President Donald Trump said that Kharg Island, the site of critical Iranian oil infrastructure, has been "totally demolished" by U.S. bombing, as he claimed that Iran wanted to negotiate a ceasefire.
During a call with NBC News on Saturday, Trump boasted that the U.S. military "totally demolished" the island, adding that "we may hit it a few more times just for fun."
According to the Pentagon, the U.S. military used $11.3 billion worth of munitions in the first week of the war in Iran.
Trump also told NBC News in a 30-minute telephone interview that Iran wanted to negotiate a ceasefire but said that he had not agreed “because the terms aren’t good enough yet.” He did not give details on the supposed offer or what he would consider acceptable except to say that any deal needed to be “very solid” and would involve Iran committing not to build a nuclear weapon.
“Iran wants to make a deal, and I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet,” he said.
The president also questioned whether Iran’s new supreme leader “is even alive,” and said he was “surprised” that Iran had attacked its neighbors in the wake of a joint U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign. He has called for other countries, including the U.K., France and Japan to send ships to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for oil trade.
He told NBC News: “We’re going to be sweeping the strait very strongly, and we believe we’ll be joined by other countries who are somewhat impeded, and in some cases impeded from getting the oil.”
He said it was “possible” that U.S. ships could start escorting ships through the strait.
In terms of how the war would develop, Trump said “the only power they have, and it’s a power that can be closed off relatively quickly, is the power of dropping a mine or shooting a relatively short-range missile. But when we get finished with the shoreline, they’re not going to have that power either.”
He added: “We’ve knocked out most of their missiles. We’ve knocked out most of their drones. We knocked out their manufacturing of missiles and drones, largely. Within two days, it’ll be totally decimated.”
And he said “we totally demolished Kharg Island, but we may hit it a few more times just for fun.”
It's not the first time Trump has suggested the U.S. military is using munitions not because it has to, but because it's more “fun” to blow something up than not. During a rally in Kentucky on Saturday, Trump told the crowd he'd spoken to a military officer who told him they'd destroyed more than 50 Iranian ships.
Trump said he wanted to know why the ships weren't captured to be used by the U.S.
“I got angry at my people. I said, are they good ... I said, Why the hell did we kill them? Why didn’t we just capture them and use them in our Navy? And actually one of my generals said: ‘Sir, it's a lot more fun doing it this way,’” the president told the crowd.
The U.S.-Israeli war in Iran entered its third week this week, and Trump has yet to provide details on how or when the war will come to an end.
He has said the war is "very complete" and also said that the "nation building" in Iran is just beginning. Trump told Axios that there was “practically nothing left to target” in Iran, and then on Sunday called on nations friendly to the U.S. to help him free the Strait of Hormuz from Iran. That request came after the announcement that 2,500 U.S. Marines were being sent to the region on an amphibious assault ship.
Thirteen U.S. service members have died as a result of the war, and more than 1,000 Iranians have been killed in Iran. At least 175 of those deaths were children and staff from a school that U.S. military officials believe was destroyed by U.S. bombs, though Trump has suggested without providing evidence that Iran may have been responsible.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that the war will end when Trump says he's finished.
"The president has set a very specific mission to accomplish, and our job is to unrelentingly deliver that," Hegseth told reporters at a Pentagon press briefing on Tuesday.
"Now he gets to control the throttle. He's the one deciding. He's the one elected on behalf of the American people when we're achieving those objectives. And so, it's not for me to posit whether it's the beginning, the middle or the end. That's his. And he'll continue to communicate that," the defense secretary said.
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