Good morning, everyone. I'm Kate Baldwin. It's Wednesday, March 4th. Here are the five things you need to know to start your day.

Number one, the war plan. Plumes of smoke were seen once again over Tehran this morning. The Israeli military now

saying it's launched a 10th wave of strikes against Iran. The head of the U.S. Central Command, overseeing the U.S. side of this operation, just

offered an update as well.

Nearly 2,000 targets hit in coordination with the IDF.

He says severely degrading Iran's air defenses.

We are also sinking the Iranian Navy, the entire Navy.

Thus far, we've destroyed 17 Iranian ships, including the most operational Iranian submarine, that now has a hole in its side.

There are also new images in of the damage left behind from an Israeli strike on a gathering of Iran's assembly of experts. This is a group of Iranian

officials tasked with deciding who the next Supreme Leader will be. Iranian media says the group

is meeting virtually and they were not inside the compound at the time of the attack. Even still,

there continues to be wide confusion around the why and why now justification for this U.S. military

operation to begin with. In operation, the Defense Secretary now calls a war. The president is now

saying this about why he decided to go in.

We were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going

to attack. If we didn't do it, they were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that.

We also now know the identities of four of six U.S. service members killed in action over the

weekend. All of all of them from an Army Reserve unit based out of Iowa.

Number two, the stranded Americans.

This morning, smoke was also seen rising near the airport in Beirut, Lebanon.

Most international flights now canceled there,

which represents just one more piece of the fallout from this war

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