100 Days Until the Order: America's Victory Will Cost It 200,000,000,000 USD 0 12

The Pentagon has asked the White House to approve a request to Congress for more than $200 billion to fund the war with Iran, senior U.S. officials told The Washington Post (WaPo). According to them, this amount significantly exceeds the funds already spent on the military operation. The money is expected to be directed towards an urgent increase in the production of key weapons that have been expended during strikes against Iran.

It remains unclear what final amount the White House may request, but the Pentagon has already made several different funding proposals over the past two weeks, WaPo sources added. Some White House officials believe that the Pentagon's request has little chance of approval, as Democrats in Congress oppose the military campaign and criticize President Donald Trump's administration for it. Republicans generally support additional funding but have not yet settled on a legislative strategy or found a way to overcome the 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

The Pentagon officially notified Congress that U.S. expenditures in the first week of the military campaign against Iran amounted to $6 billion. Of this, $4 billion was spent on munitions and interceptors to destroy Iranian missiles, The New York Times (NYT) reported. Sources from the newspaper indicated that, according to a new estimate, the first seven days of the war cost $11.3 billion. According to the Financial Times, since the beginning of the war, the U.S. has expended stocks of critically important munitions that had been accumulated over several years. In particular, stocks of long-range Tomahawk missiles were used up.

Iran was better prepared for war than the U.S. administration had expected, NYT sources noted. Meanwhile, according to Axios sources, Trump anticipated a quick and obvious victory. According to White House forecasts, the war was not supposed to last longer than four to six weeks, but now the administration is preparing for a more protracted conflict. As Politico reported, the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees operations in the Middle East, expects the military operation to last at least 100 days.