A retired general claims leadership at the Pentagon “must be smoking something” because of its Iran hubris.
Retired Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson made the comments live on CNN News Central on Wednesday Morning after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, held a news conference at the Pentagon about the U.S.-dubbed “Operation Epic Fury.”
Anderson, who has previously called for Hegseth to be fired, lamented the Pentagon chief’s tough-guy bluster.
“What we saw with Secretary of Defense was a tough, macho guy talking about killing and shamelessly sucking up to the POTUS, but he really wasn’t giving any specifics on really what the long-term objectives are,” Anderson said.
Anderson then delivered a stark warning after Hegseth said during the press conference that the United States would outlast Iran.
“And I would say that we’re gonna be in the same situation we were in Iraq. We’re gonna be able to knock out their defensive capabilities, their offensive capabilities, establish air superiority, but they’re gonna go underground. These are tough, resilient people; they’re gonna be able to outlast us.”
He said any suggestion to the contrary is foolish. “And if we think we’re gonna be able to bomb them into submission from the air, somebody’s smoking something,” he declared.
In his chest-beating address Wednesday, his second this week, Hegseth also stoked fears of a forever war, declaring that the conflict is just getting started and that the U.S. will take “all the time it needs to succeed.”
The former Fox News host also warned that “more and larger waves were coming” with looming “death and destruction from the skies all day long.”
He went on his usual missive against the press, too.
“This is what the fake news misses,” Hegseth raged.
“We’ve taken control of Iran’s airspace and waterways without boots on the ground. But when a few drones get through or tragic things happen, it’s front page news,” he said, in an apparent reference to the American casualties killed in the conflict so far: Captain Cody Khork, 35; Sergeant Nicole Amor, 39; Sergeant Declan Coady, 20; and Sergeant Noah Tietjens, 42.
“I get it—the press only wants to make the president look bad.”
He also claimed that U.S. forces possessed “an almost unlimited stockpile” of munitions to fight the Iranian regime. “They are toast, and they know it. Or at least soon enough they will know it,” he said.
However, Gen. Caine reportedly disagrees with this assessment. The Washington Post reported last week that he thinks there are shortfalls in critical munitions.
He thinks the low stocks and a lack of support from allies will pose a significant risk to the operation and to U.S. personnel, WaPo stated.
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