By Trevor Hunnicutt and Humeyra Pamuk
WASHINGTON, March 2 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he ordered the attack on Iran to thwart its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, vowing to pursue the war for as long as necessary.
He said, without providing evidence, the threat from Iran had been imminent when he made the decision to order the strikes. The attacks have killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sunk Iranian warships and hit more than 1,000 targets so far.
"This was our last best chance to strike ... and eliminate the intolerable threats posed by this sick and sinister regime," he said at an event in the White House East Room.
Trump was back at the White House after a weekend in Florida and the comments were his most extensive yet about the war, going beyond two video messages and a series of brief phone interviews with reporters that offered sometimes conflicting objectives.
Trump, who had long advocated ending U.S. involvement in overseas wars, said the U.S. military campaign in Iran was going ahead of schedule, without providing details. He said the U.S. campaign had been projected to last four to five weeks but that it could go longer.
“We have the strongest and most powerful, by far, military in the world, and we will easily prevail. We're already substantially ahead of our time projections. But whatever the time is, it’s okay. Whatever it takes," he said.
"Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks, but we have capability to go far longer than that," he said.
A central premise of the fight was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran has denied doing, and thwart its long-range ballistic missile program, Trump said.
"An Iranian regime armed with long-range missiles and nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat to the Middle East, but also to the American people," Trump said.
Trump's claim that Iran will soon have ballistic missiles that can hit the United States is not backed by U.S. intelligence reports, and appears to be exaggerated, Reuters reported last week, citing three sources familiar with the reports.
Trump said U.S. forces had knocked out 10 Iranian ships - "they're at the bottom of the sea" - and expressed confidence about how the campaign was going.
"Today, the United States military continues to carry out large-scale, combat operations in Iran to eliminate the grave threats posed to America by this terrible, terrorist regime," Trump said.
He said the objectives of the war included annihilating Iran's navy and the long-standing U.S. goal of preventing Iran from supporting militant groups elsewhere in the region.
Trump noted the loss of four American service personnel in the fight so far, adding: "In their memory, we continue this mission with ferocious, unyielding resolve to crush the threat this terrorist regime poses to the American people."
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Humeyra Pamuk; additional reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Steve Holland; editing by David Ljunggren, Colleen Jenkins and Nia Williams)
