Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Wednesday boasted of the “death and destruction” the US military can rain down on Iran, as reports say that US and Israeli airstrikes have killed over 1,000 Iranian civilians in just four days.
Hegseth said at a press briefing that the US and Israel should soon have “complete control of Iranian skies” and that it would mean “Iranian leaders looking up and seeing only US and Israeli airpower.”
“Every minute of every day until we decide it’s over, and Iran will be able to do nothing about it. B-2s, B-52s, B1s, Predator drones, fighters controlling the skies, picking targets, death and destruction from the sky all day long,” he added.
Hegseth said the war wasn’t meant to be a “fair fight” and mentioned that the administration has loosened the rules of engagement for the military.
“Our war fighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise, and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it. This was never meant to be a fair fight. And it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be,” he said.
Hegseth said that in the attack on Iran, which he has dubbed “Operation Epic Fury,” the US military has “delivered twice the air power of ‘Shock and Awe’ in Iran in 2003,” referring to the massive bombing campaign that opened the US invasion of Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said at the conference that the US has hit over 2,000 targets inside Iran so far.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency, or HRANA, a US-based and US-funded NGO that’s very critical of the Iranian government, said on Tuesday night that at least 1,097 civilians have been killed and more than 5,000 have been wounded. Citing Iranian medical authorities, Al Jazeera also reported on Wednesday that over 1,000 civilians have been killed. The HRANA said that targets struck over the previous 24-hour period included several military bases, two medical centers, and one residential area.
The worst known civilian massacre occurred on the first day of the bombing campaign, when a missile struck an elementary school in Minab, southern Iran, killing 165 people, mostly students. Hegseth was asked about the strike and whose munition struck the school and said the US military was “investigating” the matter. A map displayed during the briefing that showed areas the US had bombed showed that Minab was right in the middle of a strike zone.
The civilian death toll is expected to continue rising as Hegseth’s message during the briefing was that the war was just getting started and that more US forces were on their way to the Middle East. “More bombers, fighters are arriving just today. And now with complete control of the skies, we will be using 500-pound, 1000-pound, and 2000-pound GPS-and-laser-guided precision gravity bombs, which we have a nearly unlimited stockpile,” he said.
