Washington DC - Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to rule out putting boots on the ground in Iran during a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night and declared that "this is only just the beginning."

Hegseth's comments came as he blustered his way through a friendly interview with CBS News' Major Garrett, a little over a week after the US government and Israel launched a devastating war on Iran.

As of writing, President Donald Trump's war has killed 1,600 Iranians, as well as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The US' massive bombing campaign massacred more than 100 children in a strike on a school that has been condemned as a war crime.

"What I want your viewers to understand is this is only just the beginning," Hegseth told Garrett on Sunday – the same day that saw a seventh US soldier confirmed dead.

Hegseth proceeded to complain about how the press expects him to answer questions about the war, and he again refused to definitively rule out a ground invasion.

"I would never tell you or anybody else what our options are," he said. "People ask, boots on the ground, no boots on the ground, four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, go in, go in?"

"You don't tell the enemy; you don't tell the press; you don't tell anybody what your limits would be on an operation. We're willing to go as far as we need to in order to be successful."

"We would be completely unwise if we did not reserve the right to take any particular option, whether it included boots on the ground or no boots on the ground," he said.