U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that the coming days “will be decisive” in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, while acknowledging that Iran still had the capacity to retaliate after several weeks of massive attacks by the United States and Israel.
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“Iran knows this, and there is almost nothing they can do militarily about it,” he said during a Pentagon press briefing on the war with Iran, the first in nearly two weeks. He also reaffirmed that the Iranian regime had been weakened.
“They will fire a few missiles, and we will shoot them down,” Mr. Hegseth assured. Over the weekend, the Pentagon chief made a surprise visit to U.S. bases in the Middle East to meet with U.S. soldiers on the ground.
Asked about the possible deployment of U.S. ground troops to Iran by President Donald Trump, the secretary said that “we are not ruling out any options.”
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He added that the Pentagon wanted “to be unpredictable” regarding the possible presence of U.S. troops on the ground in Iran.
General Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained during the press briefing that U.S. airstrikes now had the primary objective of “blocking and destroying the logistics and supply chains that feed” Iran’s missile, drone, and ship construction facilities.
He stated that the U.S. military had begun flying B-52 bombers over Iranian land territory for the first time, suggesting that Iran’s air defenses were heavily degraded.
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Xinhua
