Hegseth insists that the Iranian conflict is “not Iraq” and “is not endless.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday addressed growing concerns that U.S.-Israeli strikes in Iran could spiral into a long-running regional conflict by declaring, “This is not Iraq. This is not endless.”

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Hegseth, along with Gen. Dan Keane, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Air Force, held the Trump administration’s first news conference since Saturday’s strikes. President Donald Trump, although he has conducted some phone interviews with individual reporters, has not taken on-camera questions and has released only two videos since the operation began.

Hegseth said the operation had a “clear, devastating and decisive mission” to “destroy the missile threat” from Iran and destroy its navy and “no nuclear weapons.”

“There are no stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building morass, no democracy-building exercises, and no politically correct wars. We fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives,” Hegseth said.

In response to a question about whether there are currently ground forces in Iran, Hegseth said: “No, but we will not get into the practice of what we will or will not do.”

He said it was “foolish” to expect US officials to say publicly, “This is exactly how far we will go.”

He also noted that the United States does not seek to change the Iranian regime with the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“This is not a so-called regime change war, but the regime has certainly changed and the world is better off because of it,” Hegseth said.

This briefing comes as the conflict escalates and turns into a broader war in the region. Iran and allied armed groups have fired missiles at Israel, Arab countries, and US military targets in the Middle East.

Four American soldiers were killed during the fighting. On Sunday, Trump expected more American casualties.

Kaine said on Monday that the United States expects to suffer additional losses.

“We grieve with you and will never forget you,” he said of the families of those killed.

The latest sign of the escalating unrest came when US ally Kuwait shot down three US fighter planes during a combat mission while Iranian jets, ballistic missiles and drones were attacking. The US Central Command said that the six pilots safely exited the US F-15E Strike Eagles and were in stable condition.

US officials have offered no exit plan or signs that the conflict will end anytime soon, and Khamenei has cast doubt on the future of the Islamic Republic and pushed the region into a state of broader instability.

In presenting the issue of the strikes, Hegseth pointed to the Iranian regime as the one who initiated the conflict from its beginning, declaring that for 47 years it had “waged a brutal, one-sided war against America.”

He said, “Their war on the Americans has become revenge against the Ayatollah and his death cult.”

He did not mention any threat of an imminent nuclear threat from Iran, and again said that the strikes launched by the United States and Israel last summer “wiped out their nuclear program and reduced it to rubble.”

Instead, Hegseth pointed to threats from other weapons such as ballistic missiles and drones that justified the operation.

“Iran has been building powerful missiles and drones to create a conventional shield for its nuclear blackmail ambitions,” Hegseth said.

He said that during the negotiations with American officials that preceded the attack, Iranian officials were “stalling.”

“The previous regime had every opportunity to reach a peaceful and reasonable agreement,” Hegseth said. “But Tehran was not negotiating.”

Live updates: The expanding scope of the American-Israeli conflict with Iran

Outlining a timeline for the operation, Kaine said the president gave the green light to carry out the strikes at 3:38 pm EST on Friday. This means that the president gave the signal when he was on Air Force One heading to Texas with Republican Senators Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and actor Dennis Quaid.

Trump said, in an interview Sunday with the New York Times, that the attack could last “four to five weeks.”

Hegseth dismissed questions about the timeframe and said: “President Trump has all the freedom in the world to talk about how long it may or may not take. Four weeks, two weeks, six weeks. He could move up. He could move back.”

The Republican president said that the United States and Israel have already struck hundreds of targets. This included Israel and the United States bombing Iranian missile sites and targeting its naval forces, claiming to destroy its headquarters and several warships.

As with the operation that dropped massive bunker-busting bombs on Iranian nuclear facilities last year, Epic Fury also used B-2 stealth bombers, which the president said made a 37-hour round-trip, Keane said.

Kane pointed several times to the use of cyber technologies in strikes, which he said “effectively disrupted communications and sensor networks,” leaving “the adversary without the ability to coordinate or respond effectively.”

Without going into details, Keane said the US military “delivered simultaneous, multi-layered effects designed to disrupt, weaken, deny, and destroy Iran’s ability to conduct sustained combat operations on the US side.”

The Iranian Red Crescent Society said that at least 555 people have been killed in Iran so far due to the US-Israeli campaign. 11 people were killed in Israel and 31 in Lebanon, according to authorities there.

The press conference came hours before Secretary of State Marco Rubio was scheduled to brief congressional leadership on Monday.

Rubio, Hegseth, Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe are also scheduled to brief the entire Congress on Tuesday.

In a private news conference on Sunday, Trump administration officials told congressional staff that US intelligence does not indicate that Iran is preparing to launch a pre-emptive strike against the United States, three people familiar with the briefings said.

Administration officials instead acknowledged a more general threat in the region from Iranian missiles and proxy forces, two of the people said. But the third person said the administration has confirmed that Iran’s missiles and proxy forces pose an imminent threat to US personnel and its allies in the region.

The information conveyed to congressional staff contradicts the message of Trump, who said the mission’s goal was to eliminate “imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”

Senior Trump administration officials, who like others were not allowed to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters on Saturday that there were indications that the Iranians might launch a pre-emptive attack.

Associated Press writers Meg Kennard in Charleston, South Carolina, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, David Klepper and Ben Finley in Washington, and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.