WASHINGTON — Iran is taking advantage of the ceasefire with the U.S. to dig out its weapons. The regime has stepped up its efforts to excavate missiles and other munitions it hid underground or that were buried beneath rubble from U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, according to a U.S. official and two other people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. believes the regime wants to quickly reconstitute its drone and missile capabilities so it could launch attacks across the Middle East if President Donald Trump decides to resume military operations, the sources said.
Trump is set to meet with his national security team on Thursday to review options — including new military action — for opening the Strait of Hormuz and stripping Iran of any nuclear material, according to another U.S. official.
The commander of U.S. Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, was scheduled to brief Trump and members of his national security team on the options as well as the status of a U.S. blockade, the official said.
The president is expected to make a decision on the path forward in coming days, according to the first U.S. official.
A White House official said that Trump’s planned mid-May trip to China, which has ties with Iran, is among the factors contributing to his decision-making process as he weighs options for a way forward in Iran. The president’s visit to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, which was already postponed once because of the war in Iran, is a “priority” and the White House really does not want to move it again, the official said.
Iran began blocking the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. and Israel began its bombing campaign on Feb. 28 and the move has sent global oil prices surging. Trump retaliated with a naval blockade of Iranian ports in the strait, redirecting 41 vessels from transiting the strait as of Wednesday, according to U.S. Central Command officials. A temporary ceasefire went into effect on April 8 to allow U.S. and Iran room to negotiate an end to the war and to reopen the strait, but talks have not produced results.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier this month that the U.S. had indications that Iran was trying to reconstitute its military capabilities. “We know what military assets you are moving and where you are moving them to,” he said at the Pentagon April 16.
“While you are digging out — which is exactly what you’re doing, digging out of bombed out and devastated facilities — we are only getting stronger,” Hegseth said. “You are digging out your remaining launchers and missiles with no ability to replace them.”
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the Pentagon pointed to Hegseth’s remarks.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement that the U.S. military had achieved all of Trump’s objectives in the war in Iran, adding: “Iran’s ballistic missiles are destroyed, their production facilities are demolished, their navy is sunk, and their proxies are weakened.”
“Following this successful military campaign, President Trump has every option at his disposal. However, his preference is always diplomacy, as he instructed American negotiators to work towards a deal that ensures Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon,” Kelly said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has suggested the war in Iran would be wrapped up by the start of the president’s rescheduled trip to China in May, telling reporters on March 25, “We’ve always estimated approximately four to six weeks, so you could do the math on that.” It’s unclear how the ceasefire and current internal deliberations might affect the president’s timeline.
Iran has maintained that it still has the ability to wage war against the U.S. and protect its interests.
While the White House and the Pentagon have made definitive declarations that Iran’s military is all but defeated, U.S. intelligence shows that Iran maintains many of its the military capabilities it had before the start of the war, NBC News reported last week. That not only includes many of Iran’s ballistic missiles but also more than half of the Iranian air force’s aircraft, but also more than half of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ fleet of naval components, NBC reported.
The U.S. official and the two people familiar with the matter said Iran has only accelerated efforts to retrieve its missiles and other munitions in recent days as the potential for the war to resume increases with negotiations to end it appearing to hit an impasse.
Experts and congressional aides have told NBC News that Iran likely was able to preserve some of its missile arsenal by deploying decoys and dispersing some around the country. And prior to the war, as the U.S. built up a vast array of military assets in the region, the Iranian regime buried or otherwise concealed the rest of its missiles and launchers, according to the U.S. official and one of the people familiar with the matter.
The U.S. and Israel for weeks bombed Iranian ballistic missile and missile launcher sites, along with an array of other targets. While those strikes have significantly diminished Iran’s arsenal, Trump administration officials have said that Iran still has those capabilities.
On Wednesday, Trump acknowledged that Iran maintained some of its missile arsenal.
“They have missiles, about 82 percent are gone, and they have drones, and most of them are gone,” Trump said during an appearance in the Oval Office.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as interim national security advisor, said on Monday that Iran retains half of its arsenal of missiles.
“Inflation is worse, they still have the drought going on, they still have trouble making payroll, their economy’s flattened, they face crippling economic sanctions around the world,” Rubio said during an interview on Fox News. “All those problems are there and many of them are worse, and now, they have half the missiles, none of the factories, and no Navy and no Air Force, all that’s been destroyed, so they’re worse off and weaker.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
