Military leaders have warned that without a supplemental funding package to cover the costs of the Iran war, they may be forced to scale back on training exercises and other priorities.The Department of War’s $1.5 trillion dollar fiscal 2027 budget request was formulated before the Iran war, which the department’s comptroller, Jules Hurst, said earlier this week has cost approximately $29 billion so far.The department intends to submit a supplemental funding request to cover the cost of the war but has not yet done so. It has been paying for the war and other unplanned deployments out of its annual operations and maintenance budget.
If Congress doesn’t pass the supplemental quickly, services may be forced to cut or shorten certain programs.
“I will have to start making decisions to change training, operations, certification events, those types of things we do to generate our force in the July time frame,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations, told members of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee on Tuesday.
The chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), responded, “I don’t know who’s making this final decision to get the supplemental over here, but we need to get it over here.”
