The Trump administration violated the Constitution when it sought to restrict press access to the Pentagon and limit what reporters could cover, a federal judge ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman granted a request from The New York Times to void the Pentagon’s press credential policy on grounds it violated the First and Fifth Amendment, rejecting the government’s argument that the restrictions were needed to prevent the disclosure of classified information. “The Court recognizes that national security must be protected, the security of our troops must be protected, and war plans must be protected,” Friedman wrote. “But especially in light of the country’s recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing.” The ruling, which comes as journalists around the world seek information about the war in Iran, rolls back a highly aggressive attack on press freedom implemented last year by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has had a strained relationship with the media. “Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars,” said Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for The New York Times. “Today’s ruling reaffirms the right of The Times and other independent media to continue to ask questions on the public’s behalf.” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the administration would appeal the ruling. Last January, the Defense Department removed Pentagon workspaces for several credentialed outlets, including POLITICO, CNN and the Times and granted access to organizations considered more friendly to the administration. In May, Hegseth announced additional restrictions on areas open to the media within the Pentagon shortly after he inadvertently shared sensitive information about U.S. airstrikes in Yemen on a Signal group chat that included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic. The Pentagon’s most prohibitive measure came in September, when the department said it would only credential reporters if they pledged not to publish information that was not approved for public release by the Pentagon. Nearly every major news outlet refused to make that commitment. Friedman said the policy violated the First Amendment because “the undisputed evidence reflects the Policy’s true purpose and practical effect: to weed out disfavored journalists.” An attorney representing the paper hailed the decision as a “powerful rejection” of the Trump administration’s attempt to “impede freedom of the press” by restricting Julian Barnes, a reporter covering the Pentagon for the paper. “The district court’s opinion is not just a win for The Times, Mr. Barnes, and other journalists, but most importantly, for the American people who benefit from their coverage of the Pentagon,” said Theodore Boutrous Jr.

ZAGROS MOUNTAINS, Iraq — About 5 kilometers from Iran, aircraft roar overhead. Are the planes American, Israeli, Iranian? The Kurdish fighter shrugged and urged haste. The final stretch to his militia’s base could be reached only on foot, along a steep path covered in loose rock. Out in the open, everyone is vulnerable. A tunnel leads to the underground base in a sliver of the Zagros Mountains in northeastern Iraq. The Iranian-Kurdish guerrilla group, the Kurdistan Free Life Party, is careful to keep its exact location secret. Visitors must switch their smartphones to flight mode before handing them over upon entry. The Kurdistan Free Life Party is in waiting mode, poised along Iran’s western border to move in if a weakened regime opens up a path to strike it. The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO, was granted rare access to the group’s base and its members, who discussed its ideology, goals and under what conditions they’d go into Iran. Militia representative Bahar Avrin said in an interview inside the base that the organization already has elements “inside” Iran, and that deploying a larger force against Tehran is ultimately a question of the right timing and conditions. The border between northern Iraq and Iran runs through the Zagros Mountains and is considered porous — for smugglers, locals and the handful of militias operating there. The Kurdistan Free Life Party, often referred to by its Kurdish acronym PJAK, is part of a coalition of six Kurdish militia groups that want to topple Iran’s Islamist regime and usher in a government that is more democratic and grants more rights and autonomy to Iranian Kurds in Iran. President Donald Trump has said Iraqi and Iranian Kurdish groups are “willing” to participate in a ground offensive against Tehran — but he has said he ruled out the idea to avoid making the war “any more complex than it already is.” A Kurdish assault could spark a sectarian power struggle that destabilizes Iran. And key U.S. allies with their own Kurdish minorities — Iraq and Turkey — have warned the idea could spread unrest elsewhere in the Middle East. The idea could nonetheless prove tempting for Trump as the war, now in its third week, drags on. The ruling regime in Tehran has not capitulated despite punishing airstrikes that have killed scores of its top leaders. Trump could find himself looking for military options that do not trigger the political risk that would accompany deployment of U.S. ground troops. “The president never takes anything fully off the table,” said Victoria Coates, who served as deputy national security adviser for the Middle East in Trump’s first term. “And if you were considering this, this is the last thing you would want the Iranians to know.” TUNNEL VISION PJAK looks ready to go into a fight, with a base that suggests an organized military operation. It consists of a tunnel system running through the mountain’s interior, with electricity and running water. On the walls hang photographs