The fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is costing the United States up to $10 million a day and Pentagon officials will have to ask Congress for more money to keep it going, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday.
“We’re going to require additional funding from Congress as we go forward,” he said. “We’re working now with the appropriate committees on how we go forward with authorizations and funding.”
Hagel’s estimated price tag of $7 million to $10 million a day for U.S. operations in Iraq and Syria raises the potential cost of the campaign. Pentagon officials had previously estimated the cost at $7.5 million a day, but that was before the campaign was extended to Syria on Monday.
Operations against the Islamic State are funded through a separate account for overseas contingencies that also funds the war in Afghanistan. Congress appropriated $85.2 billion for that account in fiscal 2014 and the administration has asked for $65.8 billion in fiscal 2015.
The increased commitments for the military also are likely to affect the Pentagon’s base budget, which is subject to sequestration caps that have proven to be politically difficult to remove.
“If you’re asking me do I assess right now as we go into the fall review for [fiscal 2016] that we’re going to have budget problems, yes,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said.
“That’s a critical part of this,” Hagel added, noting that the Pentagon was studying what its additional needs might be.
The fight against the Islamic State isn’t the only unexpected strain on Pentagon resources since President Obama submitted his fiscal 2015 budget to Congress in early March.
NATO’s supreme allied commander in Europe, Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, said Sept. 16 he has asked for a review of budget cuts that have led to the decline of U.S. forces based on the continent in the wake of renewed Russian assertiveness following the annexation of Crimea in February.
The Pentagon already has asked lawmakers to shift $1 billion from the Army’s fiscal 2014 budget to pay for the dispatch of 3,000 troops to Liberia to fight the Ebola virus.
