Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday emphasized that American forces would be “hanging around” in the Middle East for the duration of the armistice between the United States, Israel and Iran — even as Washington edges toward an offramp from its 38-day campaign.
The remarks came one day after President Donald Trump declared a two-week ceasefire with Iran, stepping back from earlier threats to level Iranian civilization. The president said he hopes the pause will pave the way for negotiations toward a longer-term agreement.
Hegseth noted that the United States had carried out more than 800 strikes against targets in the hours leading up to the pause in hostilities.
He added that if Tehran had refused to agree, attacks would have expanded to include “power plants, the bridges and oil and energy infrastructure.”
The defense secretary went on to hail Operation Epic Fury as a “historic and overwhelming victory on the battlefield,” painting a picture of an Iranian military in ruins.
“Central Command, using less than 10% of America’s total combat power, dismantled one of the world’s largest militaries, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Hegseth said during a news conference at the Pentagon. “Their mission program is functionally destroyed. Launchers, production facilities and existing stockpiles, depleted, and decimated.”
Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, enumerated the claimed results of the U.S. offensive in Iran: 80% of Iran’s air-defense systems destroyed, 800 one-way attack drone storage facilities and 450 ballistic missile storage facilities hit, and 150 ships sunk.
“Epic Fury decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come,” Hegseth asserted. “Iran’s Navy is at the bottom of the sea...Iran’s Air Force has been wiped out.”
But despite the devastation, Tehran has remained defiant. The Islamic Republic, using a decentralized command structure built to survive decapitation, orchestrated an average of 120 drone and missile attacks per day across the region throughout the conflict’s duration. Crucially, it also maintained effective control over the Strait of Hormuz — a strategic leverage that sent oil prices soaring.
Since the start of the war on Feb. 28, 13 American service members had been killed in action and more than 365 had been wounded, according to the Pentagon.
Caine, for his part, struck a note of more guarded pragmatism.
“We welcome the ongoing ceasefire,” he said. “Let us be clear: a ceasefire is a pause, and the joint force remains ready if ordered or called upon to resume combat operations with the same speed and precision as we’ve demonstrated over the last 38 days. And we hope that that is not the case.”
Asked by reporters about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, Hegseth expressed hope that Tehran would hand it over to Washington “voluntarily.” If not, he warned, America might still try to seize the material by force.
“It’s buried, and we’re watching it, we know exactly what they have,” Hegseth said.
“They’ll give it to us voluntarily,” he continued. “Or if we have to do something else ourselves — like we did in Midnight Hammer or something like that — we reserve that opportunity."
Tanya Noury is a reporter for Military Times and Defense News, with coverage focusing on the White House and Pentagon.
