Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine struck different tones on Wednesday while describing the state of hostilities with Iran, with the former characterizing the conflict mostly in the past tense while the general appeared unwilling to use such absolute terms and left open the possibility that additional U.S. troops could be killed.
Their comments came in the initial hours of a ceasefire, after an announcement Tuesday night that the Trump administration and the Iranian regime had agreed to a two-week pause in the fighting while the two sides negotiate their significant differences on how to end the war.
After 38 days of fighting, President Donald Trump on Monday threatened that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again” if Iran did not accede to his demands to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The pronouncement alarmed U.S. allies and partners and raised troubling questions about how far Trump was willing to go.
Hegseth, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, praised Trump’s “courage and resolve.” Iran, the defense secretary said, “begged for this ceasefire.” U.S. troops have “for now” done their part, he added, and will “stand ready in the background” to ensure the terms of any agreement are upheld.
“Operation Epic Fury was a historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield, a capital-V military victory,” Hegseth said, portraying the war as a thing of the past. “By any measure, Epic Fury decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat-ineffective for years to come.”
Caine congratulated U.S. troops involved in the campaign but was cautious to note that a “ceasefire is a pause” in combat operations, and not necessarily the completion of them. The operation’s success, he said, is something that “we hope” will prove enduring.
As he has done in other news conferences since the war began, Caine began his remarks by paying tribute to the 13 U.S. troops “killed in action thus far,” saying their sacrifice is “deeply important to us, and we were grateful.”
He also spoke glowingly of last week’s mission to rescue two American airmen who ejected from their F-15E fighter jet after the aircraft was targeted by Iranian ground fire.
“This is a story that gets to the very heart and soul of who we are as a joint force, who we as Americans,” the general said. “Selfless sacrifice in service of others.”
The fighting destroyed much of Iran’s military infrastructure, according to the Pentagon. But it also significantly damaged U.S. installations across the region, which the Trump administration has been reluctant to discuss in detail. In addition to the 13 dead, about 370 U.S. troops have been wounded, at least 12 of them seriously, according to Pentagon data. Most of those injured have since returned to duty, defense officials have said.
The Pentagon’s senior officials convened the news conference Wednesday as numerous issues remain unresolved about how the fragile peace might hold. Ongoing diplomatic efforts are expected to address the fate of Iran’s uranium stockpile, the future U.S. military presence in the Middle East and much more.
Trump has been intensely focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage in the Persian Gulf that Iran’s military effectively locked down once the war began. The move stifled global shipments of Middle Eastern oil and caused gas prices to rise sharply in the United States. The conditional ceasefire agreement requires Iran to allow maritime traffic to resume immediately and safely.
Hegseth, asked whether U.S. warships will escort vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, did not answer directly.
“We’ll be hanging around. We’re not going anywhere,” he said. “We are going to make sure Iran complies with this ceasefire and then ultimately comes to the table and makes a deal.”
U.S. troops, he added, will be “prepared to defend, prepared to go on offense, prepared to start at a moment’s notice with whatever target package would be needed in order to ensure that Iran complied” with any peace deal. Thus far, he said, “Iran’s letting ships go through” and “that will be happening.”
The defense secretary brushed aside a question about whether any ships will be required to coordinate with the Iranian military to pass through the strait. Iran, he said, “is going to say a lot of things,” but “what has been agreed to, what’s been stated, is that the strait is open.”
Caine, asked whether the strait was open, said, “I believe so.”
The two Pentagon leaders did not have clear answers either for how Iran’s nuclear program might be handled in the future.
Hegseth said that “it’s always been nonnegotiable that they won’t have nuclear capabilities” and that this could be addressed by Iran giving up its enriched uranium, U.S. forces removing it, or through another aerial assault on the country’s nuclear facilities.
Asked whether Trump had been prepared to destroy Iranian civilization on Tuesday, as he had threatened, Hegseth described a plan short of that.
“We had a target set locked and loaded of infrastructure, bridges, power plants,” he said, describing some targets that could be used by both civilians and military personnel. “Remember, this is a terror regime, a military regime, [that] used all of these things for dual use to fund their military, to fund their terror campaigns. We had a lot of legitimate targets.”
Caine did not address the issue.
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