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Hegseth Says Today Will Be Most Intense Day of U.S. Strikes in Iran; U.S. Intel Ramps Up Warnings of Possible Iranian Retaliatory Attacks; War in Iran Threatens Iraq Men's Team Qualifier Match in Mexico; Iraq Asks FIFA to Delay Playoff Game Amid Travel Issues. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 10, 2026 - 13:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[13:33:31]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT: And welcome back to our Breaking News coverage of the war with Iran. I'm Erin Burnett in Tel Aviv this afternoon.

And right now, Tehran is reeling, following another night of U.S. and Israeli strikes in and around the capital. And as we've been emphasizing, the majority of those have been American strikes. And the defense secretary just moments ago said that this has been the single most intense, intense day of strikes of the war.

Our team on the ground can affirm that. Of course, they had to seek shelter with an attack earlier today. Hegseth also stating in his press conference that the war will not end until what he calls the enemy is totally decisively defeated.

Just yesterday, President Trump though, suggested that the war was complete. And obviously, there's a lot of questions on the situation. There are still missiles going back and forth. Most intense day there. Missiles coming here. Missiles drones throughout the Middle East.

Trade of Hormuz closed. So the war is very much still on. And we're standing by for a White House press briefing scheduled to begin in the next half hour or so. So that will obviously be important information for any details we can glean.

Javed Ali joins me now. He's a former Senior Director for Trump's National Security Council for Counterterrorism under President Trump, now an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan.

So I appreciate your time very much, Javed. It's good to talk to you again. Just a couple of things that just happened.

First of all, Senator Richard Blumenthal just came out of an Iran briefing, and he was talking to reporters. And he said, we seem to be on a path towards American troops -- to deploying American troops in Iran.

[13:35:00] Javed, do you think -- and this is obviously just his sentiment coming out of a briefing -- but we keep hearing this, and then we hear it perhaps dismissed, but then we keep hearing it. What do you think is happening here, knowing so many of the players in the White House and the national security team?

JAVED ALI, FORMER SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM AT NSC UNDER TRUMP: So, Erin, thanks for having me on again as well. And with the comment from Senator Blumenthal, I mean it's an interesting comment. But even if that was a policy option or consideration, in order to get a significant amount of U.S. ground troops mobilized and then headed to Iran, and trained and equipped to conduct a certain set of missions, that would take a significant amount of time.

We're talking weeks, if not longer, to sort of build up a force that one conceivably would -- the U.S. would need to execute a number of missions on the ground, in addition to the air campaign going on. And so, I don't think we're there yet in terms of that mobilization, but a lot of hard work, even if the policy decision is going to be made or will be made, that the military has to be given very clear tasks on what those ground troops are supposed to do. And that, to me, isn't clear right now.

BURNETT: Right. And that was certainly not clear to anyone, what the actual endgame is. The U.S. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, among some of the comments he made was also this, Javed. He said that Iran's leaders are "desperate and scrambling." I'm curious as to how you see it.

I will say, in the first few days, even with those there that I am used to dealing with, they were on their back feet. I think there's no other way to describe it. But that has changed. And it is operating now. And that's what our Fred Pleitgen is experiencing himself on the street in Tehran. So, how do you see it? Do you think that there is a reality in the White House about the leadership in Iran or perhaps wishful thinking?

ALI: Well, it's hard to know what sort of the discussions are going on inside the White House. But from the -- on the ground inside Tehran, what appears to be happening, we have now the selection of the next supreme leader. And we all know much about Khamenei, so Ali Khamenei's son. That was a different choice.

The IRGC is also still intact, despite losing dozens of senior commanders. There is a new head of the IRGC, Ahmad Vahidi, who by all accounts has a very brutal sort of reputation. So one can only imagine that he is going to be looking to stay in this fight for as long as possible. Ali Larijani, who's the head of Iran's National Security Council. We've heard the comments from him the past couple of days. So he's trying to be defiant.

The person I have continued to look for signs of what this person is doing is a man named Esmail Qaani, who is the head of the IRGC Quds Force. And that is Iran's unconventional warfare wing. And that would be the organization that would be tasked with conducting terrorist attacks, either in the region or somewhere else around the world. So, all these players are still apparently on the scene. Now, they're under tremendous pressure, but the regime is still intact and the IRGC is still fighting.

BURNETT: And you know, the last individual that you mentioned, there's been a lot of discussion about him, as of course you're aware as well. What's your sense as to his status and importance right now? Because obviously, the Quds Force is so central.

ALI: Yeah, the Quds Force is the sort of ace in the hole for Iran when it comes to unconventional warfare. Now, we haven't seen signs yet that these external plots have been launched or even disrupted. There haven't been news of arrests of Iranian operatives overseas.

