{"id":1162,"date":"2026-07-26T10:41:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T10:41:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2026-07-26T10:41:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T10:41:56","slug":"pete-hegseths-iran-war-math-doesnt-add-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=1162","title":{"rendered":"Pete Hegseth\u2019s Iran war math doesn\u2019t add up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is a busy man. When he isn\u2019t working out with fellow Cabinet members and denying promotions to Black and female officers, he\u2019s making videos ordering the troops to take testosterone tests to prove they are manly enough to serve their country. He\u2019s fighting the culture war morning, noon and night. When he can find the extra time, he\u2019s also running the Pentagon as it wages war in Iran, commits murder on the high seas in the Caribbean and prepares to invade Cuba \u2014 and possibly Mali and Greenland. Hegseth has a lot on his plate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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That includes demanding a $454 billion increase in the 2027 Pentagon budget, which brings the total request to nearly $1.5 trillion\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a 44% increase from the previous year. Hegseth has called this a \u201cgenerational investment\u201d that comes out roughly to all of U.S. military spending in World War II. You might think that it\u2019s because of Donald Trump\u2019s war in Iran and all the munitions the military is going through, but you would be wrong because, like most wars, it is paid for separately from the Pentagon budget through emergency supplemental requests.<\/p>\n

During a combative appearance on Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee, Hegseth asked for another $67 billion in supplemental funding for the rest of the budget year. But the shock of that request paled in comparison to another number. Hegseth estimated that the Iran war has cost $37.5 billion so far, far higher than the $30 billion figure the Pentagon only recently gave to lawmakers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That number is astounding on its own, but according to most sources and experts, it significantly lowballs the war\u2019s true cost, which continues to mount. NBC News reported that, according to internal estimates by the Defense Department peg the amount at $80 billion to $100 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not unusual for administrations of both parties to bulk up the Pentagon budget, although the Republicans have always been the most passionate about it. But this is beyond the wildest dreams of Pentagons past. With all the cuts the Trump administration has made to everything else in the government, you\u2019d think they would be a little less greedy. But that\u2019s not how they roll. In Trump\u2019s first term, military spending was profligate, and this time it\u2019s a free-for-all.<\/p>\n

Hegseth is basically asking for an unlimited supply of money to finance an extremely unpopular war and such \u201cgenerational investments\u201d like the \u201cTrump-class battleships,\u201d otherwise known as the Golden Fleet. We needn\u2019t worry that they are being irresponsible, though. They are committed to rooting out \u201cwoke\u201d wherever they find it, and that will surely save a few bucks somewhere down the road.<\/p>\n

\n

When the senators asked him why the Pentagon needed all this extra money, Hegseth fell back on the Trump administration\u2019s catch-all explanation: \u201cJoe Biden did it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When the senators asked him why the Pentagon needed all this extra money, Hegseth fell back on the Trump administration\u2019s catch-all explanation: \u201cJoe Biden did it.\u201d In this the secretary was correct. Biden requested military funding for Ukraine through emergency supplemental requests. But the Trump administration has created an unprecedented innovation. In partnership with MAGA allies on Capitol Hill, they are trying to get it passed through the reconciliation process, which cannot be filibustered but is subject to ruling by the Senate parliamentarian, who can strip the provision if it is determined to be non-budgetary.<\/p>\n

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The U.S. is running through its supplies of expensive precision-guided munitions and air-defense interceptors at record pace in the Iran war, and there are concerns that reduced inventories are going to affect readiness in case the country is drawn into a war it didn\u2019t choose. Hegseth, though, would not cop to that, insisting instead that all was well \u2014\u00a0and that the Pentagon just needed more cash to fix up the depleted military Biden left them.<\/p>\n

House Republicans have proven more pliant. On Wednesday, by a margin of 216 to 212, they passed a $1.15 trillion defense bill to cover some of what the White House is requesting, adding some juicy extras for artificial intelligence and other tech-bro projects led by the private-equity types who are running much of the Pentagon these days. According to Guardian, one of them, former Uber executive Emil Michael, the Pentagon\u2019s undersecretary for research and engineering who is an aggressive promoter of AI, made a profit of up to $24 million by selling a private investment he held in xAI, Elon Musk\u2019s AI company, earlier this year. (In March 2025, Michael declared the value of his stake at between $500,000 and $1 million.) Since the company isn\u2019t public, no one is quite sure how he came to own the shares or who he sold them to, but it shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise that the defense department entered into two separate contracts with xAI before Michael sold his shares.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not the only one who appears to be milking the military-industrial complex. The Washington Post reported that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the president\u2019s eldest sons, have a portfolio of tech companies that are raking in billions from the Pentagon. These are not businesses with which the Trumps have any experience, and the partnerships and investments have all been initiated since their father became president the second time. Don Jr. has said publicly that he works with Hegseth to steer more contracts to drone manufacturers, of which he is a beneficiary. Both brothers are heavily involved with firms that have contracts all over the Pentagon. They insist, though, there\u2019s no conflict of interest and no one in the department has even considered favoritism.<\/p>\n

As usual, Hegseth behaved like a teenage bully during the Senate hearing. He argued with senators, blamed Biden and insisted that America has won the war in Iran while simultaneously requesting many more billions to win it. Since the GOP is attempting to push this supplemental package through using reconciliation, they won\u2019t need Democrats to pass it, so one can probably expect that he\u2019ll get what he wants. The firehose of money flowing to the Pentagon and all the insiders who are making massive bank from it isn\u2019t going to dry up any time soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Hegseth ended the week with a gratuitous gesture to his commander in chief, who spent a good part of his time explaining that the 18 deaths in the Iran war are nothing compared to all the deaths in previous wars. To make Trump feel better, Hegseth removed from the tally four troops who were killed in renewed fighting, bringing the official death toll back down to 14. Military officials told the New York Times that \u201cone reason behind the change was . . . because their deaths occurred after President Trump declared a cease-fire in the war in April.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Trump attended the dignified transfer of the four fallen soldiers\u2019 remains and concocted a story to burnish his war lust. \u201cAll of them said very strongly, \u2018We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sure they did.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The defense secretary pegged the war’s cost at $37 billion. The real total is far higher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,1498,134,105,430,431,44,221],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-commentary","tag-defense-budget","tag-iran","tag-iran-war","tag-military","tag-pentagon","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-republicans"],"yoast_head":"\nPete Hegseth\u2019s Iran war math doesn\u2019t add up - Relocation Across America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=1162\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pete Hegseth\u2019s Iran war math doesn\u2019t add up - Relocation Across America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The defense secretary pegged the war's cost at $37 billion. 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