Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine provided an update on the U.S.’s advancing operations in Iran on Wednesday morning from the Pentagon.
Through four days, the United States and Israel have carried out thousands of strikes, including killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, while Iran has responded with a barrage of missile and drone attacks launched at Israel and U.S. assets in several other countries in the region.
US, Israel will have ‘complete control of Iranian skies’
Currently, Caine said the U.S. has “localized air superiority across the southern flank of the Iranian coast” and will begin expanding their campaign inland deeper into Iranian territory, “creating additional freedom of maneuver for U.S. forces.”
The U.S. and Israeli Air Forces will have uncontested control of Iran’s airspace “in a few days,” Hegseth said, explaining that it will allow for both the U.S. and Israeli pilots to safely maneuver over the country to target military leaders, stockpiles, and anything else they want.
“We will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders flying over Tehran, flying over Iran, flying over their capital, flying over the IRGC, Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only us and Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it’s over, and Iran will be able to do nothing about it,” he said.
The U.S. had largely been using standoff munitions, such as cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles, but having uncontested airspace will allow it to begin overhead bombing using GPS-aided free-fall weapons, such as gravity bombs.
“More bombers, fighters are arriving just today,” Hegseth said. “And now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1,000-pound, and 2,000-pound GPS-and-laser-guided precision gravity bombs, which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile.”
US goes after Iranian Navy
The U.S. sank Iran’s IRIS Shahid Soleimani, which is the lead ship of an Iranian class of missile corvettes.
The ship was named in honor of the former Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in 2020 by a U.S. airstrike.
“The Iranian Navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf,” Hegseth said. “Combat, ineffective, decimated, destroyed, defeated, pick your adjective. In fact, last night, we sunk their prized ship, the Soleimani, looks like POTUS got him twice.”
The U.S. drone strike assassination of Qassem Soleimani seemingly played a pivotal role in how the two sides ended up in a full-fledged war. Following Soleimani’s assassination, Iranian senior leaders, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, plotted for Trump’s assassination and those of other senior U.S. leaders involved in the mission.
“I got [Khamenei] before he got me,” Trump said in an interview on Sunday night with ABC News. “I got him first.”
In addition to taking out the Soleimani, an American military submarine sank an Iranian Navy frigate IRIS Dana off the coast of Sri Lanka using a single Mark 48 torpedo. It was the first time an American sub took out an enemy vessel since World War II, Caine said.
“For the first time since 1945, a United States Navy fast attack submarine has sunk an enemy combatant ship using a single mark 48 torpedo to achieve immediate effect, sending the warship to the bottom of the sea,” the chairman said. “I want to remind everybody that this is an incredible demonstration of America’s global reach.”
US will ‘outlast’ Iran
“Iran cannot outlast us,” Hegseth said. “We’re going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.”
Iran’s use of ballistic missiles is already down considerably over the course of the first four days of the war, though its arsenal is not empty.
The number of ballistic missiles Iran is firing is down 86% since the first day of fighting, with a 23% decrease over the last 24 hours, while their one-way attack drone shots are down 73% from the opening days, Caine said.
The secretary acknowledged that despite the degradation to their arsenal, “Iran will still be able to shoot some missiles and still be able to launch one-way attack drones at civilian targets, and their proxies will attempt to attack our embassies, bases and soft targets.”
HOW THE IRAN CONFLICT WAS LAUNCHED: ‘OPERATION EPIC FURY IS APPROVED. NO ABORTS. GOOD LUCK’
Media ‘wants to make the president look bad’ with reporting on American fatalities
Six U.S. troops have already been killed since the war began in an Iranian drone attack on Sunday in Kuwait at the Port of Shuaiba.
The Pentagon revealed the identities of four of them on Tuesday: Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35, of Winter Haven, Fla.; Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42, of Bellevue, Neb.; Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39, of White Bear Lake, Minn.; and Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20, of West Des Moines, Iowa.
The identities of the other two service members who were killed have not been released yet.
Hegseth, during Wednesday’s briefing, suggested that the press reports on casualties “to make the president look bad.”
“This is what the fake news misses,” he said. “We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. We control their fate, but when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news. I get it. The press only wants to make the president look bad, but try for once, to report the reality, the terms of this war will be set by us at every step.”
Caine, for his part, started his opening remarks by reading the names of the fallen soldiers and expressing his “profound sadness and gratitude.”
In Monday’s press conference, the chairman said they expect to incur additional casualties and possible fatalities as the war continues.
Turkey mishap likely won’t lead to invocation of Article 5
NATO forces on Wednesday shot down an Iranian missile headed for Turkey. There was no loss of life or injuries.
The incident appears to mark the first time a NATO member has been drawn into the ever-expanding Middle East conflict.
“We are aware of that particular engagement, although there is no sense that it would trigger anything like Article 5,” Hegseth said.
Article 5 is one of the bedrock principles of the alliance and it calls for an armed attack on one NATO member to be viewed as an attack on the entire alliance, committing members to assist the attacked party.
The only time Article 5 has ever been invoked was in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S.
