ISTANBUL, April 30 (Bernama-Anadolu) -- The US has spent approximately US$25 billion on the war against Iran, according to a senior Pentagon official who testified before a House committee on Wednesday, Anadolu Ajansi reported.
The department's acting Chief Financial Officer Jules W. Hurst III said most of the cost stemmed from munitions spending.
Hurst said operations and maintenance costs, and equipment replacement also counted in the total spending.
He added that the agency will soon submit a formal supplemental budget request to Congress via the White House once "we have a full assessment of the cost of the conflict."
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said the requested US$1.5 trillion for fiscal year 2027 budget "reflects the urgency of the moment, addressing both the deferment of long-standing problems, as well as positioning our forces for both the current and the future fight we think."
He argued that the previous administration hollowed out the defence industrial base with "America last" policies, and said the Trump administration was putting it back on a "wartime footing."
Hegseth said the new budget would reverse "the four years of underinvestment and mismanagement," and ensure that the US "continues to maintain the world's most powerful and capable military as we grapple with a complex threat environment across multiple theaters."
On Ukraine, Hegseth criticised the former Biden administration for providing "hundreds of billions of dollars of our weapons" without accountability, while noting he welcomes that Europe is now contributing to the cost of weapons supplied to Kyiv.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine told the committee that rapid changes in the character of warfare, including advances in autonomy, undersea systems, space, cyber and information operations required higher capital investment, and the budget was designed to get ahead of where technology was heading.
Asked whether keeping three aircraft carriers in the Middle East left the Asia-Pacific exposed to China, Caine acknowledged inherent trade-offs in any deployment decision but said he was confident US President Donald Trump had carefully weighed the associated risks.
He said the national force is employed based on the political and security situations the president deems appropriate, rather than strictly according to strategic frameworks.
-- BERNAMA-ANADOLU
