Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday would not rule out the possibility that American ground troops will be sent into Iran or articulate what the Trump administration’s exit strategy would be as the Pentagon attempts to secure a quick, decisive victory while limiting U.S. bloodshed.
Hegseth, joined by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, delivered his first public remarks to reporters as U.S. and Israeli forces carried out a third day of attacks on Iran’s military infrastructure and Iranian forces hit American bases throughout the Middle East.
Hegseth, who as an Army National Guard officer served during the Iraq War, struck a combative tone early on in the briefing, defending President Donald Trump’s decision to authorize the operation against Iran, chastising the administration’s critics and vowing that, unlike recent U.S. wars, this one would not be “endless.”
“Our generation knows better,” the defense secretary said in a prepared statement at the briefing’s outset, “and so does this president.”
In comments to the New York Post on Monday, Trump acknowledged that he had not ruled out sending ground forces into Iran “if they were necessary.”
U.S. officials announced ahead of the Pentagon briefing that a fourth American service member had died as a result of the hostilities, succumbing to wounds suffered in Iran’s ferocious counterattack. The incident occurred in Kuwait, whose government acknowledged Monday that its military had shot down three advanced F-15 fighter jets in what officials called a “friendly fire incident.” All six crew members survived, officials said.
While Caine limited his commentary mostly to a recitation of facts about the operation, Hegseth appeared to contradict statements made by Trump over the past three days — declaring that the fight with Iran “is not a so-called regime-change war.” The president has been explicit in saying that is precisely his objective, in addition to destroying Tehran’s military capabilities.
Over the weekend, Trump said that the military action — which the administration has called Operation Epic Fury — could last four weeks or more and that additional U.S. casualties were likely. Hegseth scoffed at a reporter who asked about the president’s expected timeline, calling it a “gotcha-type question” and offering no commitment to that schedule.
“President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take,” Hegseth said. “Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. It could move up. It could move back.”
Hegseth did not directly answer a reporter’s question about the administration’s exit strategy. “As far as time frame, I would never hang a time frame,” he said, adding that it is Trump who will set the “tempo” of the fight. “It’s on his terms,” Hegseth said.
In one exchange, the defense secretary was asked what he would say to military families about why he had sent their children to war and whether he is concerned that the fighting will spiral into a longer, protracted war.
“Did you not hear my remarks?” Hegseth responded. “We are very clear-eyed, as the president has been, unlike other presidents, about the foolish policies of the past that recklessly pulled us in.”
Caine said that hundreds of Iranian missiles have been intercepted across the region and that the U.S. air defense network is working “exactly as it’s intended.” His assertion, however, is complicated by the fact that missiles and drones have hit U.S. bases in the region, including in Kuwait over the weekend when air defenses failed to avert a deadly strike.
Hegseth appeared to acknowledge this, saying, “Every once in a while you might have one, unfortunately … that makes its way through.”
Caine noted that having struck more than 1,000 targets in Iran over two days of operations, U.S. forces had established “local air superiority,” which will “not only enhance the protection of our forces but also allow them to continue to work over Iran.”
The general disclosed that the initial strikes, which occurred during the daytime in Iran, involved more than 100 aircraft flying from positions on land and at sea. U.S. forces dropped tens of thousands of pieces of ordnance during the first two days, he added, and sorties included B-2 bombers — flying on a 37-hour round trip from the continental United States — that employed “precision penetrating munitions” against Iranian underground facilities.
More U.S. personnel are being deployed to the Middle East “even today” to aid the effort, Caine said, though he did not specify how many or what they would do.
Susannah George, Dan Lamothe, Noah Robertson, Leo Sands, Adam Taylor and Amy B Wang contributed to this report.
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