Pentagon chief Hegseth to address Congress for the first time in two months - will discuss war costs with Iran

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth will testify before U.S. lawmakers for the first time in more than two months to defend the Trump administration's request for billions of dollars in additional funding for the war with Iran and to address growing public skepticism about the course of the conflict, UNN reports citing Bloomberg.

Details

Hegseth's appearance before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday afternoon will focus on U.S. President Donald Trump's request for an additional $87.6 billion in funding, the bulk of which is intended for the armed forces, but he will almost certainly face questions about the collapse of the ceasefire, the deaths of three American servicemembers over the weekend, and signs that the U.S. is escalating the war, the publication writes.

This, it notes, is a stark contrast to Hegseth's previous appearance on Capitol Hill in mid-May or his bellicose press conferences during the first weeks of the war, when he claimed the military campaign was proceeding on Trump's timeline. Hegseth stopped making these public appearances or speaking about the war when both sides reached a truce, and then when that agreement fell apart.

"They will be asked about the cost of the war, whether the costs are greater than those provided for in the supplemental plan, what exactly the supplemental plan will do, and then there will be the usual questions — what is the state of operations on the ground, what is the end goal?" said Mark Cancian, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Lawmakers are likely to ask whether the Pentagon plans to ask Congress for even more money to fund the war that began on February 28. The Pentagon said in June it would seek $80 billion in emergency funding to cover war costs. Trump later requested $67.1 billion for the Defense Department to cover war costs but provided few details on how the money would be spent.

In his testimony this spring, Hegseth refused to provide a breakdown of costs, facing questions from frustrated lawmakers who also failed to get an updated cost estimate for the conflict from Jules Hurst, the administration's nominee to head the Pentagon's budget office, at hearings last week.

Hurst earlier, in mid-May, estimated that the price of the war with Iran had risen to about $29 billion — a figure many analysts and lawmakers at the time considered unrealistically low.

Tuesday's hearing could provide the clearest indication yet of whether the Pentagon views the campaign as a relatively short-term operation or the start of a more sustained effort requiring additional resources and even higher-quality munitions. The war has proven unpopular among Americans and has raised energy and consumer prices worldwide.

Axios: Trump approaches a decisive point in the war with Iran21.07.26, 09:59 • 3024 views

Defense subcommittees have already reviewed the Pentagon's $1.5 trillion budget request for fiscal year 2027. That amount includes $350 billion the administration seeks to secure through separate mandatory funding legislation rather than through the annual defense appropriations bill. Since Congress has not yet approved this funding mechanism, key appropriators have questioned whether the full $350 billion will ultimately be allocated.

The Pentagon has publicly disclosed little about the pace of weapons spending during the war, despite earlier stating during the conflict that the U.S. had struck more than 13,000 targets.

Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, last briefed the media on May 5, and the Pentagon last published a fact sheet detailing its operations on April 6. Caine will testify alongside Hegseth on Tuesday.