- Pentagon seeks additional funding for Iran war.
- Lawmakers frustrated by war as midterm elections approach.
- The Pentagon is seeking a $1.5 trillion budget for 2027.
WASHINGTON: The cost of the US war in Iran has so far risen to $37.5 billion, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday as he faced skeptical lawmakers for the first time since heavy bombing resumed to seek emergency funding for the unpopular conflict.
With just six months to go before the midterm elections, when President Donald Trump’s Republicans may face an uphill battle to retain their House and Senate majorities, Democrats are riding high in public opinion polls as they try to link the unpopular Iran war with affordability.
Hegseth told lawmakers at a hearing in Washington that the $37.5 billion included certain aspects of the war as well as projected costs through Sept. 30.
It was unclear how the Pentagon arrived at the figure. A source told Reuters in March that the Trump administration estimated that the first six days of the war had cost at least $11.3 billion.
Trump last month asked Congress for nearly $90 billion in additional funding, most of it related to the Iran conflict, setting the stage for another battle with lawmakers frustrated by the war and facing November’s midterms.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have complained since the US and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28 that Trump and his team have not kept them informed about the conflict or his plans.
“The president is threatening escalation and war crimes, suggesting this could become another perpetual war,” Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said at the hearing. Trump has repeatedly issued serious threats against Iran, including against civilian infrastructure, which critics say would amount to a war crime.
Trump’s Republicans hold such slim margins in the House and Senate that appropriations bills typically need Democratic support to pass.
“The reason they (people) are so upset with you and this administration is because the words you’ve used in the past don’t add up,” Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said. “Either it’s over or it’s not over. It’s within two weeks or it’s not two weeks, it’s either missiles or it’s not missiles.”
The effect of war
Hegseth also told lawmakers that military training should be curtailed without an immediate funding boost.
The war has strained the Pentagon’s nearly $1 trillion budget and is jeopardizing funding for military personnel matters. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, acknowledged the potential costs at the hearing, saying that while they would figure out how to pay service members, the Pentagon could struggle with maintenance costs as well as investing in future capabilities.
Hegseth urged lawmakers to not only fund the supplemental request, but also a $1.5 trillion budget request for 2027.
“Not funding this department with $1.5 trillion, I think, is the biggest threat facing our nation,” Hegseth said.
A fragile cease-fire between the US and Iran collapsed earlier this month, and both sides have carried out daily attacks against each other.
The number of US troops killed in the war against Iran rose to 18 over the weekend, while around 430 US troops have been injured. The Pentagon said Monday that 100 service members have been injured since July 7, but that 96% have returned to duty.
In the past week, Trump has threatened to expand targets in Iran to include energy facilities and bridges, send ground forces to capture Iran’s Kharg Island oil hub and bomb a deep underground nuclear-linked site known as Pickaxe Mountain.
On Tuesday, Trump said the United States would remove the mountain facility “pretty soon.”
