Published on 6/19/2026
The Pentagon has told members of Congress that it needs $80 billion in additional funding to cover war expenses with Iran, along with other military and operational obligations.
The Wall Street Journal quoted informed sources as saying that the full additional funding request, which would include money for the Pentagon, as well as non-defense priorities such as agriculture and disaster relief, may be sent to lawmakers in the coming days.
Part of this money will be allocated to ship operations, personnel salaries, ammunition, etc., according to the newspaper.
Steven Feinberg, Deputy Secretary of Defense, made phone calls with a number of lawmakers over the past few days to explain the department’s urgent financial needs, amid lawmakers’ concerns that the military has exhausted valuable ammunition that may be needed to confront threats elsewhere in the world.
The Trump administration is under great pressure from lawmakers to provide a comprehensive price tag for the war that began on February 28.
A costly war
On May 12, the Pentagon announced that the cost of the war on Iran had risen to approximately $29 billion, an increase of $4 billion over estimates of late last March.
It is still unclear how the Pentagon arrived at the $29 billion estimate, and a source told Reuters last March that the Trump administration estimated the cost of the first six days of the war at no less than $11.3 billion.
The war has exacerbated concerns about the rapid depletion of US weapons stocks after months of intense operations using air defense and missiles in the Middle East, amid fears that China and Russia will accept these indicators as evidence of the fragility of US military industrial capacity, which may encourage Beijing in particular to test the limits of US deterrence in the future.
