Pete Hegseth: Today will be the 'most intense' of US strikes on Iran
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has insisted America's war aims are clear, at a Pentagon press conference. We'll hear from those inside Iran caught up in the bombardment, and from our correspondent, Tom Bateman, who attended that news conference.
Also on the programme: Authorities in the US state of New Mexico have launched a search of a ranch previously owned by the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; and the German carmaker Volkswagen has said it will cut 50,000 jobs in Germany by 2030 as its profits fell by over 40 percent in 2025.
(Photo: US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a press conference at CENTCOM headquarters in Florida on the 5th of March 2026. Credit:
Cristóbal Herrera/EPA/Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.2 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service |
| 0:13.3 | Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. We're beginning with the questions which have hung |
| 0:18.6 | over this war in the Middle East since the US and Israel decided to launch it a week and a half ago. |
| 0:24.5 | What is going to counter success? When will it be decided that it's over? |
| 0:29.1 | Indeed, who will decide when it's over? |
| 0:32.9 | Given that the war itself is still being fought at its intense pitch, waves of airstrikes on Iran and from the Israelis on Lebanon as well, |
| 0:41.1 | we'll hear from those caught in the line of fire in about 30 minutes. |
| 0:46.0 | And we also have, of course, Iran continuing to launch missiles and drones |
| 0:50.1 | at the countries on the Arabian Gulf and global oil and gas supplies |
| 0:54.1 | still being partially |
| 0:55.0 | throttled by Iranian threats to shipping, we'll be picking up on all those lines in the course |
| 1:01.5 | of the programme. But first, the latest update on the progress of the war, and we'll try to work out |
| 1:07.5 | whether there is, as I was suggesting any greater clarity on, particularly on US war aims, given that only yesterday Donald Trump was announcing that the war was, in his words, very complete pretty much and would be over very soon. |
| 1:22.9 | Well, at the same time, insisting that, well, as he put it, we would call it a tremendous success right now. |
| 1:29.1 | We could go further and we are going to go further. |
| 1:33.7 | Well, just before we came on air, the U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegsef gave a news briefing |
| 1:37.8 | and insisted that the mission remained what it always has been. |
| 1:41.7 | One, destroy their missile stockpiles, their missile launchers, and their |
| 1:46.7 | defense industrial base, missiles and their ability to make them. Two, destroy their Navy. |
| 1:55.0 | And three, permanently deny Iran nuclear weapons forever. |
| 2:01.9 | It's a laser-focused maximum authority mission delivered with overwhelming and |
... |
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