Tom Bateman State department correspondent
(BBC) – In the weeks since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, the battle for the narrative over the war’s progress has been taking place at the heart of American military power.
From week one, I’ve been inside the Pentagon press briefings given by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the former Army National Guard Major and Fox News pundit.
From the first update to reporters, when he set out America’s war aims, until the latest which followed the announcement of a two-week truce, the man running the world’s most powerful military has brought his TV-style, on-screen monologue to the Pentagon podium.
The briefings have been chest-thumping affairs, revelling in portrayals of American military supremacy. Hegseth said on Wednesday the US had scored “a capital V military victory”. At another briefing, he said the US had dealt “death and destruction from the sky all day long”.
Getting to the truth of the war’s progress and its toll on the US, however, has taken deeper interrogation. So with a tenuous ceasefire in place that is already being tested, what can we say the US has achieved? And at what cost has it come?
