President Trump said the Iran war would be over in weeks. Two months in, U.S. crude is at $106 a barrel, Brent is at $118, and the Pentagon's first formal cost estimate just landed at $25 billion.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth went to Capitol Hill Wednesday for his first appearance before Congress since the war started. The hearing was supposed to be about the FY2027 Pentagon budget. It quickly became about everything else.
Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst, testifying alongside Hegseth, said the war has cost about $25 billion to date, mostly in munitions. The administration has not yet sent Congress a supplemental spending request, which is the formal ask for war funding outside the regular budget. Hurst said the Pentagon would send one once it had a full assessment.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought declined to put a number on the war in earlier April 15 testimony. Around the same time, a Harvard analyst projected the conflict could ultimately cost taxpayers $1 trillion.
The Pentagon is also asking Congress for a $1.5 trillion FY2027 budget, separate from anything tied to the war.
Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith of Washington argued the administration has not met its strategic goals. "As we sit here today, Iran's nuclear program is exactly what it was before this war started," Smith said. "What is the plan to get that to change?"
Hegseth said Iran's nuclear facilities have been "obliterated," a line he has used for weeks, and that the goal is to "get them to a point where they're at the table."
Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, pressed Hegseth on the economic cost to American consumers. Oil and gasoline prices have climbed sharply since the war began, feeding into food and transportation costs. "You didn't even do the analysis on how much it's costing the American people," Khanna said. "You don't even know what the average American is paying."
Hegseth responded, "I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb."
Even Republican members of the committee flagged friction. Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia disagreed publicly with Hegseth's recent firings of Gen. Randy George, the former Army chief of staff, and former Navy Secretary John Phelan. Scott reminded the room that defense spending packages have always needed bipartisan votes.
"We're going to lose some Republican votes," Scott said. "We're going to have to have some [Democratic] votes to do the things that we have to do to fund the Department of Defense."
The next data point is the supplemental request, whenever it arrives.
