Hegseth on visit with troops fighting Iran

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday said he made an unannounced trip over the weekend to the Middle East to visit U.S. service members taking part in the Iran war.

“Suffice it to say, the trip was in honor,” he told reporters at his first Pentagon press briefing in nearly two weeks.

“I had a chance to bear witness, and I witnessed the best of America. I witnessed warriors, a brotherhood of men and women, warriors all. Active duty, Guard and Reserve, united in their love for each other, their shared purpose and their commitment to the mission. I witnessed sheer competency.”

Secretary Hegseth said he spent about “half” of Saturday in the CENTCOM area and added that, for operational security, the places and bases he visited “will not be named.”

“It was not rehearsed or scripted. Sometimes we just wandered,” he told reporters. “What I witnessed was motivation. It was sheer mission focus. It was the American warrior unleashed.”

The Pentagon chief said the feeling among the troops he visited was very different from those deployed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which he said were “always about the next rotation, never knowing when the mission would end, or exactly what the mission was.”

“I witnessed urgency to finish the job, urgency to achieve mission success, not looking at the next rotation, only moving as fast as possible to win,” he said. “It was the kind of war-fighting American spirit that comes with a clear mission against a determined enemy.”

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