What Trump has said on Iran war timeline as conflict nears week 6
With the war with Iran currently in its fifth week, President Donald Trump continues to argue that the U.S. is ahead of schedule, despite initially anticipating the conflict to only last four weeks "or less."
On Wednesday evening, during his first primetime presidential address to the nation since the beginning of the war, Trump said his objectives will be completed “very shortly,” while also saying U.S. strikes will continue over the “next two to three weeks.”
“I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America's military objectives shortly, very shortly. We are going to hit [Iran] extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing,” he said.
In the Oval Office the day prior, Trump speculated that it could be “two or three weeks" until the end of the war.
If the war were to end in three weeks, this would bring the total conflict to over seven weeks -- almost two months -- which is longer than any timeline projected by the administration.
Yet the president and his administration continue to insist that the U.S. is ahead of schedule, something they have been arguing since the start of the war, which began over one month ago.
On Tuesday, Trump said in an interview with CBS News that the U.S. is “two weeks ahead of schedule.”
ABC News has previously reported on the inconsistencies in the administration’s proposed “schedule.”
At the onset of the war on Feb. 28, the president wrote on his social media platform that the U.S. would continue bombing Iran “throughout the week or, as long as necessary.” That same day, he told ABC News' chief Washington correspondent Jon Karl that the conflict would last “as long as we want it to, actually.”
In subsequent days, Trump was quoted as floating various timelines, including "Always been about a four-week process," "four weeks -- or less," "four to five weeks," "whatever it takes," "no time limits" and "short-term excursion."
On March 1, the day after the war began, Trump said in an interview with the Daily Mail, “It's always been a four-week process. We figured it will be four weeks or so. It's always been about a four-week process so - as strong as it is, it's a big country, it'll take four weeks - or less."
The next day, the president kept his timeline more open-ended, saying during a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House that he “projected four to five weeks,” but that the U.S. has the "capability to go far longer than that" and that he was willing to continue for “whatever it takes.”
On March 5, in an interview with TIME Magazine, Trump said, “I have no time limits on anything... I want to get it done.”
Days later, on March 8, speaking with ABC News’ chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce, Trump would not predict the war’s length but insisted that “we are ahead of schedule both in terms of lethality and in terms of time.”
But Trump has also said he expected the war to take approximately four to six weeks.
“We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission, and we're way ahead of schedule,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting last week.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has insisted that the administration has “always” anticipated a four- to six-week time frame. She continues to hammer home this timeline during her weekly briefings, while also arguing that the U.S. is ahead of schedule.
“With respect to the timeline, again, the president, commander in chief, the Pentagon has always stated, four to six weeks estimated timeline for Operation Epic Fury. We're on day 30 today. So again, you do the math on how much longer we, the Pentagon, needs to fully achieve the objectives of Operation Epic Fury,” Leavitt said on Monday.
Earlier this month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Leavitt said ultimately, Trump will decide when the war is over.
ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart, Isabella Murray, and Nicholas Kerr contributed reporting.
