Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, projected the strong but not silent type, who not only was not at a loss for words at a press conference at the Pentagon, but appeared to give the audience multiple-choice statements, in which it could select the word it preferred.
“Pick your adjective,” he told the audience as he spoke about the Iranian navy, which he said rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. “Combat ineffective, decimated, destroyed, defeated.”
Speaking alongside Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth added that the Iranian navy is “not a factor.”
“Pick your adjective, it is no more,” he said.
Critics on the far left have said that U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran are illegitimate, and many centrist Democrats have said that the Islamic Republic is a repressive regime that ought to be removed, but that U.S. President Donald Trump still needs to convince Congress and to present his argument for war to the American people.
The defense secretary said during the press briefing that he had an “unmistakable message” about Epic Fury, the American military operation in Iran.
“America is winning,” he said. “Decisively, devastatingly and without mercy.”
“We are only four days into this. Metrics are shifting. Dust is settling, and more forces are arriving. It’s very early,” he said. “As President Trump has said, we will take all the time that we need to make sure we succeed.”
Just four days into the war, the results have been “incredible” and “historic really,” according to the defense secretary.
“Only the United States of America could lead this. Only us,” he said. “But when you add the Israeli defense forces, a devastatingly capable force, the combination is sheer destruction for our radical, Islamist Iranian adversaries. They are toast, and they know it, or at least soon enough they will know it.”
“We have only just begun to hunt, dismantle, demoralize, destroy and defeat their capabilities just four days in,” he added.
The U.S. and Israeli air forces, which Hegseth said are the most powerful in the world, will have “complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace” in the next few days.
“I hope all the folks watching understand what uncontested airspace and complete control means. It means 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,” he said.
“Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only U.S. and Israeli air power every minute of every day until we decide it’s over,” he added. “Iran will be able to do nothing about it. B-2s, B-52s, B-1s, Predator drones, fighters controlling the skies, picking targets, death and destruction from the sky all day long. We’re playing for keeps.”
“This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight,” Hegseth said. “We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
“Epic Fury” has featured twice the power of the U.S. attacks on Iraq in 2003 and “even times the intensity of Israel’s previous operations against Iran during the 12-day war,” the defense secretary said.
The American military will use “500-pound, 1,000-pound and 2,000-pound GPS and laser-guided precision gravity bombs of which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile,” he added. “The enemy can no longer shoot the volume of missiles they once did, not even close.”
Iran might have scripted the first few moves in the war, but it can no longer make strategic decisions this far into the fight, according to Hegseth.
“Iran’s senior leaders are dead. The so-called governing council that might have selected a successor, dead, missing or cowering in bunkers, too terrified to even occupy the same room,” he said. “Senior generals, mid-level officers, enlisted ranks, they can’t talk or communicate, let alone mount a coordinated and sustained offensive. That’s not great for morale.”
The U.S. mission, the defense secretary said, is “laser-focused,” to “obliterate Iran’s missiles and drones and facilities that produce them, annihilate its navy and critical security infrastructure and sever their pathway to nuclear weapons.”
“Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb, not on our watch, not ever,” he added. “No more letting Tehran play for time while our people pay the price.”
Caine shared the names of four of the six soldiers who have been killed with “profound sadness and gratitude": Capt. Cody Khork, Sgt. 1st Class Noah Tietjens, Sgt. 1st Class Nicole Amor and Sgt. Declan Coady. (The other two’s next of kin is still being notified.)
“To the families of our fallen, we grieve with you today, and we look forward to welcoming your family members home at Dover in the coming days,” he said.
The operation was “launched with clear military objectives designed to dismantle Iran’s ability to project power outside of its borders both today and in the future,” Caine said.
“Iran’s theater ballistic-missile shots fired are down 86% from the first day of fighting, with a 23% decrease just in the last 24 hours,” he said. “Their one-way attack drone shots are down 73% from the opening days.”
That progress has let U.S. Central Command “establish localized air superiority across the southern flank of the Iranian coast and penetrate their defenses with overwhelming precision and firepower,” Caine said. “We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory and creating additional freedom of maneuver for U.S. forces.”
The United States is precise with its attacks, but “Iran, on the other hand, has been indiscriminate and more imprecise in their attacks.”
“They’ve fired more than 500 ballistic missiles and more than 2,000 drones, striking innocent civilian targets throughout the region,” he said.
Mike Glenn, of The Washington Times, asked the two how they make sure that “Epic Fury” and the Israeli operation, “Roaring Lion,” don’t get in each other’s way.
“We have liaison officers on both sides. There are us, CENTCOM teammates, out in Israel, and there are Israeli Defense Force teammates at the relevant command and control nodes within the CENTCOM enterprise,” Caine said. “Routinely, Adm. Cooper is talking to the IDF chief of defense, and I will occasionally speak to him through the arc of this.”
