War Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a Pentagon briefing that the ceasefire with Iran continues to hold despite recent conflict.
“No, the ceasefire is not over. Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project, and we expected there would be some, some churn at the beginning, which happened, and we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have,” Hegseth told reporters. “Iran knows that, and ultimately, the president’s going to make a decision whether anything were to escalate into a violation of a ceasefire.”
“But certainly, we would urge Iran to be prudent in the actions that they take to keep that underneath this threshold,” he said. “This is about the strait. This is about the freedom of navigation. This is about international waterways. This is about free flow of commerce. All the things that happened before and only Iran is contesting. So right now, the ceasefire certainly holds, but we’re going to be watching very, very closely.”
Joint Chiefs of Staff General Gen. Dan Caine also used the briefing to elaborate on Project Freedom, the recently-launched military operation to guide ships stranded in the Persian Gulf.
“On the surface, guided missile destroyers and other warships are detecting and defeating Iranian threats,” Caine said. “This includes fast boats and one-way attack drones. In the air, more than 100 fighters, attack aircraft, and other manned and unmanned aircraft, synchronized by the 82nd Airborne Division are in the air 24 hours a day, providing defensive overwatch for the enhanced security area.”
He added that military forces “remain ready to resume major combat operations against Iran if ordered to do so.”
