Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine conduct a press briefing at the Pentagon on March 2, 2026. (Madelyn Keech/Department of Defense)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned Tuesday that Iran had yet to see the “most intense” of American military strikes in its 10-day-old bombing campaign that has begun targeting facilities where Iran makes its deadly one-way attack drones.
“We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated, but we will do so on our timeline and at our choosing,” Hegseth said during a Pentagon news briefing. “Today will be, yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran — the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, [with our] intelligence more refined and better than ever.”
Hegseth’s vow of an intensified offensive came as Tehran continued targeting neighboring countries with counterstrikes that are shaking world markets, threatening energy infrastructure and stoking fears of a drawn-out conflict.
The U.S. military has struck more than 5,000 targets across Iran since the U.S. and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against the Iranian regime Feb. 28, said Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Caine spoke alongside Hegseth in the pair’s third news briefing since the war’s start. Hegseth and Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, also held a briefing in Tampa, Fla., last week.
In recent days, U.S. strikes have focused on destroying Iran’s ability to produce the ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones it has lobbed at American bases around the Middle East since shortly after the first American and Israeli bombs dropped in Iran, Caine said.
The strikes have resulted in a 90% decrease in Iranian missile attacks in the region since the war’s opening and an 83% decrease in one-way attack drone assaults, he said.
“We’ve begun to target Iran’s military and industrial complex ... focusing on centers of gravity to get upstream of the shooters out in the field, in order to deny them the ability to continue to generate those one-way attack drones,” he said.
The U.S. and Israel launched extensive strikes against Iran on Feb. 28 after months of stalled negotiations over the country’s nuclear program. President Donald Trump later that night announced the operation had resulted in the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader. Mojtaba Khamenei has been chosen to succeed his late father.
In addition to the strikes on Iran, Israel has also attacked the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Iran has attacked American military facilities and civilian infrastructure in nearly a dozen neighboring countries since the beginning of the conflict, including in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Iraq. At least seven U.S. soldiers have been killed in those attacks — six in a strike in Kuwait and another in Saudi Arabia.
The war has killed at least 1,230 people in Iran, at least 550 in Lebanon and 12 in Israel, according to officials in those countries, as cited by The Associated Press. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Hegseth and Caine on Tuesday declined to estimate how long strikes would continue against Iran, after Trump earlier this month indicated the campaign would last only several weeks. The war would end, Hegseth insisted Tuesday, when Trump decided it was over.
Trump on Monday gave reporters conflicting information about how long he now expected the bombing to continue.
The president told CBS News on Monday afternoon that he thought “the war is very complete, pretty much.” Later in the day, though, Trump said the operation would continue “until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.”
“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” Trump said in a speech to House Republicans in Doral, Fla. “We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all.”
Trump and other U.S. officials have given no indication they were seeking diplomatic talks with Iran to end the war. Top Iranian officials have vowed to continue to fight back.
The war has led to a surge in global oil prices as fighting has stalled tanker traffic at the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off southern Iran through which some 20% of the world’s oil supply travels. Trump has warned that if Iran took actions to close the strait, he would order the U.S. military to strike “20 times harder” than it has thus far.
Caine said Tuesday that the military has not been asked to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, but it was developing plans to do so if Trump requests it.
Iran’s navy, which it has used in the past to choke off the Strait of Hormuz, has been decimated in the fighting, with the United States destroying or damaging some 50 boats, Caine said.
The Pentagon believes Iran’s response to Operation Epic Fury has left it diplomatically isolated and rapidly losing the military capability to fight back. Iran fired the fewest number of ballistic missiles Monday it had since the conflict began, Hegseth said.
The defense secretary said he disagreed with assessments that the war was expanding, telling reporters he believed it was “actually quite contained.”
American strikes going further would continue to decimate Iran’s ability to build and launch missiles and drones, further destroy its Navy, and end its ability to pursue nuclear weapons, Hegseth said.
“Iran stands alone, and they are badly losing on Day 10 of Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth said. “We are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic fury. They’re straightforward, and we are executing them with ruthless precision.”
