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Donald Trump keeps threatening to commit war crimes, as he rapidly unravels over the Iran war.
The US President is under mounting pressure over the deepening quagmire - and it's starting to show.
He had a minor Oval Office meltdown yesterday, after he was asked what the plan was, given Iran clearly aren't as eager to make a deal as he claims they are.
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Today the deep failings of his Middle East adventure were brought into focus in the most acute way, as he travelled to Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer of three troops killed by Iran in Jordan and Iraq over the weekend.
And with the midterm elections just months away, Trump's "secretary of War" Pete Hegseth has been forced to acknowledge the eye-watering cost of the war in a Senate committee, for the whole world to see.
Trump is probably committing war crimes already, but will never be prosecuted
Trump turned to Truth Social this morning, threatening to have the US armed forces commit war crimes in Iran on his behalf.
International humanitarian law prohibits the targeting of civilian infrastructure - like bridges, water treatment plants and power stations - unless they can be shown to be in use by the military. And retaliation isn't an excuse.
Nevertheless, Trump posted: "From this point forward, any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other device or weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran."
Even threats to destroy infrastructure essential to the civilian population could be considered a war crime.
The thing is, there really isn't a mechanism to prosecute anyone in the Administration for war crimes. The US is not a full signatory to the International Criminal Court. A UN Security Council slap down would be vetoed. And since a 2024 Supreme Court decision, the President has absolute immunity from prosecution within the United States for actions relating to core Presidential powers.
Hegseth revealed the eye watering cost of the war - and asked for more
Pete Hegseth, Trump's "Secretary of War" got an extremely rough ride at a Senate committee yesterday. Like Oliver Twist with a perm-tan, he rocked up at the hearing to make the case for his part of a $95 billion Republican budget package to fund the military, along with aid to farmers and voting law changes that are top White House priorities.
And he admitted the war in Iran had already cost a frankly incomprehensible $37.5 billion.
He said troop training and pay would be in doubt if the military doesn't get more cash. Some $46 billion is required for munitions and expanding production lines, while $21 billion would be for military pay, fuel and replacing equipment.
"Without these funds, we face critical shortfalls that threaten our ability to also simply pay our service members," Hegseth said.
Democrats on the committee pointed out there were still tens of billions of dollars in Pentagon coffers that he asked for last year that have yet to be spent.
He got a pretty rough ride from Senators
John Ossoff, the Junior Democrat from Georgia, was particularly foreinsic in his questioning of Hegseth, much to the Defence Secretary's apparent frustration.
He repeatedly asked Hegseth about his previous statements, in the early weeks of the war, in which he claimed Iran's military had been completely destroyed and rendered "combat ineffective".
Hegseth's answers were evasive, mainly because it's hard to answer a question like that without explaining why, if Iran has no military capabilities left, they keep managing to kill American service personnel.
Then Senator Gary Peters from Michigan landed the rhetorical blow: "The strait of Hormuz is still closed...it was open before the war. Prices were lower for everybody until the war, and it still remains closed - and tragically our warfighters who everybody cares about are still dying."
Hegseth lashed out at Peters, telling him his characterisation of the war as a failure was "reckless" and "irresponsible", and "smears the sacrifice" of troops involved in the conflict.
Peters pointed out his assessment of the failure was not on the part of the troops, but of their leaders.
"You, sir, are the failure," he said.
Trump keeps shrugging off the human cost
Trump this morning visited Dover Air Force Base, where a plane arrived carrying the coffins of the three US service personnel killed in his war this weekend.
Of course, while Trump makes a show of honouring the sacrifice of the people he keeps putting in harm's way, he spent a lot of the last 24 hours blaming other people for their deaths.
In his Oval Office Q&A yesterday, he obliquely suggested it was the fault of "other operators" being responsible for protecting the personnel.
"They did slip something through in Jordan," he said. "If we had other operators, you know, it would have not happened, unfortunately."
He went on: "We've stopped almost everything, but when you let other people do your job with the United States - we let other people do the job - and sometimes it doesn't work out so well."
Trump did not elaborate on his comments, and it was not immediately clear who Trump was saying was responsible for protecting US forces in Jordan.
And later on Truth Social, he rolled out a frequent deflection - listing a string of other conflicts America had been involved in for years and the number of casualties in each one. Which is just the kind of whataboutery a grieving family wants to hear from the Commander in Chief.
