Pentagon, Trump warn more US troops likely to die in Iran operation
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon on March 2, 2026, in Arlington, Virginia. Secretary Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine held the news conference to give an update on Operation Epic Fury. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Additional American troops are being sent into the Middle East as the joint U.S.-Israeli war against Iran entered its third day Monday, with senior Pentagon officials warning that the death toll of American troops will likely rise as the conflict widens across the region.
Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news briefing Monday that the war against Iran would not be swift and that more U.S. casualties should be expected. “We expect to take additional losses, and as always, we will work to minimize U.S. losses,” he said.
The warning echoed a stark message from President Donald Trump, who on Sunday on his social media platform, offered condolences to the families of fallen service members and braced the public for a higher death toll. “Sadly, there will likely be more before it ends,” Trump said. “That’s the way it is.”
U.S. troops have been under sustained pressure from Iranian retaliation, including a strike targeting the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain and attacks on American bases in Kuwait, which serve as key logistics hubs and staging grounds.
So far, six U.S. troops have been killed in what sources tell ABC News was an Iranian strike on an American command center in Kuwait, and 18 service members have been wounded in the operation.
Trump mourned the American casualties again on Monday at a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House.
“Today, we grieve for the four heroic American service members who have been killed in action and send our love and support to their families. In their memory, we continue this mission with ferocious, unyielding resolve to crush the threat this terrorist regime poses to the American people and a threat indeed it is.”
Meanwhile, three U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles were mistakenly shot down Sunday by Kuwait, a U.S. ally, U.S. Central Command confirmed Monday, adding that all six aircrew members ejected safely and are in stable condition. The U.S. aircraft were in “active combat” against Iranian aircraft, missiles and drones.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said an invasion of Iran with ground forces, which would demand a much greater surge of combat power beyond what’s already deployed, hasn’t been ruled out.
“We’ll go as far as we need to go to advance U.S. interests,” he told reporters.
In this U.S. Navy released handout, Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Frank E. Petersen Jr. (DDG 121) fires a Tomahawk Land Attack Missile during operations in support of Operation Epic Fury, on February 28, 2026 at Sea. (Photo by U.S. Navy via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — While President Donald Trump says Operation Epic Fury could last several weeks, a question some are raising is how long U.S. and allies’ missile defense stockpiles can last in an extended conflict with Iran.
Trump has insisted that the U.S. is well equipped to fight, with a “virtually unlimited supply,” and other Gulf states have pushed back on claims that they are running missiles.
How much of the U.S. interceptor stockpile is being used up to defend against Iran’s continued heavy missile and drone attacks is classified, but it’s expected to be among questions lawmakers have for top Trump administration officials this week when they brief lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Some experts are also raising concerns about America’s cache of the expensive air defense missiles as the Iranian military continues to target U.S. assets and other allies in retaliation.
Kelly Grieco, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank and former assistant professor at the Air Command and Staff College, told ABC News that the conflict is becoming a “war of attrition.”
Watch special coverage on Nightline, “War with Iran,” each night on ABC and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
The U.S. and Israeli militaries are now in a race to destroy Iran’s missile capabilities, including launchers and production facilities, before the U.S. and Israel’s own stockpile of air defense interceptor missiles in the region is depleted, according to Grieco.
“The question is becoming who runs out of missiles first. Does the defender run out of interceptors,” she asked, referring to the armies of the U.S., Israel and the Gulf states. “Or does Iran run out of missiles, or their ability to launch missiles?”
“If the Iranians are able to launch with the kinds of numbers they have been launching over the past 48 hours over the next four to five weeks, that does not seem sustainable from an interceptor perspective,” she added.
“But if those numbers drop off because the U.S. and Israel destroy the launchers themselves, or their storage facilities, and the numbers drop dramatically, then we could potentially sustain this campaign,” Greico said.
Retired Lt. Gen. Dan Karbler, former commander of the U.S. Space and Missile Defense Command, told ABC News Live Tuesday that extensive drone use by the Iranian military has prompted the use of smaller short-range missiles as interceptors.
“We don’t want to shoot Patriot missiles at the drones,” he said. “So, some of our short-range air defense, more capability of that type of nature needs to flow into countries so we’re using our short-range missiles to take out these drones not our very limited patriot missiles.”
President Trump attempted to assuage concerns about the stockpile Tuesday — but also acknowledged the number of some of the highest-grade munitions is “not where we want it to be.”
“The United States Munitions Stockpiles have, at the medium and upper medium grade, never been higher or better — As was stated to me today, we have a virtually unlimited supply of these weapons,” Trump wrote on social media early Tuesday morning.
And even as he says the U.S. will “easily prevail” in this war and that the U.S. is prepared for the operation to go on for “whatever it takes,” Trump wrote that “Wars can be fought “forever,” and very successfully, using just these supplies.”
The U.S. was already concerned about its stockpile before this war as the Russian-Ukraine conflict, the Israeli-Gaza conflict and last summer’s conflict with Iran have dramatically increased demand for Patriot and THAAD missiles, according to Greico.
Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles that are used to defend against Iran’s most powerful ballistic missiles are in particularly short supply. Grieco estimated that if the U.S. uses its THAAD missiles at same rate as the 12-day conflict with Iran last year, it likely only has enough for about two weeks now at most.
Grieco said it will take a long time, and be costly, for the U.S. and other countries to replenish their antimissile stockpiles, which are more time consuming and expensive to produce than the Iranian weapons they defend against.
Iran has not launched missiles at the same scale so far compared to the attacks during conflict with Israel last year.
Israeli officials and independent experts said they believe that may reflect a strategy by Iran to run down air defense supplies with relatively smaller but steady attacks over a longer period.
US President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, May 8, 2026. (Aaron Schwartz/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said on Monday that he would like to temporarily suspend the federal gas tax as prices soar due to the war in Iran.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a bill signing in the Oval Office of the White House on February 03, 2026 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump shared on his social media platform late Thursday night a video that included a racist animation of former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama depicted with the bodies of apes.
After backlash, the White House at about noon Friday said the post had been taken down from the president’s page.
The roughly minutelong video, shared by Trump at 11:44 p.m. ET on Thursday, largely focused on debunked claims about the 2020 election.
At the end of the video, the Obamas’ faces appear abruptly and without explanation for seconds with the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” playing over it. The video then ends back on similar imagery of the conspiracy video footage.
The Obamas had no comment when ABC News reached out to their representatives for a response.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, when first asked for comment early Friday, had said, “This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King. Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
Though later Friday afternoon, a White House official told ABC News that a “staffer erroneously made the post.”
The video reposted by Trump overnight included only imagery of the Obamas.
The meme video referenced by Leavitt was shared in October by the Hardin County Republican Party of Kentucky on Facebook, which led the chairman to issue an apology and deleted the post after swift backlash noting the long history of racist tropes depicting Black people as apes or monkeys — a tool of slave traders and segregationists to dehumanize them.
Trump’s overnight repost was condemned by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, some of whom had called for it to be taken down and for the president to apologize.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the first Black leader of a party in Congress, wrote on X: “President Obama and Michelle Obama are brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country. Donald Trump is a vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder.”
“Every single Republican must immediately denounce Donald Trump’s disgusting bigotry,” Jeffries wrote.
Republican Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate and also the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, posted on X: “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.”
Republican Sen. Roger Wicker wrote in a post: “This is totally unacceptable. The president should take it down and apologize.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, wrote in a post: “Racist. Vile. Abhorrent. This is dangerous and degrades our country — where are Senate Republicans? The President must immediately delete the post and apologize to Barack and Michelle Obama, two great Americans who make Donald Trump look like a small, envious man.”
