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The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth told the Senate on Tuesday that the US-Israel war on Iran had cost $37.5bn so far, as he faced lawmakers furious over the conflict’s soaring price tag and the deaths last week of three American service members.
During an appearance before the Senate appropriations committee, Hegseth, whose opening remarks were repeatedly interrupted by protesters, provided an updated account of the war’s cost – up from previous estimates – and defended the Trump administration’s roughly $88bn supplemental funding request, calling it “urgent, necessary”.
Alongside the chair of the joint chiefs, Gen Dan Caine, Hegseth argued that the Pentagon was running low on cash to keep the fight going. Of the total request, as much as $67.1bn is earmarked specifically to cover the costs of the Iran war effort.
“Without these funds, we face critical shortfalls,” Hegseth told the Senate panel, warning that it would threaten the defense department’s ability to “pay our service members, rapidly replenish equipment and munitions, and sustain vital operations without disruption”.
It was the defense secretary’s first sustained public questioning since a brief ceasefire collapsed and the war roared back to life. At least two US soldiers were killed in an Iranian attack on Friday, and another died in Iraq destroying an Iranian drone, pushing the American death toll since February to 17. Nearly 100 troops have been wounded in the conflict, officials confirm, though most injuries were minor.
Patty Murray, the committee’s Democratic vice-chair, demanded Hegseth explain what the war had actually achieved, accusing the administration of shifting its rationale by the week and warning the conflict risked becoming “another forever war”.
“We hear a different rationale for this war every few days,” Murray said in her opening remarks, noting the justification had moved from pre-empting threats that “did not exist” to regime change, then to dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme and navy, and now, she said, to simply reopening the strait of Hormuz, a waterway that was “fully open, toll-free, before this war began”.
“Here we are, five months later”, she continued. “The strait is closed. The ceasefire hasn’t just disintegrated – this war is now spiraling out of control again.”
Under questioning from lawmakers, Hegseth cast the funding request as the price of deterrence rather than admitting failure, and framed the Pentagon’s overhaul under the US president as a break from what he described as years of slow bureaucracy.
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“The best way to create peace is to prepare for war, to deter it,” Hegseth told the panel, arguing the department was “building a force so capable that it would be absurd for anyone to challenge it”.
Hegseth said the $21bn readiness portion of the request would cover military pay, replace equipment used in recent operations and stabilize fuel shortfalls, while the $46bn capability portion would expand production of “solid rocket motors, Jdams [joint direct attack munitions], hypersonics and counter-drone capabilities”.
Without the funds, he warned, the department faced “critical shortfalls” that threaten its ability to pay troops and replenish munitions, and he cautioned that failing to fund the Pentagon at $1.5tn was “the greatest threat that our nation faces”.
Some Democrats, including Chris Coons of Delaware, plan to direct criticism at Russell Vought, director of office of management and budget, who is not testifying but who earlier told US Congress that the war’s running cost was about $30bn, a figure that is largely believed by experts to be a severe undercount.
Hegseth and Caine faced potential threats from within their own party. Susan Collins of Maine, chair of the committee, and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, two prominent Republicans, have both crossed the aisle to back war-powers resolutions aimed at reining in the president’s authority over the conflict. Collins, who is facing a competitive re-election contest, has previously voiced frustration that the administration’s strategy for the war seems to shift almost daily.
During the hearing, she asked Hegseth about the effect on military exercises if the supplemental funding is not provided.
The defense secretary said that current and future training “would have to be curtailed” if the Pentagon does not get its budget needs met urgently.
Senator John Kennedy, a Republican of Louisiana, pressed the panelists on the situation in the strait of Hormuz, asking if Iran will impose tolls on commercial vessels passing through the vital waterway which carried about a fifth of global oil and gas supplies before the war.
“That’s a hypothetical question,” Caine replied, “and I don’t know the answer to that.”
“Guys, we need straight answers,” Kennedy shot back.
Both congressional chambers have passed a war-powers resolution urging the president to seek congressional authorization to continue military operations in Iran. Asked why the administration had not yet sought congressional approval for the war, Hegseth said it was the view of his department that “standalone Article II authorities exist for us to conduct this operation on behalf of the defense of the American people”. The defense secretary evaded the lawmaker’s question about whether he would use the approval of any supplemental funding as a “substitute for explicit congressional authorization”.
House representatives have separately accused the Pentagon of stonewalling on basic figures: Betty McCollum, the top Democrat on the House defense appropriations panel, said the department has missed a deadline to detail war costs and has not disclosed how many precision munitions remain after the military burned through thousands of them in Iran.
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