Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth conceded Tuesday that Iran retained the ability to retaliate after a monthlong U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign but repeated claims that Iran’s military capabilities had been crippled, in his first public briefing on the war in nearly two weeks.
“They will shoot some missiles; we will shoot them down,” Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon alongside Gen. Dan Caine, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They last took questions from reporters on the state of the war on March 19.
Hegseth said he had paid an unannounced visit to the Middle East over the weekend to visit troops at bases around the region.
“I witnessed urgency to finish the job,” he said. He said the United States was “closer than ever before to winning,” even as the Trump administration strains to contain the fallout of a conflict that has jolted the global economy and sent U.S. gas prices soaring.
“We have more and more options, and they have less,” Hegseth said.
Caine said the U.S. military had begun flying B-52 bomber missions over land for the first time. The military’s ability to fly the big planes over Iranian territory suggests that Iran’s air defenses have been significantly degraded.
He also said U.S. warplanes were now focused on destroying supply chains that feed Iran’s missile, drone and naval ship building facilities, choking off the country’s ability to replace munitions destroyed in thousands of U.S. bombing runs.
President Donald Trump has tried to put pressure on Iran to end its de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — normally a conduit for one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies — by alternating threats of destruction with unverified claims of diplomatic progress. Iran has denied holding substantive talks with the United States and has rejected the Trump administration’s conditions to end the war as unreasonable.
Trump has complained about a lack of support from U.S. allies in the war, even as he has insisted that he does not need it. On Tuesday, he criticized countries that “refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran,” saying on social media that “you’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself.”
“The U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us,” he added. “Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!”
Fighting continued in the fifth week of the war, and Iran kept a firm chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz. Oil and gas prices rose again after a Kuwaiti oil tanker erupted in flames near Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Tuesday in a drone attack that its owner, the Kuwait Petroleum Corp., attributed to Iran.
Also in Iran War-related news:
Gas prices: Gasoline in the United States crossed an average of $4 a gallon Tuesday, a threshold it hadn’t reached since August 2022. The average cost of gas has jumped 35% since the war began at the end of February, according to data from the AAA motor club, becoming a political burden for Trump.
Persian Gulf: Gulf countries reported more missile and drone attacks Tuesday. Authorities in Dubai and Saudi Arabia reported that debris from interceptions had injured several people. In the UAE, distance learning will continue at all schools until mid-April, the country’s Education Ministry said.
Lebanon: Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, on Tuesday outlined more explicitly plans for the mass displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people and the destruction of Lebanese villages along Israel’s northern border. Israeli forces have taken control of more territory in southern Lebanon as they battle Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group. He said the Israeli military would maintain control over all of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, which is about 20 miles from the Israeli border at its farthest point.
Casualties: The Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 1,574 civilians had been killed, including 236 children, in Iran since the war began. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said more than 1,230 Lebanese had been killed as of Sunday, with more than 3,543 others wounded, since the latest fighting between Israel and Hezbollah began. In Iran’s attacks across the Middle East, at least 50 people have been killed in Gulf nations. In Israel, at least 17 had been killed as of Friday. The American death toll stands at 13 service members, with hundreds of others wounded. Two United Nations peacekeepers who were killed in southern Lebanon on Monday by an explosion of undetermined origin were from Indonesia, the country’s Foreign Ministry said.