Hegseth says Iran war is 'contained' as State sends home more diplomats |
Hegseth says Iran war is ‘contained’ as State sends home more diplomats
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday said the joint U.S.-Israeli war against Iran is “quite contained,” even as the U.S. continues to reduce staff at embassies and consulates in the Gulf region.
“I see in the media banners that say, you know, war expanding or war spreading. It’s actually the opposite. It’s actually quite contained,” Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon.
The State Department on Monday drew down personnel in Saudi Arabia and the U.S. consulate in Adana, Turkey, ordering the departure of nonessential staff and families in response to threats from Iranian retaliation.
There are now 10 U.S. embassies and consulates in the Middle East with reduced staffing, with two — the embassies in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait — fully suspending operations. The reductions are the largest since the Iraq War started in 2003.
President Trump has offered conflicting views on when the U.S. and Israel will end the military campaign against Iran, on Monday insisting it is “very complete” and will wrap up soon, but adding “we haven’t won enough.”
That follows his demands from last week that Tehran offer its “complete and total surrender,” warning Washington could widen its attacks.
Hegseth on Tuesday said the U.S. will not stop its war until “the enemy is totally and decisively defeated,” adding that Trump “gets to control the throttle” and decide when to end it on “our timeline and at our choosing.”
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that Iran’s offensive attacks continued to trend downward, with missile strikes down 90 percent since the start of the war and drone attacks down 83 percent.
Hegseth said Tuesday would be the biggest day of U.S. strikes so far, as America and Israel target Iran’s missile launchpads and missile and drone production facilities across the country.
Officials in Tehran this week appeared prepared to dig in for a longer fight after already firing hundreds of missiles and drones at Gulf States that host U.S. air bases, threatening to tip the war into a wider regional conflict.
Hegseth said it was a “big mistake” for the Iranians to start targeting its neighbors after the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes starting 11 days ago, arguing that Tehran had pushed those countries towards supporting the U.S. effort.
“I can’t say that we anticipated necessarily that’s exactly how they would react, but we knew it was a possibility,” Hegseth said. “And more allies are — more of those countries are coming onside, recognizing that you can’t live under a conventional umbrella with nuclear ambitions, with a radical regime like that.”
The Trump administration has faced criticism for an apparent lack of planning around evacuations of American personnel, tourists and expatriates in the Middle East ahead of its war on Iran, which quickly drew Iranian fire on U.S. allies across the region.
“Americans deserve a government that steps up to help them through times of crisis, not turn their back on them to fend for themselves,” a group of Senate Democrats wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio on March 4.
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