Comments from defense secretary come as number of US service members killed in conflict has climbed to seven
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, has said “there will be more casualties” in the US military from the Trump administration’s war in Iran after officials confirmed on Sunday that the number of US service members killed had climbed to seven.
Hegseth made the statement during an appearance Sunday night on CBS’s 60 Minutes, during which he portrayed Donald Trump’s decision for the US to join Israeli attacks on the Middle East country as essential “to advance American interests, and protect American lives”.
Asked about the deaths of six army reservists in a retaliatory Iranian drone strike on a US base in Kuwait a week ago, Hegseth said: “The president’s been right to say there will be casualties. Things like this don’t happen without casualties. There will be more casualties.
“No one is, I mean, especially our generation knows, knows what it’s like to see Americans come home in caskets. But that doesn’t weaken us one bit. It stiffens our spine and our resolve to say this is a fight we will finish.”
