Pentagon ‘seeks 200 billion dollars in additional funds for Iran war’

The Pentagon is seeking 200 billion dollars (£1.5 billion) in additional funds for the Iran war, a senior administration official says.

The department sent the request to the White House, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private information.

It is an extraordinarily high number and comes on top of extra funding the Defence Department already received last year in President Donald Trump’s big tax cuts bill.

Congress is bracing for a new spending request, but it is not clear the White House has transmitted the request for consideration.

It is unclear if the spending request would have support.

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

Asked about the figure at a press conference on Thursday, defence secretary Pete Hegseth did not directly confirm the figure, saying it could change.

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

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

Any new funding would need to be approved by Congress, which has not authorized the war, and is showing growing unease with the military operation’s scope and strategy.

Congress is controlled by the president’s Republican Party but many of the more conservative politicians 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 for military strategy and goals.

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

That is on top of some 150 billion dollars that Congress gave the Defence 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 upgrade the US defence capabilities in the face of emerging threats, others will certainly point to healthcare and other domestic needs that they view as more important priorities.