President Donald Trump has revealed that he’s optimistic about how the U.S. military operation in Iran has been going since the first wave of strikes began on Saturday.
The US and Israel attacked Iran, and Tehran quickly retaliated. The ongoing conflict has claimed the lives of three American soldiers and severely injured five others.
The president told Fox News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich that the joint U.S. and Israeli strikes “wiped out” at least 48 Iranian leaders. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, was one of the people who died in the attacks.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that the U.S. has also sunk nine Iranian ships and will be going after the rest of its fleet. He said the U.S. military also destroyed Iran’s naval headquarters. “Other than that, their Navy is doing very well!” Trump wrote.
The president didn’t say anything about the deaths of American soldiers in the post. Since his overnight video announcing the strikes on Saturday, he hasn’t said anything on camera about the Iranian military operation.
In a phone interview with CNBC, Trump did say that “everything is ahead of schedule,” but the path to end the conflict would depend on many things.
“Things are evolving in a very positive way right now, a very positive way,” Trump said.
Trump reiterated that positive sentiment in an interview with The Atlantic on Sunday morning, telling the outlet that Iranian officials “want to talk” and he has agreed to do so.
“They should have done it sooner,” he told The Atlantic. “They should have given what was very practical and easy to do sooner. They waited too long.”
As the U.S. and Israeli military operation against Iran entered its third day, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said early Monday that the U.S. military operation in Iran is “laser-focused.”
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“Destroy Iranian missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure and they will never have nuclear weapons,” said Hesgeth, who was joined by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine.
Hegseth declined to give a timeframe for the operation, but he insisted it would not be “endless.”
“This is not Iraq,” Hegseth said. “This is not endless. I was there for both — our generation knows better, and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation-building wars dumb and he’s right. This is the opposite. This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission: Destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.”
Hegseth said there are no U.S. military “boots on the ground” in Iran right now, but said he would not “go into the exercise of what we will or will not do” in the future.
Caine said it will “take some time for us to conduct a battle damage assessment, and the targeting that CENTCOM will run will take those things into effect.”
At least 11 people have been killed in Israel. The Iranian Red Crescent says 555 people have been killed in Iran.
Caine said it will “take some time for us to conduct a battle damage assessment, and the targeting that CENTCOM will run will take those things into effect.”
At least 11 people have been killed in Israel. The Iranian Red Crescent says 555 people have been killed in Iran.
Hegseth on Monday accused Iran of having started the war, saying Iran’s “stubborn and self-evident nuclear pursuit” as well as “targeting global shipping lines.”
“Iran had a conventional gun to our head as they tried to lie their way to a nuclear bomb,” Hegseth said to a room full of reporters on Monday morning with an important update.
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