WASHINGTON
Forty-six Democratic senators, led by Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, are demanding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth provide a full accounting of U.S. spending in the ongoing war with Iran, accusing the Pentagon of withholding budget data from Congress and the public.
The United States has been engaged in the conflict for more than six months. President Donald Trump initially said the war would last six weeks. To date, 18 American servicemembers have been killed and over 820 wounded. More than 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed to the Middle East.
The conflict has extended deployments for units including the USS Lincoln and the 82nd Airborne. Congressional offices report military families are expressing concern about their relatives serving in the war zone.
The senators cited steep economic costs. They pointed to an extra $100 billion in higher gas and diesel prices and at least $60 billion in increased costs for groceries, mortgages and plane tickets as direct results of the war.
Hegseth estimates the Iran conflict has cost $37.5 billion so far, a figure that includes some costs through the end of the fiscal year in September. The Trump administration is requesting $70 billion in emergency military spending to cover war expenses and fund new weapons and personnel.
The Democratic senators criticized the Pentagon's limited transparency. Hegseth has briefed Congress only seven times in six months and held just eight Pentagon press briefings or interviews since the war began.
During the first month of the Iraq War, the Pentagon conducted more than 70 press briefings. The administration's public supplemental funding request for the Iran war is a seven-page document with only vague line items. By contrast, supplemental requests during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars ran to detailed, hundred-page documents.
Slotkin and her colleagues said Congress must have access to this information to fulfill its oversight duties. They called it the "bare minimum that any American would expect in balancing their own household budget."
Hegseth responded to cost inquiries in an earlier House hearing by asking, "I would simply ask you what the cost is of an Iranian nuclear bomb." The response has drawn Democratic criticism, with some arguing the administration is dismissing the war's impact on American families.
Signatories to Slotkin's letter include Senators Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Christopher Coons of Delaware, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Richard Durbin of Illinois, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire.
