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'Are There Other Sites Out There?: Lindsey Graham Questions Air Force Leadership Over Iran Strikes
Forbes Breaking News
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2 days ago
During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Air Force leadership about Operation Midnight Hammer.
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00:00
Senator Graham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all, the Air Force and Space Force. Looking
00:06
forward for you writing history. You will. You'll make history to our airmen out there,
00:13
men and women. You really shine brightly, so please pass that on. The best Air Force in the
00:20
world and the best Space Force in the world, too. I don't even know if anybody else has one,
00:24
but we'll still be the best. So let's talk about money. Do we need a supplemental
00:29
given the level of intensity of engagement in the last year or two, providing weapons to Israel,
00:37
dropping bombs ourselves? Would a supplemental help, Mr. Secretary?
00:44
So I believe at this point with the total request between the reconciliation and the base,
00:53
we'll meet our demands, but if I see different, I'll be the first one to advocate for additional
01:00
resources. Okay. What about you, General? What do you think? Well, Senator, you know, I'm in the
01:06
different position of saying that there's money to be had. I'll take it all we can, but I'm fully...
01:10
No, I know you work for the Secretary, and that's what it should be. I'm just... I mean,
01:14
in terms of the inventory out there, how do we stand? We have been expending resources both on
01:22
our own defense of our own platforms and to support our allies and partners, and so we do
01:26
constantly... It is a challenge. It's a challenge we take on... What I want to do is just not, you know,
01:32
entice China or anybody else to say, now's the time to jump. So let's look at that. I think
01:38
definitely we need to do a win for Israel, Mr. Chairman, a supplemental, and I'd like to...
01:45
Mr. Secretary, if we ever get to that point, you can give us some input about what you need.
01:50
You'd be glad to do that, I'm sure.
01:54
Yes, Senator, I will, and... Well, I'd say for some reason we didn't pass the
01:59
reconciliation bill. That would be a real blow to your plans, right?
02:03
That would be a massive blow to our plans.
02:06
So to anybody watching out there, this $150 billion in the reconciliation bill doesn't get
02:13
talked about a lot, but it's the difference between making it or not making it in the short
02:17
term here. You need the money and you need it yesterday. A little bit about the strike itself.
02:25
General Cain did a marvelous job talking about the air crews and the Patriot missile battery crews and
02:31
making it real to us what your people do every day. And it was a well-told story and a wonderful
02:38
story to celebrate. And I'm willing to say without any hesitation that the midnight hammer operation
02:45
severely damaged, completely decimated in many ways these three sites. That's not even an issue for me. I think they were
02:55
completely decimated in terms of being used anytime soon. And that means years.
03:01
I think we set them back years in terms of using those sites. But I want to make the point,
03:06
has the regime changed its goals at all? Mr. Secretary, have you seen any intel to suggest
03:13
that the Ayatollah's regime has abandoned their desire to destroy Israel after this strike?
03:18
Senator, I couldn't, I couldn't speak to that particularly. What about you, General? Anybody?
03:25
I have not seen any intel. Anything in space out there to suggest otherwise? If there is,
03:30
I haven't seen that intel. Okay. Well, I hope we don't ever meet the Iranians in space. That'd be a bad day.
03:36
So the point I'm trying to make is we should celebrate this military operation. I think it was
03:41
hugely important. But my goal is to change the future. And the future is only going to change when the
03:48
regime changes. And I'm not talking about invading Iran, but change their behavior or the people.
03:54
And that's up to the Iranian people. But right now, it's the policy of the Ayatollah and this regime
04:00
to destroy the state of Israel and to come after us. And I'm hoping that will change. But that doesn't
04:05
change. We're going to be right back at it. General Alvin, can you tell me from an air power point of view,
04:16
what are the limitations of air power in terms of controlling the desires of the regime? Do we know
04:29
if there are other sites out there? It seems to me that they may be. I don't know. I'm not convinced
04:38
they didn't plan for this and move some stuff around. But we don't know. I just know this really
04:43
work. But can you sort of give us some indication of the limits of air power?
04:49
Well, I'd say one of the limits of air power is we can't hit what we don't know is there.
04:53
So the ability, it's part of an entire apparatus of understanding. And then,
04:56
once we know what's there, our job as United States Air Force is to offer options to the president
05:02
to be able to, as we say, put a warhead on a forehead anywhere on the globe, regardless of the
05:07
threat density environment. And so understanding what that is, I think that we don't know that
05:13
that would limit the potential effectiveness. So this is sort of a team effort. But once we
05:17
understand that where it is, then we need to ensure that we have the ability to overcome whatever
05:21
defenses and have the effect to give the president confidence that this option versus that option.
05:28
One last question. And these bunker buster things seems to be a good bomb to have.
05:33
Do we have enough of them? Senator, we were talking about that earlier,
05:38
that what I am focused on is, one, given the nature of the targets that we know, we look at the
05:45
inventory, but you've got to believe that after that, some people are thinking about how to make them
05:50
more defensible. So we're also looking about what's the next iteration. We need to stay ahead of them
05:55
nonstop. Thank you.
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