US President Donald Trump on Sunday sought to justify the military operation against Iran, stressing America’s long-term security and preparing the public for further losses after three US troops were killed.
“Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” Trump said in a video message posted on his Truth Social platform. He was responding to reports of the American casualties through the message.
“America will avenge their deaths and deliver the most punishing blow to the terrorists who have waged war against, basically, civilisation,” he said from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Trump has not addressed the nation directly since the conflict began on Saturday. He has, however, released two video messages, announced the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Truth Social, and given several telephone interviews to journalists. He also declined to speak to reporters aboard Air Force One while returning to Washington from Florida.
The White House said senior administration officials will brief the US Congress on Tuesday to present the case for the attack on Iran.
In an interview with the British newspaper the Daily Mail, Trump described the war as a “four-week process”. “We figured it will be four weeks or so,” he said.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump said, “Nobody can believe the success we’re having, 48 leaders are gone in one shot. And it’s moving along rapidly.”
He told NBC News that while casualties were expected, “in the end it’s going to be a great deal for the world,” after the US military confirmed the deaths of three service members.
“We’re undertaking this massive operation not merely to ensure security for our own time and place, but for our children and their children,” Trump said.
“These actions are right and they are necessary to ensure that Americans will never have to face a radical, bloodthirsty terrorist regime armed with nuclear weapons and lots of threats,” he added.
On Truth Social, Trump claimed US forces had destroyed and sunk nine Iranian naval vessels. “Some of them relatively large and important,” he wrote. “We are going after the rest — they will soon be floating at the bottom of the sea, also. In a different attack, we largely destroyed their naval headquarters.”
Neither Trump nor senior officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth have appeared in public since the start of the conflict.
The Atlantic magazine quoted Trump as saying that Iran’s leaders “want to talk, and I have agreed to talk, so I will be talking to them. They should have done it sooner.” He added that “most of those people are gone.”
In an interview with CNBC, Trump said the operation was progressing ahead of schedule. “We’re doing our job not just for us but for the world. And everything is ahead of schedule,” he said.
“Things are evolving in a very positive way right now, a very positive way.”
