The U.S. is “accelerating” its attacks on Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters at the Pentagon on Wednesday, with the U.S. military soon expecting to control the skies over the country.
Four days into the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the U.S. is pressing its military advantage. “This was never meant to be a fair fight,” Hegseth said. “We are punching them while they are down, which is exactly the way it should be.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]As part of the U.S. military effort to debilitate Iranian forces, a U.S. attack submarine sank an Iranian naval ship off the coast of Sri Lanka with a torpedo, Hegseth said. It was the first time an American torpedo has sunk a ship since World War II.
“An American submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters,” he said. “Instead, it was sunk by a torpedo. Quiet death.”
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry has said at least 80 people were killed in the attack. Search-and-rescue operations are underway in an effort to locate survivors.
Hegseth also claimed the U.S. hunted down and killed an Iranian inside Iran who had been involved in plotting to assassinate President Donald Trump. “Iran tried to kill president Trump and Trump got the last laugh,” he said.
The U.S. war against Iran is being waged in coordination with Israeli forces. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the U.S. launched the wave of attacks on Saturday morning because Israel had located Khamenei and planned to kill him and Trump didn’t want to wait for Iran to retaliate before joining the fight. U.S. attacks have been working to destroy Iran’s ability to launch ballistic missiles against U.S. bases and allies in the region, and make it hard for Iran to rebuild its military.
So far, six American service members in the region have been killed by Iranian retaliatory strikes. Trump has referred to the fallen troops as “true American patriots.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Caine, said the U.S. strikes have already eroded Iran’s ability to send ballistic missiles against U.S. bases in the region. Iran’s total number of ballistic missiles fired in the region has gone down by 86% from the first day of fighting, Caine told reporters. And Iran’s launch rate of so-called kamikaze attack drones is down 73%.
TIME has been unable to independently verify these figures.
Iran’s ballistic missile volleys have required the U.S. to use expensive defense equipment—such as Patriot missile batteries and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems—to protect American bases and allies in the Middle East, raising concerns in Congress that the U.S. is further depleting its stocks of such anti-missile defenses. Those munitions stocks have already been depleted by weapons shipments to Ukraine to aid its defense against Russian strikes.
But Hegseth swept aside mounting concerns, saying that the U.S. and Israel are targeting Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and that has reduced the number of Iranian missiles that need to be shot down.
“Our stockpile of those, as well as Patriots, remain extremely strong,” Hegseth argued. “Our air defenses and that of our allies have plenty of runway.”
Hegseth and Caine took questions inside the Pentagon briefing room next to a printed map showing U.S. and Israeli operations in Iran alongside where Iranian retaliatory attacks have landed.
Hegseth picked which reporters to call on. Since taking the job, he has largely taken questions from Trump-aligned organizations. In October, Pentagon reporters from major news outlets were stripped of daily access to the Pentagon for refusing to agree to restrictions on newsgathering that Hegseth demanded.
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