Pentagon seeks $200 billion in additional funds for the Iran war, AP source says

The Pen­ta­gon is seek­ing $200 bil­lion in ad­di­tion­al funds for the Iran war, a siz­able amount that is cer­tain to be met with ques­tions from Con­gress, which would need to ap­prove any new mon­ey.

The de­part­ment sent the re­quest to the White House, ac­cord­ing to a se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the pri­vate in­for­ma­tion. Asked about the fig­ure at a press con­fer­ence Thurs­day, De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth did not di­rect­ly con­firm the amount, say­ing it could change.

“It takes mon­ey to kill bad guys,” Hegseth said.

But he said “we’re go­ing back to Con­gress and our folks there to en­sure that we’re prop­er­ly fund­ed.”

It’s an ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly high num­ber and comes on top of ex­tra fund­ing the De­fense De­part­ment al­ready re­ceived last year in Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s big tax cuts bill. Such a re­quest would need to be ap­proved by Con­gress, and it is not at all clear such spend­ing would have po­lit­i­cal sup­port.

Con­gress has been brac­ing for a new spend­ing re­quest but it is not clear the White House has trans­mit­ted the re­quest for con­sid­er­a­tion. Law­mak­ers have not au­tho­rized the war, and Con­gress is show­ing grow­ing un­ease with the mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion’s scope and strat­e­gy.

The new fund­ing re­quest was first re­port­ed by The Wash­ing­ton Post.

While the House and Sen­ate are con­trolled by the pres­i­dent’s Re­pub­li­can Par­ty many of the more con­ser­v­a­tive law­mak­ers are al­so fis­cal hawks, with lit­tle po­lit­i­cal ap­petite for big spend­ing, on mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions or oth­er mat­ters. Most De­moc­rats are like­ly to re­ject such a re­quest and de­mand more de­tailed plans from the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion about the U.S. mil­i­tary goals and ob­jec­tives.

Rep. Ken Calvert, the Re­pub­li­can chair of the House sub­com­mit­tee with over­sight over de­fense spend­ing, said he was al­ready ad­vo­cat­ing for a sup­ple­men­tal spend­ing bill to al­low the Pen­ta­gon to re­plen­ish mu­ni­tions.

“That was go­ing to hap­pen, and now we have this con­flict with some ad­di­tion­al costs. So, that’s where we’re at,” Calvert of Cal­i­for­nia said Thurs­day.

“I know there are pe­riph­er­al is­sues out there that peo­ple are con­cerned about, but right now, this is about our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and it’s im­por­tant that we get this done,” he said.

But Rep. Bet­ty Mc­Col­lum of Min­neso­ta, the rank­ing De­mo­c­rat on the House sub­com­mit­tee with over­sight over de­fense spend­ing, said the pres­i­dent has tak­en the U.S. in­to a war with­out com­ing to Con­gress and she’s de­mand­ing more de­tails.

“This is not go­ing to be a rub­ber stamp for the pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States,” Mc­Col­lum said.

She said Con­gress is still wait­ing for the ad­min­is­tra­tion to ex­plain where it would be spend­ing the ad­di­tion­al $150 bil­lion fund­ing that went to the Pen­ta­gon through Trump’s tax and spend­ing cut bill. It’s al­so wait­ing on the pres­i­dent’s bud­get re­quest for this year.

“I’m not writ­ing blank checks to the De­part­ment of De­fense,” Mc­Col­lum said.

It all points to a mon­u­men­tal bat­tle ahead in Con­gress over any new Pen­ta­gon spend­ing that would al­most cer­tain­ly need sup­port from Re­pub­li­cans and De­moc­rats in a bi­par­ti­san pack­age to push past ob­jec­tions to­ward ap­proval. Re­pub­li­can lead­ers could ei­ther try to go it alone through an ar­du­ous bud­get process, or cut deals with De­moc­rats on oth­er pri­or­i­ties that would like­ly add to the hefty price tag.

The re­quest­ed amount would be a siz­able boost to the Pen­ta­gon’s an­nu­al bud­get, which Con­gress ap­proved at more than $800 bil­lion for the cur­rent fis­cal year.

That’s on top of some $150 bil­lion that Con­gress gave the De­fense De­part­ment in last year’s tax cuts bill, much of it for spe­cif­ic projects and over­all up­grades to the Pen­ta­gon’s op­er­a­tions.

While some of the mil­i­tary’s biggest cham­pi­ons on Capi­tol Hill have wel­comed new spend­ing as a way to boost mu­ni­tions stock­piles and up­grade the U.S. de­fense ca­pa­bil­i­ties in the face of emerg­ing threats, oth­ers will cer­tain­ly point to health care and oth­er do­mes­tic needs that they view as more im­por­tant pri­or­i­ties.

House Speak­er Mike John­son, who de­clines to call the mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion a war, said Wednes­day he be­lieves the at­tacks on Iran have ac­com­plished the U.S. ob­jec­tives of de­stroy­ing the coun­try’s bal­lis­tic mis­siles and neu­ter­ing its Navy, and will quick­ly come to an end.

“As soon as we bring some calm to the sit­u­a­tion, I think it’s all but done,” said John­son, R-La.

WASH­ING­TON (AP)