Washington: US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, said on Tuesday that Washington could take action if Iran renewed activity at its damaged nuclear sites, warning that a ceasefire did not mean the United States would stop monitoring Tehran.
At a Pentagon news conference, Hegseth told reporters that US forces could continue watching Iranian nuclear sites and monitoring attempts to rebuild military capabilities. He was responding to a question about reports that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was rearming behind an American blockade.
“We’re able to maintain oversight and visibility of those nuclear sites, and if we saw the kind of nefarious activity that required action, we would take it,” he said.
Hegseth said the administration had surveillance capabilities that would allow it to follow developments at several levels. He did not identify the sites under observation or specify what would trigger another operation.
“As far as the blockade is concerned, it’s been ironclad. Nothing has gotten through,” he said.
The secretary argued that restrictions on Iran’s energy economy, together with damage sustained during the fighting, had made it harder for Tehran to rebuild its armed forces and nuclear infrastructure.
He acknowledged that Iran would try to recover lost capacity. “They’ve built tunnels and caves and all that. We know that they’re gonna attempt to reconstitute,” he said.
Hegseth described Operation Epic Fury as a decisive military success. He said US forces struck more than 13,000 targets in fewer than 40 days of combat, leaving Iran’s navy, air force and defence industrial base severely damaged.
He cited Operation Midnight Hammer, an earlier mission involving US B-2 bombers against Iranian nuclear sites. He said the operation had destroyed the facilities, although he provided no technical assessment of the damage at the briefing.
He also claimed that more than 80 per cent of Iran’s nuclear industrial base had been destroyed and that the American blockade remained in force. Those figures were presented as his assessment of the campaign.
The conflict nevertheless had a human cost, he acknowledged. Hegseth said 18 Americans died during Operation Epic Fury and that he had attended ceremonies at Dover to honour those killed.
The secretary was also asked about Vice President J.D. Vance’s reported assessment that the Iran war had contributed to Republican losses in the midterm elections.
Hegseth praised Vance’s role in administration deliberations and said lessons would be drawn from the conflict, without discussing the election results in detail.
“I respect the Vice President greatly,” he said, adding that he was not interested in assigning blame.
Instead, Hegseth defended the original decision to confront Iran. He said the military action was intended to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and insisted that the administration would make the same decision again.
“It was a necessary undertaking,” he said.
He also argued that political criticism had obscured what he regarded as the military outcome, saying future assessments of the war would differ from current perceptions.
“History will judge the Iran war quite differently than conventional wisdom right now,” he said.
The Strait of Hormuz, which Hegseth said was under American control, connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman. It is an important passage for international energy shipments and has long figured in tensions over Gulf security.
(IANS)
