LONDON: US President Donald Trump ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran but raised the possibility of further strikes on its nuclear facilities, saying Washington wanted to ensure Tehran could never develop an atomic weapon.
“No, I wouldn’t use nuclear. We don’t have to,” Trump said in an interview on Thursday with the conservative US cable news outlet Newsmax.
Asked about reports that his administration was considering using the “mother of all bombs” against Iran, potentially after the US midterm elections, Trump said the weapon was not nuclear.
“The mother of all bombs is not nuclear,” he told Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty. “This is just an extremely large bomb.
“The mother of all bombs is one big bomb, but it’s not nuclear,” he added.
Trump said a suspected underground nuclear site known as Pickaxe Mountain could be a target for further US strikes.
“Now, we’re looking at Pickaxe Mountain. We may have to go there,” he said. “We’ll take a shot at that one. We’ll knock it out fast.”
Asked whether an operation would involve American ground troops, he said, “No, I don’t see that.”
Trump said ending the campaign without ensuring Iran could not obtain nuclear weapons could force the US to take military action again within a year.
“We want to make it so that they will never have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
Despite raising the prospect of further strikes, Trump predicted the war would end soon and said Tehran was negotiating with Washington.
“One way or the other, it’ll end very soon,” he said. “And oil will go dropping like a rock — and gas prices as well.”
He also said Iranian officials had asked for a halt to American and Israeli military operations.
“They’ve asked us to please stop. And we do, because we’re negotiating with them,” he said.