America is spending up to $10 million a day to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) group's militants in Iraq and Syria, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel estimates – a ballooning expense likely to put the squeeze on a Pentagon budget already under federal spending caps.
“We’re going to require additional funding from Congress as we go forward,” Hagel said Friday, the
Washington Examiner reports.
“We’re working now with the appropriate committees on how we go forward with authorizations and funding.”
Hagel's new estimate of $7 million to $10 million a day for the cost of U.S. operations in Iraq and Syria raises the previous price tag of $7.5 million a day when the campaign was limited to Iraq, the Examiner reports.
The Examiner points out money for the fight against the Islamic State group currently comes from a war-funding measure know as overseas contingency operations – which also funds the war in Afghanistan. Congress allowed for $85.2 billion for that account in fiscal 2014, and the administration has asked for $65.8 billion in fiscal 2015, the Examiner reports.
But the widening operations in Iraq and Syria could affect the Pentagon's base budget, which is subject to spending caps known as sequestration.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said overall, the fiscal picture is grim.
"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," Dempsey said, while Hagel added the Pentagon is looking at what's going to be needed.
“That’s a critical part of this," Hagel said, the Examiner reported.
The costs in Iraq and Syria will increase substantially if the new war lasts for years, as President Barack Obama and Pentagon officials have already predicted.
"If airstrikes in Syria and Iraq continue for as long as the president predicts, they will eventually cost tens of billions of dollars," Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and the military analyst at the Lexington Institute, told
USA Today. "The price of munitions is just one part of the bill. Thousands of personnel are engaged in sustaining aircraft, flying drones and operating warships in the region."
Richard Aboulafia, a military aviation analyst with the Teal Group, told USA Today a warplane can cost at least $10,000 per hour to fly.
"What clobbered us over the past decade wasn't procurement [of weapons]," Aboulafia said. "It was operations and maintenance."