But it wouldn't surprise me, at least right now, that Qaani has at least started to put some of these plans in motion, if not for attacks right now, but at least potentially for some time in the future. And having studied Iranian terrorism in my government career, one thing that always sort of stood out to me is that they can be very patient and wait a considerable length of time, even after a moment of crisis or conflict ends.

So, whatever revenge or retaliation the Quds Force might be considering from an attack perspective, it may not happen for quite some period of time, even if the conflict were to end in the next few days or several weeks.

BURNETT: And Javed, one final question. You know, the fact that President Trump had said they tried to assassinate him, and now there's threats from Larijani even talking about, you know, basically, watch your back now that you've killed our leader. How seriously do you take those words?

ALI: Well, what we've seen from the Iranians and through the Quds Force over the past 15-plus years is that they have tried to -- or they have at least thought about conducting attacks here inside the United States, going back all the way to 2011.

[13:40:00]

And I was in my government career than, and since then, even after I left, we've heard a number of plots being disrupted. They have thought about attacking President Trump, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, other government officials who were in the first Trump administration and responsible from the Iranians' perspective of directing the strike against the former Quds Chief Commander, Qasem Soleimani. So again, they have a long memory when it comes to these attacks against them.

And we have seen them try to pull off these kind of plots here inside the United States. Now, thankfully, they've all been disrupted. It's very difficult for them to operate here, but it hasn't stopped them from thinking about that.

BURNETT: Yeah. All right. Thank you very much, Javed. I appreciate your time. It's good to talk to you again. And everyone, please stay with us as we're standing by. I mentioned that press conference and press briefing at the White House. We're anticipating any moment, we're going to be bringing that to you live as our coverage of the war continues.

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[13:45:48]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": There are still to date, no sightings or messages from Iran's new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, since he was announced as his father's successor.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": There is a message that the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is imparting to him.

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PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The new leader of Iran, he would be wise to heed the words of our president, which is to not pursue nuclear weapons and come out and state as such.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: President Trump has said he doesn't believe Khamenei can live in peace. It's not clear exactly what he meant by that, but he has consistently expressed disappointment in Iran's pick and insisted the U.S. be involved in the decision for whoever controls Iran.

Kirsten Fontenrose is a national security strategist. She's a former senior director for the Gulf on the NSC from 2018 on. Kirsten, it's great to get your perspective on this. And I wonder, when you hear Pete Hegseth say that, how do you think Iran is going to receive that message?

KIRSTEN FONTENROSE, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR THE GULF: It's a message that's meant for, I think, several audiences. Inside Iran, at least to both Mojtaba himself, it's kind of an offer to him for a path to leadership and a path to potentially be a hero in international eyes. If he did say, I'm new to this, I don't have a public stance on the nuclear file yet, I can say we are going to denounce pursuit of a weapon and the world will celebrate me.

And he doesn't have to live in a bunker the rest of his life, you know, danger of being knocked off by us and the Israelis. It's also a message, I think, to the regime as a whole, giving them a potential off-ramp to this. They can say we're in a new era. We're going to take a different direction. We're going to listen to the grievances of our people.

And then he's talking to domestic people here. He's talking to the international community, saying we're giving diplomacy a chance here before we go in with the other threat, which was the largest, most intensive day of strikes ever.

So he's messaging to several people. What I think could possibly happen, there are about three scenarios for how this could be received in Iran. And the first one is they could choose to renounce their nuclear program. They could do that through a back channel to us, through Oman, perhaps, or through state media, and say that this is because they have decided to take a different tack and they want to rejoin the international community, and they want to be part of the global economy and the lives of their people mean something to them, and they're turning a new leaf. This is unlikely.

One, because it's just not the trajectory of their policy. And two, because Mojtaba was selected by this 88-member council as a big, fat middle finger to the U.S. He is the hardliner selection. So that's less likely to happen, but not impossible, again, since he doesn't have a public record on it. They could also choose to say nothing and the IRGC could just continue striking their neighbors and Israel, in which case our administration says, hey, international community, we gave them a chance at diplomacy. We gave them a chance at an off-ramp. They chose not to take it. Now we're going in even harder.

Or they could say, we want to denounce the program. We want to get this off-ramp. We don't want to live in a bunker, but we need to save face. Now, Hegseth's message didn't sound like it gave them that option by saying you need to publicly state. But if you are President Trump and you can get both a deal and look like you've stopped a war at the same time, then that might be attractive.

SANCHEZ: I wonder, generally, given that you're indicating that this is messaging on several levels to the regime specifically, what other recourse does the U.S. have to secure that enriched uranium? Is there support, IAEA or other international players, that would lend a hand in perhaps doing that?

FONTENROSE: They would lend a hand, both the IAEA and several other international bodies. The problem is there are about 400 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium that we're not sure of the location of. We don't know exactly where they are. So that's why bombs can't solve that problem.

And if you have a nuclear program, it's part capability and it's part intent. And asking Mojtaba to denounce that is getting at that part of the problem that bombs can't solve. So it really is. It's not an empty offer. We really would like to see Mojtaba say, I'm going to take a different approach. It's just not likely.

