Rubio: Epic Fury Aimed at Destroying Iran’s Missile Threat

Daily News Article   —   Posted on March 3, 2026

March 2, 2026 – Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill about the purpose of U.S. military operations Epic Fury  against Iran.

[READ ALONG WITH THE TRANSCRIPT BELOW WHILE WATCHING THE VIDEO]

Secretary Rubio:  “The United States conducted this operation with a fair clear goal in mind. I haven’t got a chance to see a lot of reporting. I don’t understand what the confusion is. Let me explain it to you and I’ll do it once again as clearly as possible. Perhaps you’ll report it that way.

The United States is conducting an operation to eliminate the threat of Iran’s short-range ballistic missiles and the threat posed by their navy, particularly to naval assets. That is what it is focused on doing right now and it’s doing quite successfully. I’ll leave it to the Pentagon and the Department of War to discuss the tactics behind that and the progress that’s being made. That is the clear objective of this mission.

The second question that’s been asked is WHY NOW?

Well, there’s two reasons why now. The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic, and in fact it proved to be true because in fact within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound [on Saturday] the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter had already been activated to launch.

In fact those had already been pre-positioned.

The third [second] is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the president made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn’t preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed. And then we would all be here answering questions about why we knew that and didn’t act.

Going back to the purpose, the purpose of this is to destroy that missile capability. Why does Iran want that ballistic missile capability? What they are trying to do and have been trying to do for a very long time is build a conventional weapons capability as a shield where they can hide behind it. Meaning there would come a point where they have so many conventional missiles, so many drones and can inflict so much damage that no one can do anything about their nuclear program.

That is what they were trying to do is put themselves in a place of immunity where the damage they could inflict on the region would be so high that no one can do anything about their nuclear program or their nuclear ambitions.

They are producing by some estimates over 100 of these missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month. They can build a hundred of these a month. Not to mention the thousands of one-way attack drones that they also have.

They’ve been doing this for a very long time. And by the way, they’ve been doing it under sanction.

You see the attacks they’re [the Iranian regime] conducting right now:

• They’re attacking airports.
• They’re attacking hotels.
• They are hitting not just military bases. They’re attacking our embassies directly.
• They’re attacking facilities that have nothing to do with war or with military.

And that’s a weakened Iran. That’s an Iran despite years of sanction.

Imagine a year from now or a year and a half from now the capabilities they would have to inflict damage on us. It’s an unacceptable risk, especially in the hands of a regime that’s run by radical clerics.

The Ayatollah is a radical – was a radical cleric. That entire regime is led by radical clerics who don’t make geopolitical decisions. They make decisions on the basis of theology, their view of theology which is an apocalyptic one that has to be taken very seriously as well.

So that was the purpose for what this operation is all about. That’s what it’s focused on. As the president said earlier today, it is on or ahead of schedule. I will defer to the department of war to discuss uh the progress being made at a tactical level. But it was the right decision and an important decision for the safety and security of the world.”

Secretary Rubio then answered questions from reporters…

Also on March 2, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine held a press conference to provide an update on “Operation Epic Fury.” (Watch the video at cspan.org)

Gen. Cain announced that U.S. forces have achieved local air superiority over Iran (in just 48 hours) by taking out all of Iran’s Russian and Chinese air defenses.

According to Gen. Caine, this is significant because it gives U.S. forces freedom of action while severely limiting the Iranian military’s ability to respond.

From Google AI Overview: Achieving localized air superiority in Iran allows the U.S. and its allies to operate freely, protecting forces while conducting sustained, precision strikes on key targets and dismantling air defense systems. Air superiority does the following:

• Protects U.S. forces operating within the region from threat.
• Allows aircraft to fly, surveil, and strike across Iranian airspace, using shorter-range, more precise, and less costly weapons instead of relying only on long-range, stand-off munitions.
• Enables the systematic destruction of key Iranian military, infrastructure, and internal, security targets.
• Facilitates air-to-air refueling.
• Facilitates better protection of shipping routes in the Persian Gulf by neutralizing regional threats.

Military forces have also taken out all of Iranian naval ships.  U.S. Central Command posted Monday on x:

“Two days ago, the Iranian regime had 11 ships in the Gulf of Oman, today they have ZERO. The Iranian regime has harassed and attacked international shipping in the Gulf of Oman for decades. Those days are over. Freedom of maritime navigation has underpinned American and global economic prosperity for more than 80 years. U.S. forces will continue to defend it.”

Speaking to Jake Tapper at CNN on Monday, President Trump said, “We’re knocking the [heck] out of them. I think it’s going very well. It’s very powerful.”

“We haven’t even started hitting them hard. The big wave hasn’t even happened. The big one is coming soon,” the president added.