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Making his first appearance before Congress since the Trump administration went to war against Iran, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday faced withering questioning from House lawmakers over the costly conflict.<\/p>\n
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Wednesday\u2019s hearing stretched nearly six hours as Democrats and some Republicans questioned Hegseth over the war and his ouster of several top military leaders.<\/p>\n
In one tense exchange, Hegseth told Democratic Rep. Adam Smith that Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities were obliterated in 2025 strikes by the US prompting Smith to question the Trump administration\u2019s reasoning for starting the Iran war less than a year later.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to start this war, you just said 60 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat,\u201d said Smith, the ranking Democrat on the committee. \u201cNow you\u2019re saying that it was completely obliterated?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hegseth responded that Iran \u201chad not given up their nuclear ambitions\u201d and still had thousands of missiles.<\/p>\n
Smith said the war \u201cleft us at exactly the same place we were before.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Pentagon figures presented to the House Armed Services Committee at a heated session purportedly centred on the administration’s 2027 military budget proposal, the war has already cost $25 billion (\u20ac21 billion). It would raise defence spending to a record $1.5 trillion (\u20ac1.28 trillion).<\/p>\n
Democrats press Hegseth over reasons for war<\/p>\n
While Republicans focused on the details of military budgeting and voiced support for the Iran operation, Democrats grilled Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about the ballooning costs of the war, the huge drawdown of critical US munitions and the bombing of a school that killed children. <\/p>\n
Some lawmakers also questioned President Donald Trump\u2019s dealings with allies and his shifting justification for the conflict.<\/p>\n
Hegseth dismissed the criticism as political and rebuked lawmakers who pushed him for answers. \u201cThe biggest challenge, the biggest adversary we face at this point are the reckless, feckless and defeatist words of congressional Democrats and some Republicans,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n
Democrats accused Hegseth of misleading Americans about the reasons for the conflict and said rising gas prices are now threatening the pocketbooks of millions of people in the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecretary Hegseth, you have been lying to the American public about this war from day one and so has the president,\u201d said Rep. John Garamendi of California, who called the war \u201ca geopolitical calamity,\u201d a \u201cstrategic blunder\u201d and a \u201cself-inflicted wound to America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hegseth blasted Garamendi\u2019s remarks.\u201cWho are you cheering for here?\u201d he asked the lawmaker. \u201dYour hatred for President Trump blinds you\u201d to the success of the war.<\/p>\n
Until now, Hegseth has avoided public questioning from lawmakers about the war, although he and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, have held televised Pentagon briefings.<\/p>\n
Hegseth defends firings of top military officers<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the defense secretary also faced intense questions about his decision to oust the Army\u2019s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George, one of several top military officers to be dismissed since Trump took office again.<\/p>\n
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said George was deeply respected by members of the military and Congress and asked why Hegseth fired him. Hegseth\u2019s response that \u201cnew leadership\u201d was needed failed to satisfy Houlahan.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have no way of explaining why you fired one of the most decorated and remarkable men,\u201d Houlahan began, before Hegseth interrupted her. \u201cWe needed new leadership,\u201d he repeated.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon also announced this month that Navy Secretary John Phelan was stepping down. Hegseth previously removed Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy\u2019s top uniformed officer, Gen. Jim Slife, the Air Force\u2019s No. 2 leader and others, while Trump fired Gen. Charles \u201cCQ\u201d Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.<\/p>\n
Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said that while Hegseth is empowered to make personnel changes, he shared what he called \u201cbipartisan concern\u201d about the firings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Making his first appearance before Congress since the Trump administration went to war against Iran, US Defense Secretary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417862,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,42,117780,43,31348,40,38,41,39,197011],"class_list":["post-417861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-iran-war","tag-news","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-congress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417861"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417861\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}