WASHINGTON, D.C. — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, defending the Trump administration's war with Iran during a hearing convened to review the Pentagon's record $1.45tn military budget submission. The session devolved into confrontation over the conflict, which had become stalemated after eight weeks of fighting. Protesters briefly interrupted the hearing as Hegseth delivered an opening statement, shouting insults of "war criminal" and "despicable" before being expelled.

Senator Jack Reed said Hegseth had failed to give President Donald Trump an accurate picture of the war. "The problem with your statements, Mr Secretary, is they are dangerously exaggerated," Reed said. He said Trump had gone to war without a coherent strategy and without consulting Congress or presenting a case to the American people.

Reed also said Hegseth had advocated eliminating rules of engagement shortly after a missile strike that killed hundreds of Iranian school girls, and had made statements about showing no mercy and no quarter to Iranians that would constitute war crimes. "Iran's hard line regime remains in place. It still retains stockpiles of enriched uranium, and its nuclear program remains viable," he said. He added: "I am concerned that you have been telling the President what he wants to hear instead of what he needs to hear. Bold assurances of success are a disservice to both the commander in chief and the troops who risked their lives based on them. Our military has performed heroically, but military force without a sound strategy is a path to long-term defeat."

Hegseth said critics of the war effort are "reckless, feckless and defeatist" and identified congressional opposition as a primary obstacle. "As I said yesterday, and I'll say it again today, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless naysayers and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans," he said. He also dismissed opponents as "defeatists from the cheap seats who two months in, seek to undermine the incredible efforts that have been undertaken and the historic nature of taking on a 47-year threat with the courage no other President has had, to great success and great opportunity for preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon."

Opinion polls have indicated that a majority of the U.S. public opposes the war on Iran. "I believe we do have the support of the American people," Hegseth said. The regime in Tehran has closed the Strait of Hormuz.

Senator Richard Blumenthal challenged that assessment. "I know you have characterized this war as an astonishing military success, but the American people aren't buying it. One point is irrefutable, which is, America never succeeds in war unless the American people are behind and if what you're seeing as success now is winning, I would hate to see what losing looks like," Blumenthal said. Hegseth replied: "The negative nature in which you characterize the incredible and historic effort in Iran is part of the reason, senator, why the American people view it the way they do."