Hegseth has repeatedly said the US is upping the frequency of its Iran strikes. The data tells a different story

 https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/20/politics/us-strikes-iran-frequency-data

While Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly stated that the number and intensity of the strikes the US is carrying out against Iran is only increasing, data provided by the US military shows a pace of operations that has ebbed and flowed over the last three weeks.

As Hegseth has gone to the podium alongside Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine in a series of press conferences, he has repeatedly asserted that the coming day would bring the most US strikes on Iran yet.

Starting on March 4, his second briefing on the war which began on February 28, Hegseth said “more and larger waves” of strikes were coming, and that the Defense Department was “accelerating, not decelerating.”

But data released publicly by US Central Command has not shown that the number of strikes has increased daily the way Hegseth has indicated, which could partly be due to the need to adjust the frequency of flights as aircraft and ships receive maintenance while operations continue, or because the military started with a set target list and is now working to identify and confirm new targets.