In the Trump administration's first news briefing since the US-Israeli strikes on Iran began early on Saturday, Hegseth said the operation had a “clear, devastating, decisive mission” to eliminate the threat of Iranian ballistic missiles, destroy the country's navy and ensure “no nukes”.
Hegseth appeared to celebrate the notion of waging war while ignoring the United States' own rules of engagement – directives on how and when the US military can use force and which conform to the Geneva Conventions.
“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives,” Hegseth said with his trademark bluster.
Hegseth was speaking alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Dan Caine. The two men monitored the start of strikes with US President Donald Trump at his resort in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, rather than the White House, Reuters reported.
In laying out a case for the strikes, Hegseth did not cite any imminent nuclear threat from Iran, reiterating that strikes by the US and Israel last June “obliterated their nuclear programme to rubble”.
Instead, Hegseth pointed to threats from other weaponry such as ballistic missiles and drones to justify the operation.
“Iran was building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for their nuclear blackmail ambitions,” he said.
“Our bases, our people, our allies, all in their crosshairs. Iran had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb,” Hegseth added.
He said that during negotiations last week with US officials leading up to the attack, Iranian officials were “stalling" despite having “every chance to make a peaceful and sensible deal”.
Wider war
The killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast doubt on the future of the Islamic Republic and hurtled the region into broader instability.
Trump administration officials have not offered any exit plan for how the conflict would end or what a post-strike Iran might look like, even as they denied Iran's leadership had been incapacitated.
“This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime sure did change, and the world is better off for it,” Hegseth said.
The briefing came as the conflict intensified into a wider war in the region. Iran and its allied armed groups have launched missiles at Israel, Arab states and US military targets in the Middle East.
Four US troops have been killed in action, with Trump, Hegseth and Caine predicting more US casualties.
The top defence leaders did not offer details on the circumstances of the troops' deaths.
“We grieve with you, and we will never forget you,” Caine said of the troops killed and their family members.
The latest sign of the escalating upheaval came when, the US military said, US ally Kuwait “mistakenly shot down” three American fighter jets during a combat mission as Iranian aircraft, ballistic missiles and drones were attacking. US Central Command said all six pilots ejected safely from the American F-15E Strike Eagles and were in stable condition.
Asked if there are boots on the ground now in Iran, Hegseth said, “No, but we’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do.”
He said it was “foolishness” to expect US officials to say publicly “here’s exactly how far we’ll go”.
He also justified the operation by describing Iran’s government as having started the conflict from its inception, declaring that for 47 years it has “waged a savage, one-sided war against America”.
Trump administration officials told congressional staffers that US intelligence did not suggest Iran was preparing to launch a preemptive strike against the US, three people familiar with the briefings said of the private briefing on Sunday.
Trump has said the objective of the mission was to eliminate “imminent threats from the Iranian regime”. Senior Trump administration officials, who were not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, told reporters on Saturday that there were indicators that the Iranians could launch a preemptive attack.
As with the attack that dropped massive bunker-buster bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities last year, Caine said that the military also used B-2 stealth bombers in the new operation and that they made a 37-hour round trip.
He said the penetrating bombs were dropped on Iranian underground facilities but did not specify that they were nuclear facilities. Nuclear facilities also were not among the types of targets on a list released by US Central Command.
Central Command said over the weekend that the military has struck more than 1,000 targets. Officials have said Israel and the US have bombed Iranian missile sites and targeted its navy, claiming to have destroyed its headquarters and multiple warships.
Orders given en route
Caine on Monday referenced the use of cyber technologies in the strikes, which he said had “effectively disrupted communications and sensor networks” that had left “the adversary without the ability to coordinate or respond effectively”.
Without giving specifics, Caine said the military “delivered synchronised and layered effects designed to disrupt, degrade, deny and destroy Iran’s ability to conduct and sustained combat operations on the US side”.
In laying out a timeline, Caine said Trump gave the go-ahead order for the strikes at 3:38pm EST on Friday.
That meant the president gave the green light for the offensive while he was aboard Air Force One heading to Texas with Republican senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn as well as actor Dennis Quaid.
In an interview Sunday with The New York Times, Trump said the operation could last “four to five weeks”.
Hegseth dismissed questions about the time frame on Monday and said, “President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back.”
Hegseth and Caine spoke hours before Secretary of State Marco Rubio was slated to brief congressional leadership. Rubio, Hegseth, Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe also were set to brief the full membership of Congress on Tuesday.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
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