US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington. AFP
The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush deployed Tuesday and is slated to go to the Middle East along with three destroyers, two U.S. officials said. The carrier strike group consists of more than 6,000 sailors.
It comes as thousands of soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division also have begun arriving in the Middle East, according to two other U.S. officials.
While the majority of those troops are part of a rotation of forces planned before the war, some are among roughly 1,500 paratroopers the Trump administration decided to surge into the region last week.
The Trump administration has not said what those troops will be doing, but the 82nd Airborne is trained to parachute into hostile or contested territory to secure key territory and airfields.
A U.S. Navy ship carrying about 2,500 Marines recently arrived in the Middle East, and another 2,500 Marines also are being deployed from California.
Last week, Iran's parliament speaker accused the United States on Sunday of plotting a ground attack despite publicly pushing for a deal.
"Our men are waiting for the arrival of the American soldiers on the ground to set them on fire and punish their regional allies once and for all," he added.
The extra forces, on top of tens of thousands of soldiers already in the region, come as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other administration officials have avoided questions about whether or not the U.S. military will deploy ground troops against Iran.
“You can’t fight and win a war if you tell your adversary what you are willing to do or what you are not willing to do to include boots on the ground,” Hegseth told reporters Tuesday.
He added, “Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground. And guess what? There are.”
But he also said the goal is to reach a deal with Iran through talks because “we don’t want to have to do more militarily than we have to.”
Additional resources are heading in as the war has strained the troops and assets already in the region.
The world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, had a fire in a laundry room on March 12, which forced it to return from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to undergo repairs at a naval base in Crete.
While Ford is now in Croatia for time off, Navy leaders said the aircraft carrier will likely set records for the length of its deployment. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier also arrived in the region in January.
The U.S. army buildup continues despite President Trump’s rhetoric regarding alleged negotiations with Iran aimed at ending the war the U.S. and Israel jointly launched on Iran a month ago.
Meanwhile, Tehran has repeatedly denied the existence of direct talks with Washington, asserting that it has only received proposals via intermediaries—offers which Iran rejected as excessive and unreasonable.
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