U.S. Navy Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, receives a capabilities and lines-of-efforts brief during a visit to a base in the Middle East. (U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Mass Communication Specialist Amanda Dunford)
WASHINGTON — US operations during Operation Epic Fury have severely “degraded” Iran’s Navy to the point it could take a decade for Tehran to build it back up, the head of US Central Command, Adm. Brad Cooper, told lawmakers today.
Cooper also said that the operations have been successful in effectively cutting Iran off from being able to provide weapons and support to its proxy partners in the region, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
“The defense industrial rates for their drones, and their missiles and their Navy were degraded by 90 percent. They have about 10 percent left,” Cooper said, although in this written testimony, he wrote the degradation was at 85 percent. “For the Navy, my military assessment would be that the Navy will not begin to rebuild for five to 10 years.”
In his written testimony, Cooper stated the US has eliminated over 90 percent of Iran’s “once-massive inventory” of over 8,000 naval mines and has conducted over 700 airstrikes on Iranian “naval mine targets.”
