Sailors and Marines from the San Diego-based aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln continued to conduct air strikes against Iran Monday, video published by the Pentagon shows.
The Lincoln is one of two U.S. aircraft carriers conducting operations in support of what the Defense department is calling "Operation Epic Fury."
The other is the Norfolk, Va.-based USS Gerald Ford.
The strikes by American and Israeli forces began over the weekend. As of Monday afternoon, at least six American service members have been killed — all were in a makeshift operations center in Kuwait that was struck in an Iranian air strike, CNN reported.
The strike is thought to have been conducted with a drone, the report said.
Rep. Scott Peters, D- San Diego, told KPBS Monday he's not happy with the way the strikes came about because President Donald Trump didn't seek authorization from Congress.
"It's (a) constitutional requirement that Congress declare war (and) the president has referred to this as a war," Peters said Monday at a community event in San Diego.
"We still haven't been briefed," he said.
Peters' district includes Naval Air Station North Island, the Lincoln's home port.
"In San Diego, we feel this more directly than a lot of places," Peters said. "We know what it's like to lose people and what it's like for their ... families."
At a Pentagon news conference Monday Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said casualties are part of major combat operations.
"As the president warned, an effort of this scope will include casualties," he said. "War is hell and always will be."
Air Force General Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, stood next to Hegseth during the news conference. He said the operations may continue for some period of time.
"The military objectives at (Central Command) and the Joint Force have been tasked with will take some time to achieve and in some cases will be difficult and gritty work," Caine said. "We expect to take additional losses. And as always we will work to minimize U.S. losses, but as the secretary said, this is major combat operations."
Hegseth also pushed back on comparisons to the start of the war in Iraq in 2003.
"To the media outlets and political left screaming 'endless wars,' — stop," he said. "This is not Iraq. This is not endless ... this generation knows better and so does this president. He called the last 20 years of nation-building 'dumb' and he's right. This is the opposite."
Hegseth scolded a reporter who asked whether the U.S. had "boots on the ground" in Iran. Hegseth said there isn't right now, but left the possibility open, adding that the American public shouldn't expect the Pentagon to be transparent about such operations.
"We're not going to go into the exercise of what we will or will not do," Hegseth said. "We'll go as far as we need to go to advance American interests, but we're not dumb about it ... Going forward, why in the world would we tell you — the enemy, anybody — what we will or will not do in pursuit of an objective? We fight to win."
Peters said he'll return to Washington, D.C. Tuesday where he expects to be briefed and to vote on a Congressional war powers resolution.
