vessels so far, according to a factsheet released on Wednesday by the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the roughly 50,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East.
U.S. CASUALTIES
Trump has said his goals go beyond degrading Iran’s military capabilities and could include securing safe passage through the Strait and preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
Ground forces could help broaden his options to address those goals, but carry significant risk. Even without any direct conflict in Iran, 13 U.S. troops have been killed so far in the war and about 200 have been wounded, although the vast majority of the injuries have been minor, the U.S. military says.
For years, Trump has railed against his predecessors for getting involved in conflicts and has vowed to keep the United States out of foreign wars. But more recently he has refused to rule out the possibility of “boots on the ground” in Iran.
A senior White House official told Reuters that Trump has various options for acquiring Iran’s nuclear material but has not decided how to proceed. “Certainly there are ways in which it could be acquired,” the official said, adding: “He hasn’t made a decision yet.”
In written testimony to lawmakers on Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Iran’s nuclear enrichment program had been obliterated by strikes in June and the entrances to those underground facilities had been “buried and shuttered with cement.”
The sources said the discussions on U.S. reinforcements go beyond the arrival of an Amphibious Ready Group next week in the Middle East, with an attached Marine Expeditionary Unit that includes more than 2,000 Marines.
But one of the sources noted that the U.S. military was losing a significant number of forces with the decision to send the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier to Greece for maintenance after a fire on board the vessel.
Trump has also oscillated on whether the U.S. should secure the Strait of Hormuz.
After initially saying the U.S. Navy could escort vessels, he called on other countries to help open the key water way. With little interest from allies, Trump on Wednesday mused about simply leaving.
“I wonder what would happen if we ‘finished off’ what’s left of the Iranian Terror State, and let the Countries that use it, we don’t, be responsible for the so called ‘Strait?,'” Trump posted on Truth Social.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart, Idrees Ali, Erin Banco and Gram Slattery; additional reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Don Durfee and Rosalba O’Brien)
