US President Donald Trump on Wednesday (March 11) claimed that Iran’s leadership has been decimated and the country’s military is in disarray as a result of Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing US-led military campaign.
“Our military is the best. It’s the most powerful in the world, and they’re hitting them very hard,” Trump said, emphasizing the effectiveness of the strikes.
When asked what more needed to be done, Trump replied, “More of the same,” signaling continued pressure on Iranian forces.
Iran’s military “effectively destroyed,” Trump claims
Trump detailed the scale of US operations, saying, “They’ve lost their navy. They’ve lost their air force. They have no anti-aircraft apparatus at all. They have no radar. Their leaders are gone and we could do a lot worse.”
He added that US forces have deliberately left certain Iranian capabilities intact but could destroy them rapidly if needed: “We’re leaving certain things that if we take them out, or we could take them out by this afternoon, in fact, within an hour, they literally would never be able to build that country back again.”
Trump also said, “We have hit them harder than virtually any country in history has been hit, and we’re not finished yet.”
Conflict described as “war” and “excursion”
On whether the fighting should be considered a war, Trump said, “Well, it’s both. It’s an excursion that will keep us out of a war. And the war is going to be — I mean for them it’s a war.”
He described the campaign as “easier than we thought,” citing U.S. strikes that have destroyed thousands of Iranian missiles, drones, and mine-laying vessels:
“They had thousands of missiles… 7 or 8,000 missiles. We got many of them before they got to launch,” Trump said.
Trump says US has destroyed 28 Iranian mine-laying ships
Trump claimed that US forces have struck 28 Iranian ships laying mines as part of the ongoing military campaign against Iran.
“They have drones all over the place — we got many. Now we’re knocking out the drone plants, as you know, going fast. They started talking about mines, so we hit 28 mine-ships as of this moment,” Trump told reporters before touring a science research and pharmaceutical facility in Ohio.