The White House request would send $67.1 billion to the Department of War and about $15.6 billion to farm aid, the Ebola response and domestic projects; the Pentagon now puts the war’s cost at $47.1 billion.
Congress has not approved the largest supplemental spending request now before it. On June 24, the Office of Management and Budget asked lawmakers for $87,596,238,000 in supplemental funding, most of it tied to Operation Epic Fury, the military campaign against Iran that began Feb. 28. The House referred the request to its Appropriations Committee on July 14 and printed it as House Document 119-171.
With government funding set to expire Dec. 11 and Democrats taking control of both chambers on Jan. 3, the request is now part of the lame-duck bargaining. The Inquirer reviewed the document’s account-by-account table to determine where the money would go, how much of it is tied to the war, and how it compares with what the Pentagon says the war has cost so far.
The administration’s case
The administration’s rationale is set out in the cover letter from Russell Vought, the budget director. “Under President Trump’s leadership, the United States executed a successful operation to deter the threat of a nuclear armed Iranian regime and massively degrade the regime’s ability to project power in the region,” he wrote. The request, he said, “addresses operational costs incurred by the Department of War (DOW) during OEF, including funding for military personnel and readiness expenses, operational costs to rebuild stocks expended by DOW, classified programs, and other key expenses.” He urged Congress “to take action on these important and urgent requests as soon as possible.”
The legal basis for the operation is in the War Powers report Mr. Trump sent Congress on March 2. It says the strikes were ordered under his “constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations,” to protect U.S. forces and the homeland, to ensure “the free flow of maritime commerce through the Strait of Hormuz,” and “in collective self-defense of our regional allies, including Israel.” It says Iran “continues to seek the means to possess and employ nuclear weapons.”
Mr. Trump said Monday, after meeting Qatar’s prime minister, that “Iran militarily is effectively over,” while keeping the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports in place and saying the military was “locked and loaded” if talks fail, Al Jazeera reported.
The Department of War: $67.1 billion
More than three-quarters of the request, $67,146,000,000, would go to the Department of War’s military programs. The table breaks it down:
$17.3 billion for operational costs; $1.7 billion for readiness; $0.8 billion for National Guard support; $1.5 billion for fuel; $1.2 billion for “Administration priorities”; $21 billion for munitions; $5.1 billion for cybersecurity and autonomy; $2.4 billion for drones; $4 billion for airborne moving target indication and a space data network backbone; and $12.1 billion “for other classified programs.”
Those lines fall into two groups. About $21.3 billion (operations, readiness, Guard support and fuel) pays mainly for conducting the campaign itself. The other $45.8 billion is for munitions, new capabilities, classified programs and $1.2 billion in “Administration priorities.” The cover letter describes the $21 billion munitions line as support for “critical capabilities, munitions procurement, and strengthen the U.S. industrial base,” which would replace weapons fired in the war and also expand production for the future.
The document does not say how much of the $12.1 billion in classified programs, or of the cyber, drone and space lines, is a direct cost of the Iran campaign and how much is new investment. For a related $40 million FBI line, the table says the details are classified and “can be provided in a separate setting.”
Other war-related lines: about $4.8 billion
The request ties several other agencies’ money to the operation:
- Energy Department, $767.5 million. That includes $672 million for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nonproliferation office “for activities for complete and verifiable termination of Iran’s ability to develop or acquire a nuclear weapon,” and a classified $95.5 million.
- State Department, $1.92 billion. That includes $1.52 billion for diplomatic programs, largely worldwide security protection, with $850 million prioritized for counter-drone systems at high-risk posts; $300 million for embassy security in places including Bahrain, Dubai, Karachi, Lahore and Riyadh; and $100 million to help Americans leave the region.
- Coast Guard, $2.03 billion, to fill Western Hemisphere gaps, including at the southern border, while Department of War assets were committed to the operation.
- Smaller classified items: $40.3 million for the FBI, $36.2 million for the Treasury’s terrorism and financial intelligence office and $13.1 million for Homeland Security analysis.
Together with the Department of War line, items the document ties to the operation or lists as classified total about $72 billion.
The table also shows money already moved from existing accounts. The $300 million for embassy security, it says, is “in addition to the up to $1 billion currently allocated” in the State Department’s 2026 operating plan “to address Operation Epic Fury.”
Not war spending: about $15.6 billion
Roughly 18 percent of the request has nothing to do with Iran. The largest piece matters directly to California:
- Farm aid, $11.1 billion. That is $10 billion in “temporary economic assistance for row and specialty crops planted in crop year 2026” and $1.1 billion for producers hit by winter storms, which the cover letter ties to Florida. California, the nation’s leading producer of specialty crops, has a direct interest in how the $10 billion would be distributed, which the request does not specify.
