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international law
'We Were Locked and Loaded': Hegseth Says Trump War Crime Threats Were No Bluff
"Anyone who orders, carries out, or is otherwise complicit in, President Trump’s abhorrent threats must be held accountable," said a coalition of advocacy organizations.
Apr 08, 2026
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that President Donald Trump's genocidal threats against Iran were not a bluff, telling reporters in the wake of a two-week ceasefire deal that US forces were fully prepared to unleash an illegal and devastating assault on Iranian infrastructure.
"Had Iran refused our terms, the next targets would have been their power plants, their bridges, and oil and energy infrastructure—targets they could not defend and could not realistically rebuild," Hegseth told reporters during a characteristically belligerent press briefing. "We were locked and loaded... President Trump had the power to cripple Iran's entire economy in minutes."
Hegseth: If Iran refused our terms, the next targets would have been their power plants, their bridges and oil and energy infrastructure—we were locked and loaded. They couldn't defend against it. President Trump chose mercy because Iran accepted the ceasefire under overwhelming… pic.twitter.com/QMklWNM8PH
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 8, 2026
Hegseth—who, like Trump, is facing articles of impeachment in the US House—went on to say that American forces aren't "going anywhere" and are "prepared to restart" the bombing of Iran "at a moment's notice," echoing the president and underscoring the fragility of the newly announced ceasefire.
"The United States military has the ability to strike [Iran] with impunity," the Pentagon secretary declared, asserting that the president's threats forced Iran to the negotiating table—a narrative that Iranian leaders rejected in their statement on the ceasefire deal.
"The enemy, in its cowardly, illegal, and criminal war against the Iranian nation, has suffered an undeniable, historical, and crushing defeat," Iran's Supreme National Security Council said in a statement. "We congratulate all the people of Iran on this victory and emphasize that until the details of this victory are finalized, there remains a need for the steadfastness and prudence of officials and the maintenance of unity and solidarity among the Iranian people."
The Trump administration's past and continued threats to attack Iran's infrastructure—even if they aren't ultimately carried out—are violations of international law, Yale Law School professor Oona Hathaway said Wednesday, pointing to the Geneva Conventions.
"Threats of use of force also violate the United Nations Charter," said Hathaway, a former special counsel at the Pentagon. "Moreover, the threat to commit mass war crimes raises questions as to whether the US is fighting the war consistent with its legal obligations. It gives insight into intent that may be relevant to war crimes investigations."
In a statement issued shortly before the two-week ceasefire was announced, a broad coalition of more than 200 organizations and experts reminded "those engaged in military operations of their obligation to refuse any patently unlawful orders."
"Anyone who orders, carries out, or is otherwise complicit in, President Trump’s abhorrent threats must be held accountable," the groups said.
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Western Media Called Out for 'Misleading' Portrayal of Iranians Defending Infrastructure as 'Human Shields'
"The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all," said one expert.
Apr 07, 2026
After US President Donald Trump made his genocidal declaration on Tuesday that the "whole civilization" of Iran "will die tonight," reports began to roll in of people across the country standing outside the power plants, bridges, and other civilian infrastructure the president promised to bomb.
Photos shared to social media by the government-affiliated Mehr news agency showed scene after scene of Iranians forming human chains outside power plants in Tabriz and Kermanshah.
A video showed dozens of students assembled on the Dezful bridge in southwestern Iran, which is more than 1,700 years old and is believed to be one of the oldest functioning bridges in the world.
Over the weekend, Trump said that unless Iran opened the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane that it has used as a chokepoint against the Western economy, by Tuesday, he would bomb infrastructure relied upon by tens of millions of Iranians, which Amnesty International said could amount to a "war crime."
"We’re giving them till tomorrow, eight o’clock eastern time, and after that, they’re going to have no bridges. They’re going to have no power plants," Trump said on Monday, reiterating his plans to bomb Iran "back to the Stone Ages."
According to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, more than 14 million people in the country responded to the threat by volunteering to put their bodies on the line and defend the infrastructure at risk. He said they'd "declared their readiness to sacrifice their lives in defense of Iran.”
The government has encouraged Iranians, including children and young students, to take to the streets to form human chains around infrastructure that may come under threat, leading some Western media outlets to raise the fear that people were being used as "human shields."
