US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday said the Iranian air force and navy have been wiped out and described disarray within the ranks of the Iranian military.
Asserting that the US is winning the war, now in its fifth day, Mr Hegseth also said the US military had plenty of interceptor missiles and could outlast the Iranian military.
“Senior generals, midlevel officers, enlisted ranks, they can't talk or communicate, let alone mount a co-ordinated and sustained offensive,” he said at a press conference. “That's not great for morale. The Iranian Air Force is no more. Built for 1996, destroyed in 2026. The Iranian navy rests at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.”
He added that a US submarine had sunk an Iranian vessel in international waters. At least 101 sailors are missing and 78 wounded after a US submarine attack on an Iranian ship off Sri Lanka's coast.
“America is winning – decisively, devastatingly and without mercy,” Mr Hegseth said, adding that the US and Israel would soon have complete uncontested air dominance over Iran.
The US has used “twice the air power of the Iraq war of 2003, minus Paul Bremmer and the nation-building”, he added, in reference to the 'administrator' the US imposed to lead Iraq after the removal of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussain.
“We are just getting started … we are accelerating not decelerating,” Mr Hegseth said.
He said the Pentagon is investigating a strike on a girls school in southern Iran, where Iranian authorities says scores of pupils were killed.
Gen Dan Caine, the Pentagon’s top officer, said Iran is less capable of firing drones and ballistic missiles than it was at the start of the conflict.
“As of this morning, Central Command is making steady progress. Iran’s ballistic missile shots fired are down 86 per cent from the first day of fighting, with a 23 per cent decrease just in the last 24 hours,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said alongside Mr Hegseth, noting that drone attacks are down 73 per cent.
Mr Hegseth said the US had targeted those responsible for an assassination plot against President Donald Trump in 2024.
“While that was not the best of the effort by any stretch of the imagination, in fact, never raised by the President or anybody else, I ensured and others ensured that those who were responsible for that were eventually part of the target list,” he said.
