Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine directly warned President Trump that a military campaign against Iran could lead to significant American casualties during a Situation Room meeting on Feb. 18, the New York Times reported. Days later, Trump told the public the exact opposite.
As reported by "Hvylya", Trump wrote on Truth Social that General Caine had said any military action against Iran would be "something easily won" - a stark contradiction of what the general had actually conveyed in the classified briefing.
During the meeting, Caine presented multiple military options and stressed that a large-scale campaign aimed at toppling the Iranian government carried a high risk of U.S. casualties, could destabilize the entire region, and would significantly deplete American munitions stocks. He also emphasized that all scenarios would be far more challenging than the January operation against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
Joe Holstead, a spokesman for General Caine, declined to comment on the substance of the briefing, saying that "options and considerations" provided to the president and defense secretary are confidential. The disconnect between the general's private assessment and the president's public claims adds to a pattern: the administration also made what the Times described as false claims about the imminence of the threat that Iran posed to the United States.
Trump made little effort to convince the American public that war was necessary. The limited case he and his aides presented relied on misleading characterizations of the intelligence, even as the Pentagon was completing the largest American military buildup in the Middle East in a generation - two aircraft carriers, a dozen supporting ships, fighter jets, bombers, refueling tankers, and air defense batteries.
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