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Zorro

(18,551 posts)
Mon Mar 2, 2026, 12:56 PM 23 hrs ago

Pentagon Pete Flunks First Big Test With Misfiring War Rant

The defense secretary struggled to articulate any goals and attacked the press for basic questions.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took the podium for the first time after Donald Trump launched his war in Iran to serve up a speech full of scripted lines and petty outbursts.

If the goal were to provide clarity and understanding on the U.S. objectives for its full-scale assault and what Americans should expect, the former Fox News personality came up miserably short on all fronts.

He contradicted himself. He contradicted the president. He became defensive when pressed by his own hand-picked Pentagon Press Corps to provide basic information, spouted partisan politics, and lacked empathy for the dead.

The defense secretary declared right off the bat that it would not be an endless war and insisted it was the opposite of the invasion of Iraq, while also refusing to set a timeline or rule out boots on the ground.

“I heard the question about four weeks,” Hegseth complained. “It’s the typical, typical NBC sort of gotcha type question. President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, it could move up. It could move back. We’re going to execute at his command the objectives we’ve set out to achieve.”

It was pointed out that the president himself said the war would likely last about four weeks on a call to the Daily Mail. He told the New York Times that it would take four to five weeks.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pete-flunks-first-big-test-with-misfiring-war-rant/
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Pentagon Pete Flunks First Big Test With Misfiring War Rant (Original Post) Zorro 23 hrs ago OP
Pentagon Pete Admits MAGA's Worst Fear May Happen Zorro 23 hrs ago #1

Zorro

(18,551 posts)
1. Pentagon Pete Admits MAGA's Worst Fear May Happen
Mon Mar 2, 2026, 01:01 PM
23 hrs ago
The Defense Secretary had a near meltdown when asked to explain whether the U.S. had an exit strategy for Iran

Pentagon chief Pete Hegeth has not ruled out deploying U.S. ground troops in Iran and is unable to say when America’s involvement in the conflict will end.

In a combative and often contradictory press conference, the former Fox News host suggested there was no defined exit strategy, no set timeframe for the operation, and no publicly articulated rules of engagement guiding U.S. forces.

Asked if he planned to put U.S. boots on the ground, an indignant and irritated Hegseth replied: “We’re not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do.

“I think it’s one of those fallacies for a long time that this department, or presidents or others, should tell the American people and our enemies: by the way, here’s exactly how long we’ll go, here’s exactly how far we’ll go.

“We will go as far as we need to go to advance American interests... Why in the world would we tell you, the enemy, or anybody what we will or will not do in pursuit of an objective?” he added.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pentagon-pete-admits-magas-worst-fear-may-happen/

I don't doubt they are seriously considering using nukes when the ammo runs out.
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