Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth informed the Senate that military operations in the US-Israel conflict with Iran have accumulated costs of $37.5bn to date. The disclosure came as Hegseth faced questioning from lawmakers regarding the financial burden of the ongoing campaign and recent deaths of three American service members. Hegseth defended the Trump administration’s request for approximately $88bn in supplemental funding, characterizing it as “urgent, necessary.”
Democratic Senator Patty Murray of Washington pressed Hegseth to articulate what concrete achievements the war had yielded. Murray expressed concerns that the administration has modified its stated justifications for the conflict on a regular basis and cautioned that the campaign risks becoming “another forever war.” Her comments reflected broader legislative scrutiny of both the financial and strategic dimensions of the military engagement.
On the ground in Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recounted surviving a US-Israeli airstrike that killed the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on the conflict’s opening day. Araghchi described having been extracted from rubble at a leadership compound and subsequently evading danger through continuous relocation within Tehran by vehicle. Reports from within Iran documented civilian experiences of the conflict, with residents describing conditions as “truly hell here” amid recurring airstrikes, intensified state repression, and water supply disruptions that have become persistent features of daily life.
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