By John Haughey

It took the U.S. military less than 40 days to destroy 90 percent of Iran’s operational ballistic missile and drone capacities, annihilate its navy, dismantle its support for proxy militias, and derail its emergent nuclear weapons program, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said on May 14.

“Across every element of national power, they have been significantly degraded,” Adm. Brad Cooper said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We have dismantled what took them decades and billions to build.”

With two Navy aircraft carrier battlegroups and a Marine task force–to be joined by a second soon–in the Arabian Sea blockading Iranian ships from leaving the Persian Gulf, he expressed confidence that, if ordered, the United States could wrest control of the Strait of Hormuz from Tehran to reopen the vital shipping lane to international traffic.

“There’s a military component to this and then there’s a policy component that I leave to the policymakers,” Cooper said. “But from a military standpoint, could we do that again? We just did it last week” during the abbreviated Project Freedom when destroyers escorted U.S.-flagged ships through the strait.

“If I just use my own professional experience from 100 transits through the Strait of Hormuz, you would typically see 20 to 40 Iranian fast boats. Lately, we’ve seen two or three,” he said. “The Iranian capability to stop commerce has been dramatically degraded through the strait, but their voice is very loud, and those threats are clearly heard by the merchant industry and the insurance industry” in convincing ships not to make the run.

Cooper, commanding officer of the Pentagon’s Central Command, and Air Force Gen. Dagvin Anderson, commander of the U.S. Africa Command, were before the panel to issue annual regional posture updates related to deliberations on the Trump administration’s proposed $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2027 defense budget.

During a 140-minute hearing, preceded by a 90-minute classified briefing, Cooper disputed alleged analyses attributed to the CIA and Pentagon intelligence agencies that Iran retains 70 percent to 75 percent of its ballistic missile and drone capacities despite the sustained Operation Epic Fury bombing campaign launched by the United States and Israel between Feb. 28 and the April 13 ceasefire.

“The numbers I’ve seen in open source are not accurate,” he said, estimating only 10 percent of Iran’s drone and missile capacity is operational. “What is not taken into consideration is it’s more than just the numbers. It’s the command-and-control that’s been shattered … and it’s the lack of any ability to then produce any missiles or drones on the back end.”

Cooper said among other misperceptions is that the United States is exhausting costly, high-tech air defense missiles to shoot down inexpensive Iranian Shahed drones. As noted during a March 4 Senate readiness hearing, he and his staff reverse-engineered Shahed drones captured from Russian forces in Ukraine in a Tampa warehouse to develop–and mass produce–the United States’ own version of a low-cost unmanned attack system, or one-way attack “suicide” drone.

“If I could myth bust on drones, the days of $35,000 drones that we saw in the last couple of years, particularly in the fight against the Houthis in Yemen, those days are behind us,” he said, noting Iran’s Shahed drones are more costly than those the United States, Israel, and the Gulf States are using.

“Using high-value defenses to shoot down cheap targets are behind us. Quite the contrary, what we have been doing lately is using our own low-cost one-way attack drones and making them use higher and more expensive weapons,” Cooper said. “So I can confidently tell you we have flipped the cost curve in many ways. There’s always work to be done, but I like where we are in this regard.”

He would not elaborate on how much assistance his forces are receiving from Ukraine in thwarting Iranian drones, but noted, “We adopted a large number of tactics, techniques and procedures that the Ukrainians have passed to us that have helped us defend Americans, and all of our partners are working with Ukraine in some way, shape or form.”

In this combo from satellite images provided by Vantor shows is (left) a view of the Natanz nuclear facility on March 1, 2026, and (right) with damage on March 2, 2026, in Iran. Satellite image ©2026 Vantor via AP

Cooper said the war has shifted the Pentagon’s emphasis from drone defense to a “focus on drone domination.”

“Drone dominance has really kick-started our capabilities, and flowed more capabilities into the region much faster than we had seen before, and many of those capabilities have now been proven in combat. I think in a classified setting, I’d like to tell you what that looked like, but as we sit here today, we have drone capabilities in the air, on the sea, and under the sea as a result of this initiative,” he said.

Nor would he discuss in detail Iran’s attempted ballistic missile strike on the U.S. base on Diego Garcia, 2,500 miles from the Persian Gulf in the Indian Ocean, deferring to what is “clearly a classified component to this.”

CENTCOM Cmdr. Adm. Brad Cooper speaks at a press conference at  MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., on March 5, 2024. TJ Muscaro/The Epoch Times

Emergent, Urgent Threat

When asked about why Operation Epic Fury was launched, why President Donald Trump has not requested congressional authorization to continue the operation, whether it was justified, and what could come next, Cooper said he would defer to the administration for answers.

On May 13, the Senate for the seventh time rejected a proposed War Powers Resolution to limit the president’s authority in unilaterally waging a war against Iran, in a 50-49 vote in which three Republicans—Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine)—joined all Democrats in backing the measure introduced by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

The administration maintains that the 60-day War Powers Resolution deadline does not apply because the indefinite ceasefire declared April 8 by Trump and Tehran ended Operation Epic Fury, and that the blockade is a separate action.

Democrats repeated claims that Trump has launched a “war of choice” with “no military solution,” fostering a conflict he curried by repealing a 2015 agreement negotiated by the Obama administration—supported by China, Russia, and the nation’s NATO allies—that they said would have ensured international verification that Iran did not enrich weapons-grade uranium.

The United States withdrew from the agreement in 2018 during Trump’s first term.

At the time, the president called it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” Washington said that the deal failed to address Iran’s ballistic missile program, did not adequately protect U.S. security interests, and lacked robust verification measures.

In response to Democrats’ questions, Cooper said none of that is in his job description, but from what Central Command was observing, there was little choice but to stop Iran’s decades-long attacks on U.S. forces and assets, and derail its rapidly advancing nuclear weapons program.

“In just the last 30 months, prior to the commencement of Epic Fury, Iranian-supported terror groups had attacked U.S. troops and diplomats more than 350 times … killing four U.S. service members and wounding nearly 200,” he said.

In the wake of joint Israeli–U.S. strikes against Iranian nuclear weapons development sites in June 2025—just weeks after he was confirmed as commander of Central Command—Cooper said Iran was scaling up ballistic missile forces designed to defend those assets.

“Starting in about November and December, you started to see an increase in Iran’s capability and intent to produce more ballistics,” he said. “Since our No. 1 priority is to prevent a nuclear-capable Iran, I am always, every day, focused on that problem,” and urgent action was needed to degrade “a very significant risk, both to the partners and ourselves,” he said.

Cooper would not divulge intelligence regarding where Iran’s enriched uranium may be, or if the United States is considering dispatching ground troops to seize it if Tehran doesn’t cede to Trump’s demands to relinquish it.

Regardless of how negotiations unfold, he said Central Command can sustain pressure on Iran to ensure the administration can force concessions.

“Our military mission in Operation Epic Fury was crystal clear from the very outset and remains steady throughout the mission. It was to degrade Iran’s ability to project power on its neighbors and U.S. interests,” Cooper said, noting Iran no longer has a navy.

“My military assessment would be the navy will not begin to rebuild for five to 10 years,” Cooper said. “Many of you serve in states that build ships. It’s complex. It’s particularly complex when you don’t have an industrial base to build it. My professional perspective is that Iran would not return to the same level of navy that it had for a generation.”

Nor can Iran project military power beyond its borders or support aligned terrorists in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, or elsewhere, he said.

“As we sit here today, there are no resources and equipment flowing from Iran to Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis,” Cooper said. “We have met all of the achievements.”