Washington DC - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been accused of lying to President Donald Trump about the likelihood of a decisive victory in his war on Iran.

"Pete is not speaking truth to the president," one White House official told the Washington Post under the condition of anonymity. "As a result, the president is out there repeating misleading information."

Hegseth has repeatedly claimed that the US has complete control over the airspace and that Iran has "no air defenses" and can do nothing about US and Israeli attacks.

The official pointed to the weekend downing of an F-15E fighter jet and an A-10 warthog by Iran as an indication that such claims betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the US and Israel's domination of Iranian airspace.

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While speaking with the Post, military analyst Kelly Grieco pointed to this reality as an example of what happens "when you have air superiority but don't have air supremacy."

This misunderstanding and distortion of the truth has reportedly been rubbing off on Trump, who has been known to repeat statistics and claims previously touted by Hegseth.

"We've decimated them as a military. No Air Force, no Navy, very few rockets left," Trump said during a March 26 cabinet meeting, echoing similar bombastic statements made by the Pentagon chief. "We blew up so many."

According to a Wall Street Journal report last week, Hegseth has been drip-feeding Trump short videos of airstrikes on Iranian targets in an attempt to convince the president that the US is about to achieve a mighty victory.

In a statement to the Washington Post, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell called scrutiny of Hegseth "lies and propaganda" and accused the paper of "pushing a fake story of failure."