US President Donald Trump said Monday he’s “not at all” concerned about committing possible war crimes as he again threatened to destroy Iran’s bridges and power plants if Tehran does not meet his Tuesday 8 p.m. ET deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, the president refused to say whether any civilian targets would be off-limits.
Iran on Monday rejected a 45-day ceasefire proposal and said it wants a permanent end to the conflict.
“We only accept an end of the war with guarantees that we won’t be attacked again,” Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of the Iranian diplomatic mission in Cairo, told The Associated Press.
In the press conference, Trump said that the US will destroy all of Iran's bridges and power plants in 'four hours' if no deal is reached.
"Every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again," he said, threatening the same for the country's bridges.
"I mean complete demolition by 12 o'clock (0400 GMT Wednesday), and it'll happen over a period of four hours -- if we wanted to."
He further argued that Iranians were willing to suffer for their freedom, saying the United States had intercepted communications urging to "please keep bombing."
"They would be willing to suffer that in order to have freedom," Trump told a press conference.
He further said that more than 170 US military aircraft were used in the rescue of the crew of a fighter plane downed in Iran.
He also threatened an unspecified media outlet with jail time if it does not reveal the person who leaked information about a US military pilot who was missing in Iran.
"We're going to go to the media company that released it, and we're going to say, 'National security. Give it up or go to jail,'" Trump told a news conference.
Israel and the United States carried out a wave of attacks on Iran on Monday, killing more than 25 people. Iran responded with missile fire on Israel and its Gulf Arab neighbors.
