US can’t block all Iranian attacks despite air superiority, admits Hegseth

"This does not mean we can stop everything, but we ensured that the maximum possible defense and maximum possible force protection was set up before we went on offense," he said. The acknowledgement that additional drone or missile strikes in the region could cause damage and harm to troops comes as President Donald Trump and top defence leaders have warned that additional American casualties were expected in a conflict that could last months.

US service members "remain in harm's way, and we must be clear-eyed that the risk is still high," Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the same press conference. Six soldiers were killed when an Iranian drone strike hit an operations center Sunday in the heart of a civilian port in Kuwait, miles away from the main Army base. The husband of one of the slain soldiers, who was part of a supply and logistics unit based in Iowa, says the center was a shipping container-style building and had no defences.

Caine declined to answer a reporter's question about the possibility of deploying ground troops in Iran, something that President Donald Trump has not ruled out. "I'm not going to comment on US boots on the ground," Caine said. "I think that's a question for policymakers. And I don't make policy, I execute policy."

Hegseth also signalled a possible longer time frame for the conflict than has previously been floated by the Trump administration, saying it could last eight weeks but that the US has the munitions and the equipment to beat Iran in a war of attrition. He declined to set a specific time range, saying the specific duration of the war would depend on how it unfolds. "You can say four weeks, but it could be six, it could be eight, it could be three," he said. "Ultimately, we set the pace and the tempo. The enemy is off balance, and we're going to keep them off balance."

More forces continue to arrive in the region, including jet fighters and bombers, Hegseth said, and the US "will take all the time we need to make sure that we succeed." Supplies of weaponry aren't an issue, Hegseth and Caine said, with Hegseth noting that the military used more advanced weapons at the start of the campaign but was switching to gravity bombs now that the US gains control of Iranian skies. Stockpiles of the advanced weapons remain "extremely strong," the defense secretary said.

Caine said the US has "sufficient precision munitions for the task at hand, both on the offence and defence," but noted that the military would not be releasing quantities, citing operational security. "So our air defences and that of our allies have plenty of runway," Hegseth said. "We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to."

Tehran has vowed to completely destroy the Middle East's military and economic infrastructure - signalling the war was nowhere near over and could expand further. President Donald Trump said this week the campaign are likely to last four to five weeks but that he was prepared "to go far longer than that."

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