Pentagon eyes $80 billion funding package for Iran war, other costs: WSJ

3 min readJun 20, 2026 11:22 AM IST

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had defended President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion military budget request for 2027, (AP Photo)

The United States Department of Defense needs $80 billion to cover costs from the Iran war and other non-war-related bills, Deputy Defence Secretary Stephen Feinberg told lawmakers over phone calls this week, he Wall Street Journal reported.

Quoting people familiar with ⁠the ​matter, the news organisation noted that a supplemental request by the US, including funds for the Pentagon and non-defence priorities, for instance, farm and disaster relief, would be sent to lawmakers ​soon.

The Pentagon, and the White House have not yet commented on the findings of the WSJ report.

Actual cost of the conflict

The US lawmakers have been pushing President Donald Trump’s administration to release comprehensive cost details associated with Iran war.

The Iran war, which began on February 28, has so far cost the US nearly $25 billion, with most of the expenditure revolving around munitions and equipment maintenance, the Pentagon said early in April, news agency Reuters reported, in the first official estimate of the military’s ‌price tag for Middle East conflict.

But Pentagon’s top budget official Jules Hurst, in an update on war spending, told Congress that the cost of the war in Iran stood at about $29 billion, which including equipment repair and replacement and operational costs, a report in The Indian Express stated.

The United Nations’ humanitarian agency flagged that this funding could have saved 87 million lives if allocated as humanitarian aid. Tom Fletcher, the head of the UN’s humanitarian agency, had then said: “For every day of this conflict, $2bn is being spent. My entire target for a hyper-prioritised plan to save 87 million lives is $23bn. We could have funded that in less than a fortnight of this reckless war. Now, of course, we cannot,” The Guardian quoted.

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Meanwhile, some Democrats have suggested that the number could be higher than what the Trump administration has revealed.

Trump’s demands VS lawmakers

The entire cost of the conflict remained under scrutiny on Capitol Hill after an initial $200 billion ⁠request ‌for additional funding was met with criticism from ​US lawmakers.

During a hearing of the House of Representatives Budget Committee in April this year, White House budget director Russell Vought ‌said that he had no ‌estimate for the ​cost of ​the ​war.

However, Vought and US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier defended President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion military budget request for 2027, Reuters report highlighted.

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A few Democrat leaders said that the war in Iran will cost Washington between $630 billion and $1 trillion, Al Jazeera reported.

With a little over five months left to go before the US’s midterm elections, Trump’s Republicans party is facing an uphill task to maintain a majority in the Congress. Democrats are gaining traction as voters remain anxious about rising living costs, high energy prices, and financial pressure of the Iran war.

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