'Are There Other Sites Out There?: Lindsey Graham Questions Air Force Leadership Over Iran Strikes

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During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Air Force leadership about Operation Midnight Hammer.

Transcript

00:00Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all, the Air Force and Space Force. Looking

00:06forward for you writing history. You will. You'll make history to our airmen out there,

00:13men and women. You really shine brightly, so please pass that on. The best Air Force in the

00:20world and the best Space Force in the world, too. I don't even know if anybody else has one,

00:24but we'll still be the best. So let's talk about money. Do we need a supplemental

00:29given the level of intensity of engagement in the last year or two, providing weapons to Israel,

00:37dropping bombs ourselves? Would a supplemental help, Mr. Secretary?

00:44So I believe at this point with the total request between the reconciliation and the base,

00:53we'll meet our demands, but if I see different, I'll be the first one to advocate for additional

01:00resources. Okay. What about you, General? What do you think? Well, Senator, you know, I'm in the

01:06different position of saying that there's money to be had. I'll take it all we can, but I'm fully...

01:10No, I know you work for the Secretary, and that's what it should be. I'm just... I mean,

01:14in terms of the inventory out there, how do we stand? We have been expending resources both on

01:22our own defense of our own platforms and to support our allies and partners, and so we do

01:26constantly... It is a challenge. It's a challenge we take on... What I want to do is just not, you know,

01:32entice China or anybody else to say, now's the time to jump. So let's look at that. I think

01:38definitely we need to do a win for Israel, Mr. Chairman, a supplemental, and I'd like to...

01:45Mr. Secretary, if we ever get to that point, you can give us some input about what you need. You'd

01:50be glad to do that, I'm sure. Yes, Senator, I will, and... Well, let's say for some reason we didn't

01:58pass the reconciliation bill. That would be a real blow to your plans, right? That would be a massive

02:05blow to our plans. So to anybody watching out there, this $150 billion in the reconciliation

02:11bill doesn't get talked about a lot, but it's the difference between making it or not making it

02:16in the short term here. You need the money and you need it yesterday. A little bit about the strike

02:23itself. General Kane did a marvelous job talking about the air crews and the Patriot missile battery

02:31crews and making it real to us what your people do every day. And it was a well-told story and a

02:37wonderful story to celebrate. And I'm willing to say without any hesitation that the Midnight Hammer

02:44operation severely damaged, completely decimated in many ways these three sites. That's not even an issue

02:54for me. I think they were completely decimated in terms of being used anytime soon. And that means

03:00years. I think we set them back years in terms of using those sites. But I want to make the point,

03:06has the regime changed its goals at all? Mr. Secretary, have you seen any intel to suggest that the

03:13Ayatollah's regime has abandoned their desire to destroy Israel after this strike? Senator, I couldn't,

03:21I couldn't speak to that particularly. What about you, General? Anybody? I have not seen any intel.

03:27Anything in space out there to suggest otherwise? If there is, I haven't seen that intel. Yeah. Okay.

03:32Well, I hope we don't ever meet the Iranians in space. That'd be a bad day. So the point I'm trying

03:37to make is we should celebrate this military operation. I think it was hugely important. But my goal

03:43is to change the future. And the future is only going to change when the regime changes. And I'm not

03:50talking about invading Iran, but change their behavior or the people. And that's up to the

03:55Iranian people. But right now, it's the policy of the Ayatollah and his regime to destroy the state

04:01of Israel and to come after us. And I'm hoping that will change. But that doesn't change. We're going

04:06to be right back at it. General Alvin, can you tell me from an air power point of view, what are the

04:19limitations of air power in terms of controlling the desires of the regime? Do we know if there are

04:30other sites out there? It seems to me that they may be, I don't know. I'm not convinced they didn't

04:38plan for this and move some stuff around. But we don't know. I just know this really worked. But

04:44can you sort of give us some indication of the limits of air power?

04:49Well, I'd say one of the limits of air power is we can't hit what we don't know is there.

04:53So the ability, it's part of an entire apparatus of understanding. And then once we know what's there,

04:58our job as United States Air Force is to offer options to the president to be able to, as we

05:03say, put a warhead on a forehead anywhere on the globe, regardless of the threat density environment.

05:08And so understanding what that is, I think that we don't know that that would limit the potential

05:14effectiveness. So it is sort of a team effort. But once we understand that where it is, then we

05:19need to ensure that we have the ability to overcome whatever defenses and have the effect to give the

05:24president confidence that this option versus that option.

05:28One last question. These bunker buster things seems to be a good bomb to have. Do we have enough

05:35of them? Senator, we were talking about that earlier, that what I am focused on is, one, given the nature of

05:43the targets that we know, we look at the inventory, but you've got to believe that after that, some people

05:48are thinking about how to make them more defensible. So we're also looking about what's the next

05:53iteration. We need to stay ahead of them nonstop. Thank you.

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