Hegseth claims Iran ‘begged’ for ceasefire after US and Tehran agree to two-week pause

After 40 days and 40 nights of war, Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, on Wednesday pointed to divine providence while telling reporters that Iran’s weapons factories had been reduced to rubble, its military rendered ineffective for years and its supreme leader left wounded and disfigured, all for a temporary ceasefire.“Iran begged for this ceasefire, and we all know it,” Hegseth said at the Pentagon’s first press briefing since Donald Trump announced a two-week pause in hostilities on Tuesday night. “Operation Epic Fury decimated Iran’s military and rendered it combat ineffective for years to come.”Standing alongside the chair of the joint chiefs, Dan Caine, Hegseth said strikes carried out in the final wave before Trump’s self-imposed deadline had “completely destroyed Iran’s defense industrial base”. Iran could still fire what it had stockpiled – he acknowledged “they can still shoot” – but it could no longer manufacture the weapons to replace them.Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday night that he agreed to suspend military operations – less than two hours before his own apocalyptic deadline to decimate the entirety of Iranian civilization – after a last-minute intervention by Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and army chief, Gen Asim Munir.Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, confirmed acceptance shortly after. Iran’s supreme national security council said it would send a delegation to Islamabad for formal talks beginning on Friday.Iran, for its part, also declared victory. Its security council announced that “nearly all the objectives of the war have been achieved”.The ceasefire temporarily ends over five weeks of war that began on 28 February when the US and Israel launched nearly 900 strikes in 12 hours against Iranian military infrastructure, missile facilities and leadership. Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was killed on the first day, and his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was designated his successor on 8 March.What kept Iran at the table, Hegseth insisted, was the threat of what came next. Had Tehran not accepted, the US had prepared strikes on power plants, bridges and energy infrastructure – “targets they could not defend, and could not realistically rebuild. It would have taken them decades.”US-Iran ceasefire: has Tehran played Trump? - The LatestCaine confirmed 13 US service members were killed during the war. Total deaths across the region stand at more than 5,000, including over 1,600 Iranian civilians and at least 1,497 people in Lebanon. The US military had spent roughly $12.7bn by day six, with a $200bn supplemental request pending before Congress.The terms of any lasting deal remain openly contradictory. Trump posted on Wednesday morning that Iran would hand over its enriched uranium and there would be “no enrichment” going forward. Iran’s 10-point counter-proposal, published by its own supreme national security council, explicitly demands the right to enrich.The ceasefire itself is also in dispute. Israel said it does not cover Lebanon, where ground and airstrike campaigns are at the largest they have been since Israel’s invasion north. Pakistan and Iran have both said a ceasefire would include Lebanon. Israel also took Iranian missile file after the ceasefire was announced, and Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates reported Iranian missile and drone attacks. State media in Iran had separately reported strikes against the oil infrastructure on its Lavan Island.Iran’s supreme national security council warned that “our hands are on the trigger, and the moment the enemy makes the slightest mistake, it will be met with full force”.Hegseth also had a similar choice of words. Asked how long US forces would remain in the region, he said: “We’re not going anywhere.”