US launches new attacks; Hegseth says war has cost $37.5bn

 

Iran war live: US launches new attacks; Hegseth says war has cost $37.5bn

By Enes Abuomer, Lyndal Rowlands and Zaid Sabah

Published On 22 Jul 202622 Jul 2026

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• US bombs Iran for an 11th consecutive night as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the cost of the war has reached $37.5bn.
• US President Donald Trump threatens to attack a suspected Iranian nuclear site called Pickaxe Mountain “pretty soon, and very heavily”, prompting Tehran to threaten an expansion of the war in the region.
• Mediators step up efforts to end the hostilities as Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni holds talks with senior Pakistani officials, including Army Chief Asim Munir, in Islamabad.
• Trump meets Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and promises to broker peace with Israel, but will not say when Israeli troops might withdraw from southern Lebanon.

17m ago

(00:20 GMT)

Congress questions Hegseth over Iran war costs

By Eva McKend

Reporting from Washington, DC, US

The line of questioning largely fell along party lines. That surprised me.

Democrats were critical. Republicans tried to give Secretary Pete Hegseth the space to make the case for the war.

I thought both parties would be critical, given how unpopular this war is. But Democrats really pinned Secretary Hegseth on having imprecise language in describing this war effort.

At one point, he said that Iran was destroyed and made combat-ineffective.

Well, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who’s up for re-election, asked how that could be the case if the secretary is coming before Congress to ask for billions more dollars if America is, in fact, winning this war.

You had Democrats also point out that this money could be used for a whole host of domestic policy priorities: addressing childcare, healthcare, and energy costs among them.

Hegseth was also interrupted several times by protesters during his testimony. It speaks to the frustration here in this country, because when President Trump ran for office, he said he would do the opposite of this.

He said that he would end the forever wars and that he wasn’t interested in these types of military campaigns.

Well, now he is governing in a much different way, and it is coming at a significant financial and human cost to American citizens.

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'Coz idiotic Trump was conned by Satanyahu into fighting an unwinnable Israeli war