Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced bipartisan scrutiny in the Senate on Tuesday as frustrated lawmakers pressed him to explain the Trump administration’s strategy for the war in Iran amid renewed hostilities and rising costs.
The hearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee was the first time Hegseth testified before Congress since the collapse of a truce between Washington and Tehran in recent days. The session also marked lawmakers’ first public oversight of the administration’s request for $67 billion in additional funding to cover the costs of the conflict.
Hegseth, who testified alongside Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended the funding request as an “urgent, necessary” step to restock the Pentagon’s arsenal of precision weaponry diminished during the fighting and to avoid looming shortfalls in the military’s budget.
The defense secretary said the war had cost about $37.5 billion, including some Iran-related bills the Pentagon anticipates it will need to pay through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The estimate also does not encompass the cost of rebuilding American military bases in the Middle East damaged during the conflict. Under questioning from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire), Hegseth declined to say whether the Pentagon intends to request additional funding for the repairs.
Lawmakers also pressed Hegseth and Caine to explain the administration’s approach to the war, from President Donald Trump’s promise to destroy Tehran’s nuclear capabilities to how the Pentagon will reopen the Strait of Hormuz, moving beyond the economic upheaval its closure has caused in oil and fertilizer trade.
Under questioning, Caine declined to say whether the war would continue to escalate, including when it came to a possible ground invasion.
“We need straight answers,” said Sen. John Kennedy (Louisiana), a Republican who appeared perturbed with answers from Hegseth and Caine that the senator considered vague.
Democrats repeatedly challenged Hegseth to address why parts of the military were approaching insolvency after Congress approved a record $1 trillion defense budget earlier this year.
He acknowledged that the Pentagon has yet to spend about $75 billion of one-time military funding lawmakers passed last year, though he argued it was already slated for other priorities, such as purchasing advanced weaponry. The military is running so short on money that without additional funding, Hegseth said, some military training will need to be “curtailed.”
“The problem’s not a lack of money but poor planning,” Sen. Patty Murray (Washington), the committee’s top Democrat, alleged.
Hegseth responded to such criticisms by faulting the Biden administration’s stewardship of the military.
After the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran collapsed this month, the conflict is threatening to widen. On Monday, the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen announced a blockade against Saudi Arabia’s oil shipments in the Red Sea. And the Trump administration has launched more than a week of consecutive strikes on Iran, pledging to retaliate for the recent deaths of American service members.
Iranian officials “want to desperately meet, and until they’re ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest,” Trump claimed Tuesday, saying U.S. forces planned to strike Pickaxe Mountain, the site where Iran is believed to have deeply buried nuclear facilities.
The mounting U.S. attacks have thus far failed to loosen Tehran’s chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz.
Under questioning from Murray, Hegseth acknowledged that Iran “no doubt” retained military capabilities but still argued that its military was at its weakest point in decades.
When Caine was later asked whether the Trump administration would be able to accomplish its military objectives in Iran through the use of airstrikes, he responded that “air power’s got limits.”
“Iran will continue to be a challenge moving forward,” Caine said during a later round of questions.
A tanker came under attack in the strait early Tuesday, near Oman, forcing the crew to abandon the ship on a lifeboat, the British navy’s maritime trade operations center said. Iran said fires broke out on two tankers that passed through an unauthorized route.
“As long as American hostilities in the region continue, the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in remarks carried by the semiofficial Tasnim News Agency.
If successful, the Houthis’ move targeting the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could choke off one of the few viable alternatives for oil exports and reduce global supply by an estimated 7 percent. Already, 10 percent of global oil shipments are halted by disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, which has been largely shut by Iranian threats and mines since the U.S. and Israel launched the war five months ago.
The price of a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, rose Tuesday to around $90 a barrel as investors weighed hopes of a resolution with renewed fighting. The benchmark oil price has risen sharply since the $70 seen in early July as some shipments began to resume transiting the Strait of Hormuz. In the United States, the national average gas price rose above $4 per gallon this week, following an average of $3.85 one week ago.
The reimposition of a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports appears to have failed to disrupt Tehran’s oil revenue in the way Washington might have hoped, some analysts said.
On Tuesday, Tehran claimed fresh attacks on U.S. military assets in Jordan and Bahrain, and the U.S. responded with an 11th consecutive night of bombardment against Iran. U.S. Central Command said overnight that its strikes hit Iranian command centers, missile and drone launch sites and air defense systems.
The U.S. strikes have followed a pledge from Trump to make Iran pay “many times over” for the killing of U.S. forces in the region in recent days.
Iran’s forces also launched attack drones at U.S. military hubs and installations in Kuwait. Iranian media said that the drones targeted Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, along with a helicopter parking station at Camp Udairi and U.S. military housing at Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base.
The Pentagon has disclosed that nearly 100 U.S. troops have been injured in the U.S. war with Iran over the last two weeks, underscoring the extent of Tehran’s retaliation against U.S. military sites in the region as negotiations faltered.
Military officials on Tuesday identified two soldiers killed over the last week.
Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, died during a controlled detonation of a downed Iranian one-way attack drone on Sunday at Erbil Air Base, Iraq, officials said. Swinton was one of four soldiers reported killed over the past few days as the U.S. resumed strikes against Iran.
U.S. Central Command later identified Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, of Ozone Park, New York, as presumed dead after an Iranian missile attack in Jordan last week that killed two other soldiers. Rampersad had previously been listed as missing. Officials said circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation.
Suzan Haidamous in Beirut and Tara Copp in Washington contributed to this report.
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