of fallen fighters — many of them young, women and men in their 20s and 30s. Four monitors mounted to the walls display the surrounding terrain outside. Motion sensors control the cameras; when a bird flutters across the screen, the image switches to it automatically. In a dark tunnel, a 20-year-old fighter holding an assault rifle introduced herself as Zilan. Her day begins at 5:30 a.m. and follows a strict schedule. “Our daily life is based on discipline,” she said. Ideological instruction aims at building a democratic society; military training focuses on defending the Kurdish people.Watch: The Conversation “We never want the help of foreign powers like Israel and the United States,” she said. “We are an independent party.” The Kurdistan Free Life Party is one of several Iranian-Kurdish groups in Iraq. In 1979, Kurds in Iran supported the revolution against the shah. When the new Islamic Republic rejected their demands for autonomy, heavy fighting broke out in Iranian Kurdistan. Numerous groups relocated to Iraq, where they now operate freely in northern Iraq, which is largely autonomous from the rest of the country and detached from the central government in Baghdad. The six members of the political and military alliance are not in agreement about whether to invade if called on, and under what conditions they would embark on a full-scale war for their political goals. Some parties appear eager to take on a ground offensive in Iran. Reza Kaabi, secretary-general of the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, has even set out a blueprint, declaring a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone to be a prerequisite for any Kurdish invasion. There is a general sense in the region that PJAK — given its proximity to the Iranian border and its relatively strong military presence — would be one of the first of the six Kurdish militias in the coalition to go into Iran if given U.S. military support. But PJAK publicly rejects the idea that they would do so at the bidding of Washington. It’s a stance rooted in distrust of the U.S. — not least because the United States abruptly withdrew support from the Kurds in Syria in January. Asked under what conditions PJAK would launch an offensive across the Iraqi-Iranian border, Avrin declined to answer. But, she said, her organization has “never waited for any force to bring about change.” CNN recently reported that just a few days into the Iran war, Trump spoke with Mustafa Hijri, the secretary-general of another group in the Kurdish-Iranian opposition alliance: the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, or PDKI. It is one of the oldest Iranian-Kurdish opposition parties and has maintained armed units operating from exile in northern Iraq. PDKI executive committee member Hassan Sharafi said in an interview that he could “neither confirm nor deny” whether such a conversation had taken place, in part because of the limited contact among the group’s leadership maintained for security reasons. Sharafi said the PDKI had “no operational relations” with the United States on the ground in Iraq. At the political level, however, contacts exist: “In Washington, Paris, and London we have contacts, and our representatives there maintain relations. Our relations are diplomatic and political.” Such links, he said, were long-standing: “For more than 20 years we have had relations with the United States and with all European countries. We have contacts with all of them.” THE ROAD TO TEHRAN From Tehran’s perspective, the militias represent a serious threat. Iranian artillery has struck in the border region multiple times in recent days, hitting villages near the frontier. These attacks primarily affect civilians. The Kurdish guerrillas sheltered inside the mountain remain protected. Other militia groups, whose positions are located in more exposed terrain, have also come under fire. A 2023 security agreement between Iran and Iraq obliged Baghdad to disarm Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups, dismantle their bases and relocate them deeper into Iraqi territory. Now that the Kurdish groups are openly considering an offensive in Iran, Tehran has concluded that the agreement has failed, according to Kamaran Osman, an Iraq-based human rights officer with a nonprofit organization called Community Peacemaker Teams that monitors human rights abuses in conflict zones. “Now it believes it must target, destroy and defeat these groups,” Osman said, speaking in the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah, about a two-hour drive from the PJAK base. As of Monday, his organization had recorded 307 Iranian attacks on the Kurdistan region in Iraq, leaving eight people killed and 51 injured. He sees only grim scenarios for the Kurdish people in Iran. “If the regime falls, there is a risk of civil war in Iran,” he said. If the regime survives, he fears more retaliation from Tehran against Kurds in Iraq — both Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups and the Kurdistan Regional Government. Should northern Iraq become destabilized, a power vacuum could emerge. The last time order eroded here, in 2014, ISIS militants seized control of a swathe of territory stretching from Iraq to Syria, a landmass nearly as large as the United Kingdom. PJAK has ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a militant group that has fought against the Turkish government, and is listed as a terrorist organization there — as well as in the EU and the U.S. The United States has a troubled history of making big promises to ethnic Kurdish groups — and then abandoning them at the worst possible moment. After calling on Iraqis to rise up and overthrow then-dictator Saddam Hussein in 1991, President George H.W. Bush declined to intervene when Hussein began slaughtering Iraqi Kurds who took up the U.S. president’s call. And as recently as this January, the Trump administration stood by as a Syrian Kurdish militia that led the U.S.