[3eb7988a1663]

I have my doubts. There was a previous BBC piece[0] which went into some of the challenges with such a mission. The first being: it is not publicly known where Iran is storing its uranium. There are many putative options, most of which are going to be hardened and underground. Isfahan is near the middle of the country - safely getting troops there would already be challenging, let alone digging up any from the collapsed tunnels.

Minor blurb from the article:

  Satellite imagery shows that the entrances to Isfahan and Natanz were badly damaged by US airstrikes. US forces would likely need heavy machinery to dig through rubble in order to locate the enriched uranium, which is believed to be stored in tunnels buried deep underground - all while facing potential counterattacks from Iran.

  "You've first got to excavate the site and detect [the enriched uranium] while likely being under near constant threat," Campbell said.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvglv5v4yvpo

[adrian_b]

While it is hard to believe that someone in the US military believed that such a mission for uranium extraction can be successful, it is at least equally hard to believe that the US military has spent around a half of billion dollars just for saving 2 men, while also risking the lives of a very large number of other US combatants.

Saving your men is important, but it should have been easy to do that at a much lower cost and at much lower risks of additional personnel losses, if that had been the true mission goal.

[dingaling]

Familiarise yourself with the SANDY aircrew rescue missions in Vietnam.

Vast amounts of hardware and many American lives were lost trying to recover downed pilots, even when it was known it was a body retrieval operation.

For one famous example, the rescue of BAT21 Bravo resulted in the loss of five aircraft, the deaths of eleven and two taken as POWs.

It is a point of principle that the USAF does not apply a 'cost effectiveness' test to aircrew recovery.

[hugh-avherald]

I can certainly believe that the assurance the US gives to its pilots that they will never be left behind and the public demonstration of that assurance as something the US values in the billions of dollars.

It is also clear that if the mission was not a purely rescue mission then it would have taken a lot more equipment than what appears to have been used. Even for an escalade style high-risk low-probability mission it would be inadequate.

I think the most likely version of the claim would be that the Pentagon would have used the planning and execution of the mission as a valuable opportunity to learn for a dedicated mission to extract uranium in a contestable theatre. But even that is pushing it.

[adrian_b]

We do not know how much equipment was used.

We know only approximately how much equipment has been lost. It is likely that much more equipment was used than what has been lost, i.e. many more transport airplanes than the 2 lost and many more helicopters.

Nevertheless, I agree that a possible explanation is what you propose, i.e. that the mission could have been more a test of the Iranian defense than an incursion that was actually expected to succeed.

In any case, if it was a test it was also a failure, as the defense was stronger than they expected, leading to excessive equipment losses.