Published On 4/29/2026
Today, Wednesday, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth will give his first testimony to Congress about the war in Iran, at a time when efforts to end the conflict between Washington and Tehran are faltering with the continued US and Iranian double closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Hegseth, along with Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Kaine, will face questions from members of the House Armed Services Committee, at a time when he is under severe criticism from the Democratic opposition.
Parliamentarians from both the Republican and Democratic parties criticize the US administration for not providing briefings to Congress regarding the first US and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, even though it is common for members of Congress to be regularly briefed on information classified under “defense secret.”
Hegseth – one of the most controversial figures in the Trump administration – may face sharp questions from the Democratic opposition, while the economic consequences of the war are now being reflected in the entire world, all the way to the United States itself, especially with the rise in fuel prices.
Democratic Representative Maggie Goodlander said, “Secretary Hegseth will finally appear before the House Armed Services Committee this week. It is time to hold him accountable for a war that was launched voluntarily.”
US President Donald Trump and his administration issued many contradictory statements about the goals of the war and ways to end it.
Hegseth’s leadership of the war raises dissatisfaction among Democrats, who have launched six mechanisms to remove him, without hope of achieving this.
Cost of war
A number of parliamentarians – including Republicans – criticize the US administration for not returning to Congress to consult it before launching the war, at a time when the Constitution grants Congress alone the authority to officially declare war.
Democrats have repeatedly failed to pass a resolution aimed at limiting the president’s military authority in Iran, and more than 10 of them requested last week to open an “official and immediate investigation” into the killing of 6 American soldiers in Kuwait in the first days of the war, considering that the minister “misled the public about the circumstances of the attack.”
According to the United States, 13 American soldiers have been killed in the war with Iran since February 28, and 400 were wounded.
Parliamentarians may also question Hegseth about the cost of the war, both in budgetary terms and in terms of the widespread use of limited stockpiles of missiles, while some fear a critical depletion of strategic weapons.
The hearing officially revolves around the executive authority’s request to increase the already huge defense budget by 42%, to reach $1,500 billion in 2027, an amount equivalent to the gross domestic product of countries such as Indonesia or the Netherlands.
The session may also address the wave of resignations in the highest positions in the Pentagon, and the use of artificial intelligence in the armed forces.
In this context, there is a dispute between Anthropic and the Ministry of War because the company refuses to allow its artificial intelligence-based technologies to be used in internal mass surveillance or in smart wars.
