WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump defended the war against Iran Wednesday at a US Veterans Day commemoration that saw his defense secretary publicly admonished for a lack of decorum.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bravery and skill of our amazing American warriors has absolutely been incredible,\u201d Trump said in an address at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen this conflict is over, and it will be soon, the entire world will be a much safer and better place, more peaceful place, and a place without the kind of danger that we had to suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The war, which began on February 28 with US and Israeli strikes against Iran, has so far cost the lives of 23 US service members and wounded several hundred more, according to the latest Pentagon figures.<\/p>\n
Trump said in his remarks that the conflict was started not by Washington but by Tehran, which \u201chas been waging war on America since 1979.\u201d He stressed that US forces were acting in order to halt Iran\u2019s capacity to build a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
Trump, 80, attended a wreath-laying ceremony at the cemetery\u2019s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a sacred symbol for America\u2019s lost service members.<\/p>\n
During his speech before troops, veterans and top officials in his administration, Trump namechecked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was in attendance, saying he had \u201cdone a fantastic job.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Tuesday blocked an effort \u2014 launched by an outgoing Republican lawmaker \u2014 to impeach Hegseth for allegedly waging war without congressional authorization and abusing his powers as Pentagon chief.<\/p>\n
Hegseth stirred even more controversy at the ceremony: an army sentinel watching over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier reprimanded a small group of people that included Hegseth, his wife and several aides, when some of them laughed after posing for a picture in front of the sacred site.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll visitors will maintain an atmosphere of silence and respect at all times,\u201d the sentinel called out, halting his patrol to face the group as they walked up some stairs to leave. Hegseth turned around to look at the guard.<\/p>\n
During his remarks, Trump brought up the issue of the 250-foot-tall (76-meter-tall) triumphal arch he hopes to build just outside the cemetery, saying it would be dedicated \u201csoon.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the family of John F. Kennedy asked a court to prevent its construction, arguing the massive structure would block views and cast shadows over the gravesites of the slain president and other Kennedy relatives buried at Arlington National Cemetery.<\/p>\n
The project also faces lawsuits from a group of veterans, the city of Washington and the state of Virginia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON, United States: President Donald Trump defended the war against Iran Wednesday at a US Veterans Day commemoration that saw his defense secretary publicly admonished for a lack of decorum. \u201cThe bravery and skill of our amazing American warriors has absolutely been incredible,\u201d Trump said in an address at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":105816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105804"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105826,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105804\/revisions\/105826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}