-backed campaign to defeat ISIS just a few years ago was attacked by Syria’s new government. The big question for U.S. policymakers may be how much they would need to support a Kurdish assault on Iran to make it successful. Former U.S. intelligence and special forces experts believe it would require the type of commitment he might prefer to avoid: large infusions of cash and weapons, close air support, and potentially even on-the-ground aid from U.S. special forces. Even then, a Kurdish-led attack could fizzle, leaving Trump with two grim choices: Abandon the Kurds, or come to their rescue with even greater U.S. combat support. “It would require a lot of commitment on the U.S. side with a very unclear end state,” said Alex Plitsas, a former senior Pentagon official who worked on special operations and counterterrorism policy in the Middle East. While Coates cautioned that Trump had other, better options at hand, she argued that even modest U.S. military support for the Kurds — such as small arms shipments and limited air support — could threaten Iran’s increasingly brittle regime. The key, she said, was arming the exiled Kurds in Iraq in conjunction with other Iranian resistance groups inside the country to avoid the perception it was coming from outside. “The way this is going to be effective,” Coates said, “is not by a bunch of Iraqis invading Iran.” Drüten of WELT reported from Iraq. Sakellariadis reported from Washington. The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network is a multi-publication initiative publishing scoops, investigations, interviews, op-eds and analysis that reverberate across the world. It connects journalists from Axel Springer brands — including POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, and Onet — on major stories for an international audience. Their ambitious reporting stretches across Axel Springer platforms: online, print, TV and audio. Together, the outlets reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

A top Pentagon official told lawmakers Tuesday that existing military operations targeting Latin American drug cartels are “just the beginning” — and left open the possibility of deploying ground forces even as lethal boat strikes against alleged smugglers continue indefinitely. The comments from Joseph Humire, acting assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, during a House Armed Services Committee hearing raised immediate concerns from congressional Democrats who said the efforts appear to be another “forever war” without clear goals or a stated end date. It’s the latest example of the administration doubling down on aggressive foreign policy interventions without clarifying what victory might look like, despite President Donald Trump’s past campaign pledges to avoid embroiling America in more overseas conflicts. And it raises the prospect that the nation’s armed forces could be further strained amid a massive air war over Iran. Democrats on Tuesday also questioned military leaders’ assertions that the six-month effort to sink smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific has made a meaningful impact on illegal drugs entering American borders, and whether it follows proper rules of engagement for enemy combatants or amounts to war crimes. “We could shoot suspected criminals dead on the street here in America, and it may be a deterrent to crime, but that doesn’t make it legal,” said Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.). But Humire insisted the open-ended missions — dubbed Operation Southern Spear — are “saving American lives” and compliment President Donald Trump’s other border security mandates. “Interdiction is necessary, but insufficient,” he said. “Deterrence has a signaling effect on narco-terrorists, and raises the risks with their movements.” At least 157 people have been killed in 45 strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats in the seas around South America since early September, according to Defense Department statistics. More than 15,000 service members have been deployed to the region for counter-drug missions, training efforts and blockade enforcement over the last six months, though some of those numbers have been drawn down since the start of the conflict in Iran. Humire said officials have seen a 20 percent reduction in suspected drug vessels traveling the Caribbean and a 25 percent reduction in the Eastern Pacific traffic since the start of the military operations. But committee ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) questioned whether those numbers actually translate into fewer drugs on American streets, or simply evidence that smugglers are being forced into other shipping lanes or land routes. Humire said officials are looking to expand to land strikes against known cartel routes and hideouts, but are working with partner country militaries on that work. The U.S. Defense Department launched operations with Ecuadorian forces against narco-terrorist groups in that country earlier this month. He would not, however, rule out potential unilateral strikes in South American countries later on. Smith called that hedge concerning. Republicans on the committee largely praised the military’s anti-drug operations, dismissing the Democratic criticism. “Defending the homeland does not stop at our border,” said committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.). “It also requires confronting threats at their source. The president has made it clear that narco-terrorists and hostile foreign powers will find no sanctuary or foothold anywhere in our hemisphere.”

