WATCH: Hegseth: U.S., Israel will soon have ‘complete control’ over Iran’s airspace

By Morgan Sweeney
The Center Square

American and Israeli forces have begun taking control of Iranian airspace, and in a few days, it will be uncontested airspace, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said at a Wednesday briefing.

“Complete control” over Iranian skies will allow American and Israeli air power to complete their missions of destroying Iran’s defense industrial base and eliminating Iranian leadership affiliated with the weakened regime, uncontested.

“We will fly all day, all night, day and night,” Hegseth said, “until we decide it’s over and Iran will be able to do nothing about it.”

Hegseth clarified that Iran will still likely launch some missiles and drones “at civilian targets,” but that activity is far less than what it was initially, according to Gen. Dan Caine.

Iran is launching 86% fewer ballistic missiles than in the first day of fighting, with a “23% decrease just in the last 24 hours,” and one-way attack drone shots are down 73%, according to Caine.

Iran’s military power is being “decimated,” the War secretary said, and joint forces have already destroyed the Iranian Air Force and its navy.

Hegseth said that America was “winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy” just days into its joint military campaign with Israel at the press briefing, and that the U.S. is “just getting started.”

“We are accelerating, not decelerating,” Hegseth said.

More bombers and fighters are still arriving in the region to help the U.S. carry out its mission.

The U.S. and Israel launched their coordinated military campaign early Saturday morning, with air strikes at locations across Iran. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, was killed in the initial strikes that day, and more than 40 senior Iranian political and military leaders have also been killed. Israel also bombed Iran’s Assembly of Experts, comprised of 88 senior clerics according to the Times of Israel, as it gathered to elect someone to replace the ayatollah. The U.S. also killed an Iranian official who was leading a unit that allegedly attempted to assassinate the president, according to Hegseth.

Many Americans have questioned why the U.S. has attacked Iran, especially since President Donald Trump said that June’s Operation Midnight Hammer, where the U.S. bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities, “obliterated” its nuclear arsenal. Congressional Democrats have opposed Operation Epic Fury, saying it’s an illegal war that has not been authorized by Congress that is in danger of becoming a “forever war,” without clearly defined goals.

Caine said Wednesday that the operation was “launched with clear military objectives” to eliminate Iran’s ballistic missile systems, destroy its navy, and ensure that Iran can’t “rapidly rebuild or reconstitute its combat capability or combat power.”

The president has said that Iran would not agree to stop enhancing its nuclear capacity, and this was one of the reasons for the campaign.

The U.S. entered a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 under then-President Barack Obama, the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (China, France, Russia and the U.K.) and Germany. Under the agreement, Iran was supposed to dismantle much of its nuclear program. But Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in 2018, saying it “enriched the Iranian regime and enabled its malign behavior, while at best delaying its ability to pursue nuclear weapons and allowing it to preserve nuclear research and development.”