The Epoch Times

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the United States is not seeking war with Iran after Saturday’s strikes on three of the regime’s nuclear sites. “As President Trump has stated, the United States does not seek war,” Hegseth said during a Sunday Pentagon press briefing. “Iran should listen to the president of the United States and know that he means it, every word.” When asked if the United States was getting into another “open ended war in the Middle East over weapons of mass destruction,” citing President George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, Hegseth said President Donald Trump made it clear that the airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear sites were not an open ended military campaign. “What the president gave us, as I said, was a focused, powerful, and clear mission on the destruction of Iranian nuclear capabilities. Those were the targets. That's what was struck,” Hegseth said. “That's what the Iranian regime needs to understand.” He added that Trump wants peace and that Iran needs to negotiate a settlement. “We ultimately demonstrated that Iran cannot have a nuclear capability. That is a very clear mission set on this operation,” he said.

When asked if congressional leaders were notified of the U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan nuclear sites, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that lawmakers were debriefed “immediately” after U.S. aircraft had left Iranian airspace. “They were notified after the planes were safely out. We complied with the notification requirements of the War Powers Act,” Hegseth said during a Pentagon press briefing.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Sunday that the United States was not looking to topple the Iranian regime during Saturday night’s airstrikes on three of the nation’s critical nuclear sites. “This mission was not, and has not, been about regime change,” Hegseth said during a Pentagon press briefing. “The President authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program, and the collective self-defense of our troops and our ally Israel.”