WASHINGTON, March 2 (KUNA) - US President Donald Trump has stated that the US military intends to maintain combat operations against Iran for "four to five weeks" if necessary.
In a phone interview with the New York Times, President Trump insisted the Pentagon retained plenty of forces, missiles and bombs to sustain the military assault "if we have to." Asked how long the United States could keep up this level of attacks, he responded: "Well, we intended four to five weeks." "It won't be difficult," Trump added. "We have tremendous amounts of ammunition. You know, we have ammunition stored all over the world in different countries." On the post-war scenarios, the US President said he had "three very good choices" about who could lead Iran, but he declined to name them.
Trump referred to Venezuela as the model of a successful operation and hoped to replicate aspects of it in Iran.
"What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario," Trump said.
"Everybody's kept their job except for two people," Trump said.
Furthermore, he described a scenario in which the Iranian people would overthrow the existing government.
"That's going to be up to them about whether or not they do," Trump said. "They've been talking about it for years so now they'll obviously have an opportunity." He, moreover, hoped Iran's elite military forces - including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps- would turn over their weapons to the Iranian populace.
"They would really surrender to the people, if you think about it," he said.
He grieved the fall of three US personnel in the war, and acknowledged that his administration expected more casualties, based on projections offered by the Pentagon.
"Three is three too many as far as I'm concerned," Trump said. "If you look at projections, they do projections, it, you know, it could be quite a bit higher than that." "We expect casualties," he added.
But he voiced confidence that Iran would, in the end, cave in. "The country has been very substantially weakened, to put it mildly," he concluded. (end) amm.ibi