‘US reimposed effectively impenetrable blockade; Iran at weakest military point in decades’: Hegseth

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Tuesday (US local time) said the United States has reimposed an “effectively impenetrable” blockade against Iran and asserted that Tehran is at its weakest military point in decades, as he testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the Trump administration’s request for a $1.5 trillion defence budget.

Hegseth, appeared in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, and said, “Our blockade has been reimposed and is effectively impenetrable… a lot of the strikes that Admiral Cooper and CENTCOM have been undertaking are taking away Iran’s ability to see and sense a way in the Strait of Hormuz, which has tactical benefits for us.”

Responding to Hegseth’s remarks, Senator John Hoeven said, “And that’s what this funding is about. This funding is about making sure that we and our allies can operate in the Strait of Hormuz, which helps bring down energy prices for every single American consumer, and that we force Iran to meet our objectives.”

He termed the demand of $1.5 trillion in the defence budget as a generational investment and said, “This is a peace through strength package. That is what $1.5 trillion has always been about. This is about a generational investment”.

He said the United States must be able to execute operations “at speed, scale, with autonomy and artificial intelligence” not only to continue its efforts in the Strait of Hormuz but also “to deter adversaries like Russia and China from getting involved in future contingencies.”

Pete Hegseth refuses to answer @SenOssoff (D-GA), on whether his past statement that Iran’s military had been “destroyed and made combat ineffective” was true or false. pic.twitter.com/ufAGO2DtlE

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 21, 2026

The Secretary of War also claimed that Iran’s military capability had been significantly degraded. “Iran is at the weakest point militarily it has ever been in, in the past decade. Certainly maybe in 47 years as they’ve gathered effectively a terror army”, Hegseth said.

“That terror army was built to try to create conventional capability to defend against a pursuit of nuclear weapons, which meant thousands of ballistic missiles, many of which we have destroyed. Others of which they have put inside facilities and hidden in underground facilities. That’s what terror regimes would do”, he added.

“I acknowledge they still have capabilities, no doubt. But the amount of damage that we’ve done to them over the course of these series of operations has put them in the worst place they’ve ever been”, Hegseth said.

Reiterating President Donald Trump’s position on Iran’s nuclear programme, Hegseth added, “That’s why we haven’t been trying to remake Iranian society, but simply, in a realist, America First way, ensure they never have a path to a nuclear bomb — full stop”, he said.

Hegseth recalled that Trump had repeatedly maintained that Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons. Defending the administration’s budget request, Hegseth said, “We live in a dangerous world that requires bold and swift action, hence this supplemental request for Fiscal Year 2026. This request is an urgent, necessary injection of resources to address the immediate needs of our department.”

“President Trump’s following a simple logic, the military requires a generational investment to deliver on peace through strength. We know the best way to create peace is to prepare for war, to deter it,” he said.

The Secretary of War also blamed the previous Biden administration for what he described as years of underinvestment in defence. “Because of the previous administration’s funding shortfalls, munitions transferred to Ukraine and not replaced, and then ignoring threats, it built a lot of risk that requires this kind of investment,” he said.

“This kind of spending is needed because of the gross negligence and neglect of the Biden administration inside our department… we’re having to reestablish deterrence,” Hegseth added.

“We are a Department that, for four years, met funding shortfalls under the previous Administration. It was not a priority to fund the Department of Defence under Joe Biden. This $1.5 trillion budget, with this supplemental being part of it, is how we catch up and get ahead,” he said. (ANI)