For U.S. service members, one day from the war with Iran stands out: On March 1, the second day of the military offensive, an unmanned Iranian drone struck a “tactical operations center” in Port Shuaiba, Kuwait, killing six U.S. soldiers and wounding many others.
Donald Trump’s response to the deadly developments sparked a controversy; the president posted a prerecorded video to social media, in which he said, among other things, “Before it ends, that’s the way it is. Likely be more.”
But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s response was considerably worse.
Two days before he pressed news organizations to downplay the significance of fallen U.S. troops, the beleaguered Pentagon chief told reporters, in reference to the Iranian drone, “Every once in a while, you might have a squirter that makes its way through.”
In other words, according to Hegseth, defenses were in place to protect the U.S. military outpost in Kuwait, but one unmanned drone managed to sneak through and do deadly harm.
That version of events is now facing important pushback from sources in a position to know. MS NOW reported, as part of the network’s liveblog coverage:
The White House did not address the account Thursday of survivors of the Iranian attack on a U.S. military outpost in Kuwait who pushed back against the Pentagon’s characterization of the incident. Six U.S. service members were killed in the strike during the early days of the war.
In an interview with CBS News, one soldier injured in the attack on the Port of Shuaiba called Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s description of the incident as merely one drone that ‘squeaked through’ a ‘falsehood.’
One of the injured soldiers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, specifically told CBS News, “Painting a picture that ‘one squeaked through’ is a falsehood. I want people to know the unit … was unprepared to provide any defense for itself. It was not a fortified position.”
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Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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