SerpApi.Org
The Pentagon is running out of money, Pete Hegseth has admitted.
The US defence secretary warned his department would face “critical shortfalls” if Congress did not pass an emergency funding request, and said the cost of the Iran War had ballooned to at least $37.5bn (£28bn).
“Without these funds, we face critical shortfalls that threaten our ability to… pay our service members, rapidly replenish equipment and munitions, and sustain vital operations without disruption,” Mr Hegseth told the Senate appropriations committee on Tuesday.
A week earlier, Democrats had blocked the passage of the Pentagon’s $1.5tr (£1.1tr) funding bill, claiming it would be used as a blank cheque to fund an open-ended war in Iran.
Despite the department’s looming budget crisis, the US is poised to escalate its war against Iran. F-16 and F-35 fighter jets have been deployed in the Middle East, and since mid-July the US has targeted bridges for the first time while striking targets further inland.
Mr Hegseth on Tuesday asked Congress for an emergency infusion of $67bn (£50bn) to help cover the costs of the war.
According to his opening statement, a third of that figure is intended for day-to-day spending, including military pay, replacing equipment and supporting deployed forces.
The rest is intended for longer-term investment, including speeding up delivery of munitions, which the US has rapidly burned through since the war began on Feb 28.
The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon has been forced to limit training and maintenance that keep units prepared for combat because of budget constraints.
Democrats sounded sceptical of Mr Hegseth’s overtures, however. Senator Patty Murray, the committee’s ranking member, accused the defence secretary of attempting to “skirt the normal appropriations process”.
In March, analysis by the Royal United Services Institute estimated that the US had only a month left of critical air defences and ground attack missiles.
The ceasefire agreed on April 7 helped conserve its stocks, but the collapse of that truce will put American stockpiles under renewed strain. Experts have told The Telegraph that the shortage of missiles such as PAC-3 interceptors risks the lives of US troops.
Four American soldiers have been killed in the Middle East since Friday, bringing the US death toll from the Iran war to 18. The fourth was named on Tuesday as Sgt Angel S Rampersad, a 28-year-old from New York who was believed to have been killed in an attack on an air base in Jordan on Friday.
Authorities also named Sgt Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, who died during a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone in northern Iraq.
While casualties mount, Mr Hegseth revealed to the committee that the cost of the war had reached $37.5bn, up $8.5bn (£6.3bn) from the Pentagon’s previous estimate on May 12.
The overall figure could be considerably more if the department is not including damage to US bases, which it has previously excluded from its calculations.
Mr Hegseth also pushed senators to pass the mammoth National Defense Authorisation Act (NDAA), arguing it was essential to ensuring the US’s military dominance.
“Not funding this department at $1.5tr, I believe, is the greatest threat that our nation faces,” he told the committee.
“Either we invest in our warriors at this moment of step change on the battlefield and growing threats, or this is all just talk.”
However, Senate Democrats blocked an NDAA last Tuesday on a party-line vote, complaining that they had been left in the dark by the Trump administration on the Iran War.
“The NDAA cannot become a permission slip for that recklessness that we see occurring in Iran,” Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said at the time.
“Donald Trump does not get to drag the American people deeper into a war he cannot explain and does not know how to end, and then demand Congress look the other way.”
Even if the congressional deadlock is broken, the House of Representatives intends to break for the summer recess on Thursday, leaving the emergency funding at least a month away from passing.
Mr Hegseth was interrupted four times by protesters as he attempted to deliver his opening remarks, prompting Senator Susan Collins, the committee chair, to order the Capitol police to throw out the demonstrators.
“Stop bombing our children in Iran and Palestine,” one of the protesters shouted.
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