- Ebola response, $1.44 billion, for an outbreak in Central Africa: $550 million for global health security, $800 million for humanitarian assistance and $90 million for State Department emergency needs, including medical evacuation of Americans.
- Penn Station, $1 billion, for design and construction of a modernized station in New York, with a request to waive a statutory requirement for the funds.
- Delphi pensions, $1 billion, to raise benefits for participants in Delphi Corporation pension plans terminated after General Motors’ 2009 bankruptcy. The table says the cost “could be fully offset, or a revenue generator, by accelerating pension insurance premiums.”
- Federal buildings, $600 million, split between elevator repairs at more than 45 buildings and decoupling federal buildings in Washington from a central heating plant.
- National Park Service, $500 million, for restoration of the seawall and the World War II Memorial in Washington.
The request also carries policy changes: permanent year-round sales of E-15 gasoline, a revised federal definition of hemp-derived cannabinoid products, discretion to reallocate $12.52 billion in air traffic control funding, higher small-manufacturer loan limits, and removal of a barrier to Development Finance Corporation investment in Venezuela. The cover letter says the administration “is also open to discussing additional relief for other urgent matters.”
What the war has cost so far
The Pentagon’s own estimate has risen since the request was sent. As of Oct. 16, the Defense Department estimated the war had cost $47.1 billion, up from $43.6 billion through Sept. 3, Stars and Stripes reported from a document provided to Congress. About $29 billion is for replacing expended munitions and $6.1 billion for replacing lost equipment and platforms; both, the document states, remain unfunded. The military has incurred about $11.9 billion in operating costs, including $7.6 billion for the Air Force.
The estimate excludes damage to U.S. bases from Iranian attacks, which the Pentagon is still assessing. The administration’s position, reflected in Mr. Vought’s letter, is that the request covers both costs already incurred and rebuilding stocks. A comparison of the two documents shows the $21 billion munitions line is smaller than the $29 billion the Pentagon now estimates for replacement, while the request’s capability and classified lines go beyond the costs the estimate counts.
The oversight question
The Project On Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog, opposes the request. In written responses to The Inquirer, Virginia Burger, a senior defense policy analyst at the group, said: “Supplemental money for the Iran War is likely to be funneled through reconciliation.” She said reconciliation “has significantly fewer formal oversight mechanisms compared to formally appropriated funds,” leaving only the oversight Congress chooses to attach.
On cost reporting, Ms. Burger said: “The Pentagon’s reporting hasn’t been transparent at all. They have failed to provide any level of unclassified, detailed accounting. In fact, when the Congressional Budget Office — Congress’s own research capability — attempted to estimate costs earlier this year, the Pentagon, in an unprecedented departure from previous standards of transparency, refused to work with them.”
“To be clear, POGO opposes the supplemental entirely and believes costs need to be accounted for as part of the formal defense appropriations process, offset by cuts to other areas rather than enabling an overall topline increase,” she said. “That being said, should the current majority push through a supplemental via reconciliation in their remaining time in leadership, they need to attach significant reporting requirements for budgeting and accounting, and restrictions on how and where the money can be spent.”
The Department of War’s press office did not respond to The Inquirer’s questions about the request, its cost accounting or the group’s criticism. The Pentagon has periodically provided cost estimates to Congress, including the October figures. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a video last week that he would not back down on the Iran campaign, ABC News reported.
What happens before Dec. 11
Republicans control both chambers until Jan. 3. It is unclear whether they will attempt a final reconciliation bill that could carry emergency war funding, The Hill reported on Sunday; the request “has not gone far in Congress,” it said.
Democrats have signaled they intend to use the power of the purse. “We are going to end the war,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said last week. Four Republican senators, Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul, previously voted with Democrats on a resolution to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities absent congressional authorization. Rep. Ro Khanna of Fremont, a member of the Armed Services Committee who is weighing a 2028 presidential bid, has called for a stopgap “prohibiting the financing of any combat activities of the U.S. military in Iran.” Rep. James Comer, the Kentucky Republican who chairs the Oversight Committee, said, “We have no idea what the strategy is moving forward in Iran.”
The Senate Appropriations Committee’s majority and minority press offices did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog.
Three paths are open: Congress could fold some of the money into a December funding bill, Republicans could try a reconciliation package before they lose their majorities, or the request could carry into a Democratic Congress that has promised to use spending bills to constrain the war. California growers waiting on the $10 billion in crop aid have a stake in which path Congress takes, even though that money has nothing to do with Iran.
Nasrin Haidari covers foreign affairs and geopolitics, including diplomacy, trade disputes and conflicts, and their ties to California and the Pacific. More from Nasrin Haidari
