Pentagon and Intelligence Officials Update Nation on Iran War | The American Spectator

Early Thursday morning, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine held a press conference at the Pentagon to provide updates on the war with Iran. 

Hegseth began the press conference by admonishing the media for portraying the war as “spinning towards an endless abyss” or a “forever war,” adding “nothing could be further from the truth.” He also stated that the military’s objectives remain “exactly what they were on day 1.” 

According to Hegseth, the objectives as laid out by President Donald Trump are to “destroy missiles, launchers, and Iran’s defense industrial base so they can not rebuild” and to “destroy their navy and [ensure] Iran never gets a nuclear weapon.” He again emphasized that these have been the objectives since “day 1.”

The press conference comes a day after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Kash Patel, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and other national security officials testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on the war with Iran and global threats to the nation.

In her opening statement, Gabbard described the leadership of the Iranian regime as “largely degraded,” stating the government “appears to be intact,” despite the sustained bombing campaign. Gabbard also described Iran’s nuclear program as “obliterated” following Operation Midnight Hammer, adding there have been “no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability.”

However, at another point during her testimony, she said intelligence assessments before the war found “Iran was trying to recover from the severe damage to its nuclear infrastructure.”

In line with the Trump administration’s stance, Director Ratcliffe called Iran a “constant threat to the United States for an extended period of time,” adding the country “posed an immediate threat at this time.” 

No one who testified before the committee used the word “imminent” to describe the threat posed by Iran, and Gabbard specifically deferred to the president when asked who decides what is imminent, saying, “It is not a responsibility of the intelligence community to determine what is or is not an imminent threat.”

Gabbard, Patel, Ratcliffe, and other intelligence officials will testify before the House Intelligence Committee today.

Critics of the war have pointed to U.S. intelligence reports that Iran was not an “imminent” threat, thereby making it a war of choice and not defense. 

During the press conference today, Hegseth rejected that portrayal, describing the Iranian regime as a “messianic Islamist ideology chasing some sort of apocalyptic endgame.” 

“A regime like that, refusing to abandon its nuclear ambitions, is not just a regional problem,” Hegseth said, “it’s a direct threat to America, to freedom, and to civilization.” 

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine spoke after the secretary. He continued his theme of speaking at length and in detail about the “members of our incredible joint force.” 

Today, Gen. Caine focused his speech on the military members assigned to the B-1 and B-2 Air Force long-range bombers, calling them the “backbone” of America’s long-range strike capability. 

To date, the U.S. military has struck over 7,000 targets across Iran and its military infrastructure, according to the secretary. Hegseth also repeated a sentiment he’d previously shared, that each day will see the “largest strike package yet” as America’s capabilities continue to grow.

While Iran has continued to attack American allies and facilities in the region, Hegseth described the country’s defense industrial base as “overwhelmingly destroyed.” Iran’s ability to fire ballistic missiles — its stockpile before the war was estimated at 2,000 short-range missiles — has been reduced by 90 percent, according to the Secretary. Hegseth also claimed the same is true of Iran’s use of one-way-attack UAVs, known as kamikaze drones.

While he described the war as “on plan,” Hegseth declined to set a “definitive timeline” for when it would end when asked by a reporter. 

Pressed about what the Pentagon is doing to prevent Iran’s attacks on civilian and diplomatic infrastructure, Gen. Caine said the military continues to be as “aggressive and assertive as we can” against the regime’s missile capabilities, adding the U.S. has “layered defenses around the region” and continues to work to upgrade the capabilities of our partners.

Hegseth said Iran’s “reckless” decision to bomb the Gulf states has backfired, bringing those nations “squarely into our orbit.”

Gen. Caine also touched on “lessons learned” from the KC-135 refueling aircraft crash in western Iraq that killed six U.S. service members. He stated he’s asked Pentagon leadership to “look rigorously, to check our ego at the door” and to “be clinical” about looking at lessons learned “because we owe it to the force to do that.” U.S. Central Command confirmed after the accident that the incident was “not due to hostile fire or friendly fire.”

Regarding what the Middle East would look like a year after the war with Iran, Hegseth speculated that new options would emerge from the power vacuum left by the regime. “It opens the aperture of what’s possible,” Hegseth said, adding that President Trump would work alongside partners to “look at what makes the most sense going forward.”

Hegseth sidestepped a question about what it would look like to denuclearize Iran, talking instead about Iran’s growing “conventional umbrella” of munitions. Asked about a Pentagon request for $200 billion in supplemental funds for the war, Hegseth confirmed the department made the request, adding he “thinks the number could move.” 

Hegseth also blamed the Biden administration for “depleting our stockholders” by sending munitions to Ukraine, defending the request as necessary to ensure the Defense Department is “properly funded going forward.” The war with Iran reportedly cost $11.3 billion in the first six days, according to the New York Times.

Hegseth ended the press conference by rejecting a claim that the U.S. is helping Israel “prosecute this war,” stating, “We hold the cards, we have objectives, those objectives are clear.” 

“The United States military controls the fate of that country; Iran can make the right choices.”