WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has told senators it needs roughly $80 billion, mostly to cover the cost of the U.S. war against Iran, adding to what is already a sizable military spending boost being sought by President Donald Trump.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has yet to make a formal request to Congress. But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill, including Monday evening. A top deputy defence secretary told senators about the Iran funding request last week, according to two people familiar with the situation but not authorized to discuss it publicly.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on the developments.
The push for billions of dollars in Iran war funding comes at a fraught political moment. Lawmakers are skeptical of the deal Trump struck with Iran to bring an end to the war, and wary of next steps. The White House has requested a remarkable $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon - a nearly 50% increase over the current fiscal year's funding levels.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he’s expecting a supplemental spending request from the administration for the war, and when it arrives, "we’ll work through it and see where the votes are.”
"We need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to replenish, resupply a lot our munitions that have been depleted - not only just with what’s happening with Iran, but prior to that,” said Thune, R-S.D.
Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg spoke to several senators about the proposal in calls last week and he notified congressional committees that the $80 billion request had been sent to the Office of Management and Budget. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
However, the funding package will almost certainly run into trouble from lawmakers who refuse to support Trump's decision to go to war and are reluctant to give the Pentagon more money at a time of high costs of living for Americans at home.
"You’re spending families’ hard-earned tax dollars on a war that many strongly oppose,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray told Hegseth in a hearing last month.
In addition to the Iran funding, Republicans hope to secure about $1.1 trillion through the regular appropriations process, which typically requires support from both parties for approval. Then, they hope to secure an additional $350 billion through a mostly party-line vote later this summer.
The amount being sought by the Pentagon is far higher than the $29 billion estimate of war costs that Hegseth gave Congress during his testimony last month. The bulk of that amount was related to replacing munitions and repairing equipment but also included operational costs to keep forces deployed. That estimate did not include the cost to repair or rebuild U.S. military sites damaged in the region.
It's also far lower than the initial $200 billion the Pentagon floated as the costs at the start of the war. An early estimate put the cost of the first week of the war at $11.3 billion.
Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, a member of Democratic party leadership, said he expects the actual price tag could be much higher than the $80 billion being proposed.
Schatz said he hasn't done any counting of Democrats about whether there is support for an Iran-focused bill, "but I haven't found anyone who wants to do this.”
But Republican Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana said, "To me it’s less about the war, it’s more about the stockpiles.”
Banks said, "I would sell it to my state as an investment in our defence industrial base, reshoring defence production to Indiana.”
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said funding for an Iran supplemental can't be done in isolation. It has to be done after lawmakers from both parties have agreed to a total spending amount for both defence and non-defence programs, "then the rest of this would follow pretty quickly,” Reed said.
And Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota, a member of the Appropriations subcommittee on Defense, said he has been working with the administration to broaden the package to include funds for disaster aid for California, Hawaii and other states hard hit by fires and weather problems, as well as agricultural aid for farmers.
"I think that’s the kind of combination that could pass,” Hoeven said.
Hegseth declined to answer questions from reporters late Monday as he strode around the Capitol.
But on the issue of the cost of the war, Hegseth responded rhetorically during a Senate hearing last month, asking, "What is the cost of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon?"
He acknowledged the president's decision to confront the threat of a nuclear Iran "comes with cost - and we recognise that.”