U.S. President Donald Trump did not commit to a definitive timeline for the war in Iran, saying in a Friday interview that the fighting would end when he feels it “in my bones.” Trump told Fox News Radio that he didn’t think the war “would be long.” But he suggested that only he will know when it will be over, saying the conflict will end “when I feel it, feel it in my bones.” The Trump administration has sent mixed signals on the length of the war, with senior administration officials suggesting at times that the war could last anywhere from days to months. Trump on Friday said he expected the conflict to end soon but added that it could also continue indefinitely if necessary. The president dismissed reports that the U.S. was facing a munitions shortage. “Nobody has the technology or the weapons that we have,” Trump told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade. “We’re way ahead of schedule. Way ahead.” He later said the U.S. had “virtually unlimited ammunition. We’re using it, we’re using it. We can go forever.” While the president suggested the decision to end the war will ultimately be based on his personal judgment, he said he was consulting with senior advisers, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance. “Operation Epic Fury will continue until President Trump, as Commander-in-Chief, determines that the goals of Operation Epic Fury, including for Iran to no longer pose a military threat, have been fully realized,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement when asked for comment. Earlier on Friday, Hegseth suggested victory was a certainty and attacked the press for what he viewed as unfriendly media coverage about the war. Trump also sought to downplay any economic ramifications of the conflict, saying the U.S. economy was the greatest in the world and would “bounce right back, so fast.” The Trump administration has sought to quell concerns over rising oil and gas prices after U.S.-Israeli military action against Iran began in February. The war triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history and cost $11 billion in its first week, according to the Pentagon. The president’s messaging around the run-up in crude prices has caused a potential public relations nightmare for the oil industry. “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Truth Social.

Top military officials warned the Pentagon unsuccessfully last year not to gut oversight offices that limit risk to civilian casualties and investigate responsibility for their deaths, such as the recent strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed hundreds of children. Then-Central Command chief Erik Kurilla and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. C.Q. Brown pushed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth not to slash the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence and other similar initiatives at American command posts, according to Wes Bryant, the Pentagon’s former chief of civilian harm assessments and two other people familiar with the matter. Opponents of the move, which also included Adm. Christopher Grady — the former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs — argued that the staff were critical to preventing risks to civilian populations before U.S. strikes and to probing deadly Pentagon attacks, according to the people, and would ultimately save resources for military operations. Hegseth instead chose to reduce the number of employees working on the issue from 200 to less than 40. The high level of opposition to the cuts, which has not been previously reported, hints at the tension between top military officials and their civilian leader over the rules of engagement in combat, which the Pentagon chief has called “stupid.” It also comes as preliminary reports suggest the U.S. may have accidentally targeted the elementary school, which killed more than 170 students and is the largest U.S.-led killing of civilians in decades. “As it turns out, when you kill less civilians, you tend to be putting your resources toward killing the enemy,” said Bryant, who served in the Biden and Trump administrations. “When they spend weeks or longer tracking some guy and then finally killing him, and then realize he’s just an aid worker, look at all those resources they spent, all that time, the funding, wasted munitions too, and assets wasted on the wrong person.” The revelation of previous backlash also follows Hegseth’s announcement this week that he would further cut the lawyers who advise commanders of an operation’s legality, known as judge advocate generals. He already fired many of those Army, Navy, and Air Force lawyers in the first days of the administration. The decision to dismantle the civilian casualty offices could intensify criticism as more details emerge about the school struck next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base in the opening hours of the U.S.