Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine speak during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, March 4, 2026. KONSTANTIN TOROPIN / AP
The United States expects to have "complete" control of Iranian airspace in the coming hours, the White House said on Wednesday, March 4, the fifth day of US-Israeli operations against the Islamic Republic.
"We expect to have complete and total dominance over Iranian airspace in the coming hours," Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said earlier in the day that the United States and Israel "will have complete control of Iranian skies, uncontested airspace," without giving a specific timeline. That means "we will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military," Hegseth said.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday rated the US performance in the war with Iran as a 15 on a scale of 10, saying the Islamic Republic's leaders were rapidly being killed, and vowing to push on. Trump's comments came as the conflict expanded on its fifth day, with a US submarine sinking an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka and fresh blasts across the Middle East.
