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.
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.