[13:50:00]

KEILAR: One objective that the Trump administration has been discussing is recovering and securing Iran's remaining highly enriched uranium. But that's something that would take troops on the ground.

I mean, maybe special forces, maybe special operations forces. It's hard to know exactly what they're planning here. But what do you think about that plan? What might that look like? That would not -- putting troops on the ground to secure that would not happen before the conflict had ended.

You would not send in troops to secure that material during active conflict. If you were sending in troops during that, it would be for specific targets. They're either going after regime targets that we can't get at without the risk of large collateral damage or particular facilities you need to take offline. And again, bombing them or airstriking them would risk too many lives. That's when you would send in special forces.

If you're doing it to secure enrichment facilities, you do that after the conflict has ended and you're trying to prevent them from falling into the hands of bad actors or from regime remnants coming and taking hold of them or from them being sold on a black market that does exist. It's not like in the movies, but it does exist.

So they would need to put them in to secure the facility. Then you'd bring in experts who knew how to handle that material. That's not the active duty military or special operations job.

KEILAR: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: Aren't some of those risks though, for example, about the sale of this enriched uranium, the making of a dirty bomb by some of Iran's proxies. Couldn't that all happen before the conflict ends if the government is degraded? I mean, isn't it sort of a chicken or the egg thing? You don't really know which might come first.

FONTENROSE: It absolutely can happen, which is why we rely on things like intelligence. We rely on imagery. We rely on people on the ground who are not our troops in uniform to tell us what is going on, what is being built at those tunnels, who is visiting.

We have pretty good granularity on some of what we can see from the sky. And we also have, not just us, but other partners have insiders who fill us in on some of what is happening. We don't want to risk a dirty bomb. So we keep an eye on the proxies themselves as well. So far they've been fairly quiet.

Now, it wouldn't have to be a proxy. It wouldn't have to be Hezbollah or the Houthis necessarily. It could be any party from almost any country looking to gain politically what they can't gain territorially or what they can't gain through small arms on the ground in whatever their country is. You could also have rogue regimes in other countries.

It doesn't have to be a proxy or a terrorist group that says, I would like to suddenly increase my status on the international stage through possessing the ability to create a nuclear bomb, in which case, they could be a purchaser. So there are quite a few potential avenues. And you're right. That is possible. It's even more likely during active conflict in the fog of war. But that's why we keep a pretty close watch on facilities.

And you're trying to eliminate in your target list the people who would have the ability to make that sale.

KEILAR: Yeah, this chaos creates opportunity. Kirsten, great to get your perspective. Thank you so much.

FONTENROSE: Anytime.

KEILAR: And we'll be right back with more.

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[13:57:45]

SANCHEZ: So, Iraq's World Cup dreams are in jeopardy now because of the war in Iran. The men's national team is supposed to travel to Mexico for a playoff on March 31st, a game that would send them to their first World Cup in 40 years if they win. They may not even get there to compete, though, since most players and staff are stuck in Iraq because the airspace is closed.

Let's bring in CNN Sports Anchor, Don Riddell. And Don, the team's coach says that he's losing sleep trying to figure out an exit plan.

DON RIDDELL, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it's so, so complicated for him and the team, Boris. And I guess, this reminds us of the old adage that the last mile is often the hardest. This is going to be Iraq's biggest game in some 40 years, and right now they just have no idea how they're going to get there.

Because of the situation in the Middle East, the coach is stuck in Dubai, his medical team is stuck in Qatar, 60 percent of his team is stuck in Iraq, and they have been told that the airspace above that country is going to remain closed until April 1st at the earliest, which would be the day after they're supposed to have played this game in Mexico.

Here's what is supposed to happen. There's a playoff game five days before that between Bolivia and Suriname. Iraq will play the winner, and the winner of that game gets to play in the World Cup tournament, which is being played in the United States, Mexico and Canada in June and July.

The Iraq coach, Graham Arnold, has told me he thinks the only real fair solution that FIFA could come up is to basically delay this game between Iraq and either Bolivia or Suriname until literally the week before the tournament starts this summer.

And on that occasion, the winner stays and plays in the tournament, the loser goes home. FIFA haven't made a decision on this, although we are expecting it to happen by the end of this week. But in the meanwhile, he's preparing for a game that he doesn't know how any of them are going to get to it.

Meanwhile, you have the situation involving a team that has already qualified, Iran. Obviously, they are under bombardment at the moment by the U.S. and Israeli military. They have indicated that they don't think they will play in this tournament at all, although we will see.

Meanwhile, they are firing missiles off at other teams who have already qualified, like Qatar and Saudi. If Iran drop out, then Iraq could get in that way because Iraq are the next best Asian team yet to secure their qualification. So there are a number of avenues open to the Iran --