The U.S.’s war with Iran is about to go up a notch, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday during a press briefing at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., as the bombing campaign’s sixth day came to a close.
Hegseth batted away concerns about U.S. munitions stockpiles, seeming to suggest that as Iran’s capabilities are weakened, the remaining missiles are stretching further.
“Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation,” Hegseth said. “Our stockpile of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to. Again, our munitions status increases as our advantage increases…we have only just begun to fight, and fight decisively.”
“The amount of firepower over Iran and over Tehran is about to surge dramatically,” Hegseth said, adding that the United Kingdom and others have allowed U.S. forces access to their bases as launch points for strikes, after the U.K. initially denied access to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and Spain initially forbade the U.S. from launching strikes from its bases.
Over the past three days, said CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper, U.S. bombers have struck nearly 200 targets inside Iran, including its capital.
“And in just the last hour, U.S. B-2 bombers dropped dozens of 2000-pound penetrator bombs targeting deeply buried ballistic-missile launchers,” he said.
The U.S. has also taken out Iran’s space command, degrading its ability to coordinate retaliatory attacks, he said.
Ballistic missile attacks from Iran have decreased by 90 percent since Saturday, he added, with drone attacks down 83 percent.
At the same time, Cooper said, the U.S. has ramped up its strikes on the Iranian navy, sinking over 30 ships, including a drone carrier earlier Thursday.
Now, CENTCOM is turning much of its attention to destroying Iran’s ballistic-missile industrial base.
“This is going to take some time, but our forces are well supplied, as the secretary said, and we are absolutely ready to prosecute this mission decisively,” he said.
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