00:00All right, the committee will come to order without objection, and they are being accompanied
00:06by Mr. Jay Hurst, acting chief financial officer and comptroller for the department.
00:11I also want to welcome the secretary's wife, Jennifer. Welcome to our hearing. Glad to have
00:15you here with us today. These investments equal great things for America, American families,
00:20and American workers. We have not yet received from the Pentagon the costs of the war. So just
00:28for the record, we'd like to get that as soon as possible. Certainly the munitions expended,
00:33but also underreported is we've had a fair amount of equipment destroyed, including two C-130s with
00:39the rescue of our downed airmen. So do you have either A, a cost estimate coming to us anytime
00:45soon, or B, a specific supplemental request? Thank you for that question. So approximately
00:53at this day, we're spending about $25 billion on Operation Epic Fury. Most of that is munitions.
00:59There's part of that is obviously O&M and equipment replacement. We will formulate a supplemental
01:04through the White House that will come to Congress once we have a full assessment of the cost of the
01:08conflict. So you're saying the full cost at this point is $25 billion? Yeah, that's our estimate
01:13for the cost. Okay. Interesting, because we, I'm glad you answered that question, because we've been
01:17asking for a hell of a long time, and no one's given us the number. So if you could get
01:21those details
01:21over to us, that would be great. Mr. Secretary, you mentioned the nuclear aspect of Iran and the war,
01:27and it is worth noting that every president prior to this one, including President Trump in his first
01:33term, also prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon without actually having to go to war in
01:38Iran. So we need to keep that in mind. But also, since the war started, Iran's nuclear arsenal has not
01:45been weakened in any way. And at the moment, in negotiations, what Iran is saying, basically pay us
01:51to open up the strait. That's their position, which is completely untenable. I agree. It's worth noting,
01:57of course, that the strait was open before the war started. Now we're negotiating to get back to status
02:01quo. And Iran's most recent offer is to say, we'll talk about nukes later. So what is the plan to
02:08actually
02:08turn all of this lethal kinetic action into an improvement in the nuclear situation? Because we
02:15haven't gotten there yet. Play it out for us. How does that happen? How does it actually lead to that
02:20result? Well, I would take issue with the premise of the question that nothing was done. Operation
02:25Midnight Hammer was a very effective... Oh, I didn't say nothing was done. I said in this war.
02:30Ultimately, well, this is this under this administration, unlike other administrations,
02:34which cut bad deals and pallets of cash with no ability to oversee whether Iran is actually pursuing
02:39a nuclear program. Which is where we're at. So if we want to litigate JCPOA or the Iran deal,
02:44our view, the president's views, that was a very bad deal. Okay. It gave them a bunch of money up
02:48front. That's the past. What's the future? You talked about negotiated deals. Funded,
02:52allowed them to fund their proxies and spread Hamas and Hezbollah all around the region,
02:56build up nuclear capabilities. That's great. What are we going to do now? President Trump has been
02:59clear eyed from the killing of Qasem Soleimani, to the pulling out of the Iran deal, to Midnight Hammer,
03:05and now to this effort, to recognize that you have to stare down this kind of enemy who's hellbent
03:10on getting a nuclear weapon and get them to a point where they're at the table giving it up in
03:15a way
03:15that... So they haven't... So they haven't broken yet. Well, their nuclear facilities have been
03:21obliterated underground. They're buried and we're watching them 24-7. So we know where any nuclear
03:27material might be... Reclaiming my time for just a quick second here. We had to start this war, you just
03:33said,
03:3460 days ago, because the nuclear weapon was an imminent threat. They had not given up their
03:41nuclear ambitions, and they had a conventional shield of thousands of... So Operation Midnight
03:46Hammer accomplished nothing of substance. It left us at exactly the same place we were before.
03:52So much so that we had to start a war. Their facilities were bombed and obliterated. Their
03:56ambitions continued, and they're building a conventional shield of... All right, let me try again.
04:00It's the North Korea strategy. You know this very well. The North Korea
04:03strategy was use conventional missiles to prevent anybody from challenging them,
04:07so they could slow walk their way to a weapon. President Trump saw Iran at its weakest moment,
04:12took an action to ensure, in a way that only the United States of America could do,
04:17with our Israeli partners... And yet they still haven't given up the nuclear...
04:20...to ensure their conventional shield was brought to the deal, which we've done.
04:22All right. One other question, if I could get to it.
04:24So we are now going to stand in recess to the end of this vote. I expect it to take
04:2820 to 25 minutes,
04:29but we are now in recess.
04:30Let's see what you're going to do right now.
04:30Let's see the 2nd of March, so you should see the 2nd of March.
04:30Now we have 50 minutes to take 20 minutes to take 20 minutes.
04:30You'll see what it were.
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