Pete Hegseth attacks media for not being positive enough about US attacks on Iran [View all]

Pete Hegseth on Friday again claimed the US military campaign against Iran has been an unprecedented success, using a Pentagon press conference to accuse journalists of downplaying Washington’s supposed gains on the battlefield.

Speaking alongside the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, the US defense secretary claimed Iran had been left without a functioning air force, navy or missile defense network after 13 days of strikes, and said the combined US-Israeli air campaign had hit more than 15,000 targets since the war began.

“The United States is decimating the radical Iranian regime’s military in a way the world has never seen before,” Hegseth told reporters.

He said Iranian ballistic missile production capacity had been “functionally defeated” and that their leaders were cowering underground, because “that’s what rats do”. In fact, some of Iran’s most senior leaders – including the president, Masoud Pezeshkian; the security chief, Ali Larijani; and the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi – were today seen on video marching through Tehran for the annual Quds Day rally.

Hegseth also claimed Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei – who was elected by the Assembly of Experts on 8 March following the assassination of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – was “wounded and likely disfigured”. The claim has not been independently verified.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/13/pete-hegseth-iran-was-us-press

Was Kegsbreath even alive during Vietnam? Media remembers, whether some of the reporters now alive do or not---they can research.