Sina Toossi, a fellow at the Center for International Policy, however, said this "is a deeply misleading framing."
"Iranians are not being placed in front of targets," he said, referencing several videos of the demonstrations. "Many are voluntarily showing up to defend the infrastructure that keeps their society alive."
He noted the participation of Iranian celebrities in the human chains, including the composer and Tar player Ali Ghamsari, who stationed himself outside a power plant, and the pop singer Benyamin Bahadori, who filmed a video of himself walking along a bridge that had come under threat.
"This is about people trying to safeguard electricity, water, and basic civilization under open threat," Toossi said. "The real legal and moral question is why civilian infrastructure is being targeted at all."
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said on Tuesday that Trump's threats could prove "apocalyptic" to millions of Iranians, plunging the "entire country into darkness and depriv[ing] millions of their fundamental human rights to life, water, food, healthcare, and an adequate standard of living."
"Power plants, water systems, and energy infrastructure are indispensable to civilian life, underpinning access to clean water, medical care, hospital electricity, food supply chains, and basic livelihoods," she added. "Attacking them would be disproportionate and thus unlawful under international humanitarian law and could amount to a war crime.”
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Iran Says Trump Will Go Down as a 'Supreme War Criminal' If He Follows Through With Threat
"This is an express public incitement for war crimes and crimes against humanity—and, I would say, for genocide," said a spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry.
Apr 06, 2026
Iranian officials on Monday warned US President Donald Trump that his name will be "etched in history as a supreme war criminal" if he follows through with his threat to wage total war on Iran's civilian infrastructure, including bridges and power plants.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, wrote on social media following Trump's Easter-morning outburst that "threats to attack power plants and bridges (civilian infrastructure) constitute war crimes under Article 8(2)(b) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 1977 (Article 52)."
"The president of the United States, in his capacity as the highest-ranking official of his country, has openly threatened to commit war crimes—an act that entails his individual criminal responsibility before the International Criminal Court and any competent national court," Gharibabadi added, vowing that Iran "will deliver a decisive, immediate, and regret-inducing response" to any attack.
Esmail Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry, said Trump's threats are "an indication of a criminal mindset."
"This is an express public incitement for war crimes and crimes against humanity—and, I would say, for genocide," Baghaei said in an interview on Sunday. "Threatening to attack a country's critical infrastructure, energy sector, it would mean that you want to put at risk the whole population."
Absolute bombshell. Iran's Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei accuses the Trump administration of a criminal mindset and public incitement for genocide. Threatening a nation's critical infrastructure puts the entire population at risk. The White House has completely abandoned morality. pic.twitter.com/HcBZGZho5p
— Furkan Gözükara (@FurkanGozukara) April 5, 2026
The US and Israel have already done significant damage to Iran's civilian infrastructure. The country's deputy health minister said Monday that more than 360 healthcare, education, and research centers have been hit by US-Israeli strikes, and dozens of medics have been killed since the bombing began on February 28.
But Trump on Sunday threatened an indiscriminate assault, telling Fox News that if the Iranians "don't make a deal and fast," he is "considering blowing everything up and taking the oil."
"You're going to see bridges and power plants dropping all over their country," the president said, setting a new deadline of 8 pm ET for the complete reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump's remarks came after he published a deranged post on his Truth Social platform demanding that Iran "open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell."
Analysts and lawmakers in the US echoed Iranian officials' warnings that Trump's threatened attacks would constitute war crimes.
"Trump's advisers are telling him to hit civilian sites because it will cause unrest and potentially topple the regime. But just think about the insanity of this plan: kill tens of thousands of civilians in order to cause a national panic," US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote. "Bombing to induce political panic IS A WAR CRIME."
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said that "any lawmaker who votes for supplemental funding for the war on Iran or against war powers resolutions to end it will be fully complicit in the war crimes threatened here, as well as those already committed by this unhinged and unfit Commander in Chief."
The US president's renewed threats came amid reports of a diplomatic effort, mediated in part by Pakistan, to enact a 45-day ceasefire to provide space for a lasting resolution to the war.
Axios reported that the talks are seen as "the only chance to prevent a dramatic escalation in the war that will include massive strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure and a retaliation against energy and water facilities in the Gulf states."
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