-Israeli operation. Democrats have used the incident to call for Hegseth’s resignation. Kurilla, who later became one of the Pentagon’s point people for U.S. military strikes against Iran’s nuclear program in June 2025, sent a classified memo up the Defense Department’s chain of command opposing the cuts, according to one of the people. The person, like others interviewed, was granted anonymity out of fear of retribution. But the Pentagon center and similar offices at the combatant commands were slashed by more than 90 percent, according to a current and former official, and a person familiar with the effort. Central Command’s branch that examines potential civilian harm was slashed from 10 people to just one. Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees the ongoing attacks against alleged drug runners off the Venezuelan coast, had its civilian harm office eliminated entirely. The special operations command, which was then led by Vice Adm. Frank Bradley, also pushed back on the cuts, according to the people. U.S. Central Command declined to comment. U.S. Special Operations Command, which Bradley leads, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not respond to requests for comment. The Defense Department’s civilian harm offices are “undergoing a strategic reassessment to inform its future reorganization” the Pentagon said in a statement, with the aim of integrating the functions directly into the combatant commands. “The department continues to recognize the importance of civilian harm mitigation and remains confident in our military’s ability to strike with precision while minimizing civilian casualties.” Brown, who was fired by Hegseth in February 2025, said he had “nothing to provide” and added that the decision was made after his ouster. Kurilla did not respond to requests for comment. Grady could not be reached for comment. The renewed attention to the gutted offices comes as the conflict nears its third week with no clear end date. Hegseth said Friday at a press conference that the new Iranian leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is “wounded and likely disfigured” and portrayed the war as largely contained. Iran’s effort to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil flows through, was “something we are dealing with” Hegseth said. “No quarter, no mercy for our enemies.” The Pentagon continues to build up forces in the Middle East and is moving additional Marines and warships to the region, according to a defense official. They should arrive in the coming days from the Pacific. The Wall Street Journal first reported the deployment. Hegseth’s comments followed the death of six American service members whose refueling plane collided with another aircraft in western Iraq. At least 13 U.S. troops have died in the war and according to Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeid Iravani, more than a thousand Iranians. Tensions within the Pentagon over the gutted offices are likely to continue. “I do know that there are people, not a small amount of people inside the Pentagon itself, that are behind [civilian harm mitigation and response],” said Bryant, the former official. “It said ‘civilian protection,’ and that’s woke,” Bryant said, referencing Hegseth’s efforts to root out diversity and equity programs he believes undermines the military’s core missions. “Ultimately, it was going to be cut.”

The war in Iran is tearing through the Pentagon’s budget at nearly $1 billion a day, but lawmakers are in no rush to approve more money for the Trump administration’s expanding Middle East conflict. Top Republicans say the White House hasn’t made the case that it’s facing any financial difficulties with the war, so don’t feel pressure to boost the Pentagon’s $1 trillion budget. And Democrats are unlikely to support the plan at all, which would make securing the votes to pass a supplemental package an uphill climb. That leaves the White House with a difficult task, particularly in a fraught midterm election year. Administration officials will have to spend significant time and political capital to push through a hugely expensive supplemental spending bill — for a war that’s largely unpopular with the American people — even as the administration tries to burnish its affordability bona fides. And the sluggish timetable means any extra Iran war money likely runs into the president’s plans to supersize the defense budget next year. “I don’t think there is any urgency at this moment,” said Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel. “The urgency is in starting to educate Congress as to why we need a supplemental at all. Once we do that, it’ll make passing it easier.” Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said the supplemental package “is still coming together” and won’t arrive on Capitol Hill until the end of the month at the earliest. But Congress won’t act on it right away, he said. And key appropriators said it could take weeks — or months — to get the funding request passed. Fellow appropriator Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said he is anxious to get lawmakers reviewing the supplemental request, but predicted that passage “will not happen quickly.” He pointed to the Pentagon’s massive funding package approved last year as evidence that the military won’t face financial problems anytime soon. “Even if the department doesn’t need the money right away, it would be good for Congress to have oversight on how it is