President Donald Trump said Friday the U.S. military has about 3,500 targets remaining in its operation against Iran and expects the campaign to conclude "pretty quickly."
Trump made the remarks during a keynote address at a Saudi-backed financial conference in Miami. Part of his speech aired live on Newsmax and free Newsmax2 streaming platform.
The U.S. and Israel launched a joint operation on Feb. 28 targeting Iran's political leadership and military infrastructure.
U.S. Central Command, responsible for U.S. military operations in the Middle East, said Wednesday the military has struck more than 10,000 Iranian targets.
"We have another 3,554 targets left, and that will be done pretty quickly," Trump said, without providing details on the remaining targets. "And then at some point, we're going to have to determine what we do. But they have never seen anything like it."
Trump said the U.S. and Iran have engaged in negotiations to end the conflict, but they must agree to keep open the Strait of Hormuz, a key global oil shipping route.
"Remember this, they lied about three days ago, I said, 'Yeah, we're negotiating.' They said, ‘We are not negotiating,' " Trump said. "They're being hit so hard, anybody would be negotiating.
"They are negotiating. They're begging to make a deal.
"It would be great if we can do something, but they have to open it up the Strait of Trump, I mean, Hormuz," Trump said to laughter after his slip of the tongue. "Excuse me. I'm so sorry.
"Such a terrible mistake. Fake news will say, ‘he accidentally said' … no, there are not accidents with me. Not too many. If there were we'd have a major story."
When Operation Epic Fury began, the Trump administration gave a timeline of four to six weeks to meet its objectives, which were to destroy Iran's missile capabilities and its capacity to produce new ones, and annihilate its navy.
The goals also included preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and eroding its support for proxy terrorist groups outside its borders.
Trump appeared to suggest the operation is well on its way to achieving its goals without declaring outright victory.
"We're closer than ever to the rise of the Middle East that is finally free at last from Iranian terror, aggression, and nuclear blackmail," he said. "That's what's happened. It was nuclear blackmail for years and years.
"And beyond that, it was blackmail, period.
"Under my leadership, America is ending the threat posed by this radical regime, decimating Iran's capabilities with Operation Epic Fury. … For 47 years, Iran has been known as the bully of the Middle East.
"But they are not the bully any longer. They're on the run."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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