The Pentagon’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, has acknowledged that the US military failed to destroy all vessels in Iran’s naval fleet.
Caine said that despite claims of the Iranian navy’s total defeat, some Iranian fast attack boats are still operating in the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking during a hearing before the US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, he said: “Iran still retains small, high-speed vessels.”
Earlier, US President Donald Trump made a series of strong statements about the war on Iran, vowing to destroy what remains of its navy and asserting that Iranian military capabilities have been largely eliminated.
Trump said: “Some small boats are what remain of Iran’s navy and we will destroy them too,” adding that “Iran may have rearmed during the two-week pause”. He also claimed that the Iranians do not know who is leading their country, saying: “Nobody knows for sure who the leaders are.”
This comes despite his earlier declaration of the Iranian fleet’s total destruction, in which he claimed that US forces had sunk 159 ships, describing this as the entirety of Iran’s navy.
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