Pete Hegseth got a history lesson after making a big claim during his victory lap over the Iran war.
The defense secretary, 45, got schooled by social media users after touting an American submarine’s attack on an Iranian warship as he showed no signs of letting up on attacks against the Middle Eastern power.
“Yesterday in the Indian Ocean—and we’ll play it on the screen there—an American submarine sunk an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death.”
Hegseth proceeded to make a claim that quickly caused a stir online.
“The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II. Like in that war, back when we were still the War Department, we are fighting to win,” he said.
A clip of Hegseth’s remarks was hit by a fact-check note on X, pointing out that other ships have been destroyed by torpedoes or underwater missiles since 1945.
During the Falklands War of 1982, Argentina’s General Belgrano was torpedoed by the United Kingdom’s HMS Conqueror. During the Indo-Pakistani War in 1971, India’s INS Khukri was sunk by Pakistan’s PNS Hangor.
“Source says ‘horse s–t,’” The Times’ defense editor Larisa Brown wrote of Hegseth’s statement. Several other X users blasted the remark as “false” and said the self-anointed War Secretary was “misinformed.”
A Defense Department official told the Daily Beast that Hegseth was referring specifically to a U.S. Navy submarine using a torpedo to sink an enemy vessel in combat.
General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, set the record straight later in the press conference.
“As the secretary showed the video, for the first time since 1945, a United States Navy fast attack submarine has sunk an enemy combatant ship using a single Mark 48 torpedo to achieve immediate effect, sending the warship to the bottom of the sea,” he said.
“I want to remind everybody that this is an incredible demonstration of America’s global reach,” he continued. “To hunt, find, and kill an out-of-area deployer is something that only the United States can do at this time.”
Although Hegseth did not identify the ship, an Iranian vessel called the IRIS Dena carrying 180 people sank in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka on Wednesday. The Sri Lankan Navy said it has so far recovered 87 bodies and rescued 32 people.
By the time Sri Lanka’s navy reached the location of the Iranian vessel, there were “only some oil patches and life rafts” left, according to navy spokesman Commander Buddhika Sampath.
“We found people floating on the water,” he said.
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