SerpApi.Org
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimated the latest cost of the Iran war at $37.5 billion, some $9 billion higher than earlier figures provided by the Defense Department.
In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday, Hegseth said the estimate covers certain costs for the period from the beginning of the war on Feb. 28 through today, as well as other anticipated costs through early September. The estimate includes some operations and maintenance costs as well as military pay, he said.
For months, Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been calling on Hegseth to offer more information about the war, including its costs and strategy.
Fighting between the U.S. and Iran has intensified in recent days, with Iranian attacks resulting in the deaths of three U.S. servicemembers—two in an attack on a Jordanian air base that struck prefabricated housing units where troops lived and slept, and another in Iraq during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian attack drone.
Last week, the Pentagon’s comptroller nominee, Jules Hurst, stuck to a $29 billion war cost estimate he provided in May. This estimate doesn’t include damages to U.S. military facilities and other assets, he said.
Hegseth’s latest price tag for the war’s cost isn’t far off from estimates by outside analysts. The Center for Strategic and International Studies assessed in a report published in June that the total cost of the war was about $40 billion. That included their calculus of $2.2 billion to $5.1 billion in damage to U.S. bases, based on structures that CSIS identified as damaged.
Committee members asked Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the Pentagon’s strategy to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway which Iran has effectively closed by targeting commercial vessels. Democrats repeatedly made the point that the Strait was open before the war. Hegseth responded by saying at one point that the military had pushed between 400 and 500 million barrels of oil through the strait over the course of “Project Freedom,” the military’s effort to guide commercial vessels through the waterway.
Iran has fired missiles at some of these ships since the collapse earlier this month of a ceasefire agreement, reducing the number of ships transiting the chokepoint through which about 20% of the world’s oil supplies pass in peacetime. The U.S. has reimposed a blockade of Iranian ports to cut off its oil trade in an effort to destabilize the Iranian economy.
At times, even Republican members of the committee appear to get frustrated by some of the answers provided by Hegseth and Caine. Republican John Kennedy of Louisiana asked what the consequences would be if the U.S. ends the blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. Caine said it would be a political decision, adding that “Iran will continue to be a challenge moving forward.”
Later, the Louisiana senator said: “Guys! We need straight answers.”
The hearing was an opportunity for Hegseth to make the case for around $67 billion in extra and urgent defense funding, including the cost of the war, in addition to about $1.5 trillion in annual funding for the Defense Department. The administration’s full emergency supplemental request to Congress is $87.6 billion, which includes disaster aid and agriculture-related items.
Hegseth said that some ongoing and future training would have to be curtailed if the Pentagon’s funding needs aren’t met. Asked what the impact would be of not passing the supplemental, Caine said it would impact military personnel, operations and maintenance costs, and the ability of the department to invest in future capabilities. “We’ll figure out how to pay soldiers and sailors, but that would be a strain,” Caine said.
Caine didn’t rule out the prospect of American boots on the ground in Iran. Asked whether he expects the fighting to escalate to deployment of ground troops, he said: “We always develop an unbelievable amount of options and the associated risks.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, said the American public is confused by the Pentagon’s assessment of the war. “You just don’t know what version of the war to believe, because it’s either over or it’s not over. It’s within two weeks or it’s not two weeks. We have no missiles or we have missiles,” she said.
Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, have expressed concern that the administration hasn’t sought congressional approval for the continuing conflict. During the hearing, Hegseth conceded that there is a debate over issue.
“I know there’s a longstanding legal debate on this particular topic,” Hegseth said, adding he supports the White House’s position that “we have all the authorities” needed to continue the war.
Earlier this month, the White House sent a letter dated July 10 to Congress saying it had resumed hostilities with Iran on July 7, restarting a 60-day clock for the administration to seek congressional approval for the war.
Write to Yoko Kubota at [email protected] and Lara Seligman at [email protected]