What to know about the Iran war today:Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced off with lawmakers for a second day on Thursday and argued the 60-day deadline to get the war approved by Congress was on hold during the current ceasefire. Democrats such as Tim Kaine and Elizabeth Warren disagreed, and said the deadline remains Friday.Oil prices spiked to a four-year high on Thursday, with Brent crude briefly topping $126 a barrel as stalled U.S.-Iran talks raised doubts over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and a permanent end to the war.The true price tag of the Iran war is closer to $50 billion, U.S. officials familiar with internal assessments told CBS News, roughly double the public estimate the Pentagon cited in congressional testimony this week. Much of the gap is accounted for by munitions that have been used and need to be replaced. Iran’s supreme leader vows to protect regime’s nuclear, missile capabilities
Iran’s supreme leader defiantly vowed Thursday to protect the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and missile capabilities, which President Trump has sought to curtail through airstrikes and as part of a wider deal to cement the war’s shaky ceasefire.
In a statement read by a state television anchor, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei said the only place Americans belonged in the Persian Gulf is “at the bottom of its waters” and that a “new chapter” was being written in the region’s history. Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking over as supreme leader following the killing of his father in the war’s opening airstrikes.
His remarks come as Iran’s economy is reeling and its oil industry is being squeezed by a U.S. Navy blockade halting its tankers from getting out to sea. The world economy is also under pressure as Iran maintains its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all crude oil is transported. On Thursday, the global benchmark for oil, Brent crude, traded as high as $126 a barrel.
Trump says if U.S. left Iran right now it would “take them 20 years to rebuild”
In an interview with Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren, President Trump again proclaimed “We’ve already won” the war in Iran but said he wants to “win by a bigger margin.”
Mr. Trump said Iran’s navy and air force have been destroyed, along with the country’s leadership, claims the administration has been making since very early in the war.
But multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of intelligence on the matter told CBS News last week that Iran maintains more military capabilities than the White House or Pentagon has publicly admitted.
About half of Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles and its associated launch systems were still intact as of the start of the ceasefire in early April, three of the officials told CBS News.
“We’ve destroyed everything. If we leave right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild if they ever could rebuild,” Mr. Trump said Thursday, but added it’s “not good enough.”
“We have to have guarantees they will never have a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Trump said.
Credit: Yahoo News