being spent there,” Moran said. Acting Pentagon budget chief Jay Hurst said Thursday that $11 billion is a “ballpark number” for just the first week of the military campaign against Iran. Once Congress does begin to weigh the proposal, Senate Democrats have a veto of their own on the legislation — if they can stick together. At least seven Democratic senators are needed to reach the chamber’s 60-vote threshold to advance major bills, meaning a unified caucus can block additional funding. And at least one Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, said he would oppose any Iran supplemental. He said he is hearing from farmers in his state impacted by rising oil costs that stem from the war — and thinks Congress should be focused on domestic issues. “I’m against borrowing money from China to finance the war in the Middle East,” Paul said. “We’ve got a lot of problems in our country that we need to fix.” Paul’s opposition means Senate Majority Leader John Thune would need at least eight Democrats to cross party lines on the issue. But most Democrats say they’re not going to endorse more money for a war they oppose, particularly after the Pentagon received an extra $150 billion last year as part of the GOP-passed budget reconciliation measure. “There will be broad resistance in the Democratic Caucus to allowing a supplemental to serve as a back door authorization of war, because the president has still never given an address to the nation explaining this conflict,” said Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, the top Democrat on the panel that controls Pentagon spending. But time may not be on the administration’s side. Recent polls show Americans are skeptical of the war. President Donald Trump’s MAGA base is concerned about taking the focus off domestic issues. And the costs are mounting at a blistering pace as American forces use high-priced munitions and engage in thousands of hours of strikes with gas-guzzling aircraft. Senate Armed Services ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said the chances for passing a multibillion-dollar supplemental depend on the war’s economic impact and battlefield success at the time of the vote. “A lot of it depends upon the environment,” he said. “If we’re still seeing incredible increases in gas prices and we’re seeing the conflict getting more costly, particularly in terms of casualties, I think people will be very reluctant.” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) acknowledged the potential for a political fight, but also said Congress can’t simply push a supplemental bill for Iran off indefinitely. “We’re there, and we have to sustain it,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is not have the resources to keep the region as settled as possible when you have 40,000 personnel there on a full-time basis.”

A U.S. military refueling plane crashed in western Iraq and efforts were underway to rescue those on board, Central Command said Thursday. The crash of the Boeing KC-135 jet, which comes in the second week of a war on Iran launched by the U.S. and Israel, was not a result of enemy or friendly fire, Central Command said in a statement that made no mention of any casualties. “The incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury, and rescue efforts are ongoing,” it said. A second aircraft involved in the crash landed without incident, the military said. The crash is the fourth since the start of the war. Three U.S. fighter jets were accidentally shot down by Kuwait during the initial phase of the conflict. All six crew members safely ejected. The Pentagon has said seven U.S. service members have died in the war and approximately 140 have been wounded. President Donald Trump has sent conflicting signals in recent days about his expectations for the war after initially projecting the U.S. could continue attacking Iran for “four to five weeks.” He told CBS News on Monday that the war was “very complete,” just a day after he told GOP lawmakers in Florida that “we haven’t won enough” in Iran. “The situation with Iran is moving along very rapidly,” Trump said Thursday during an event at the White House.

The U.S. spent about $11 billion last week on the Iran war, a Pentagon official said Thursday, offering the first public estimate of the conflict’s cost — and one Democratic lawmakers insist is much higher. Jules Hurst III, the Defense Department’s acting comptroller, said the figure was a “ballpark number” during a defense summit in Washington. His office is working on a more comprehensive figure for a supplemental budget request, he said, which the Pentagon plans to submit to the White House and Congress in the coming days. “We’re looking to make sure we make the right investments and capabilities,” Hurst said. “So it’s not just replacing things, but buying new things too.” That total, for comparison, is nearly enough to build a new naval warship, such as the Ford-class aircraft carrier. The Pentagon has given lawmakers preliminary estimates of operational costs, such as munitions expenditures and flight costs, he said, declining to go into specifics. Lawmakers have said they expect the Iran supplemental request to reach at least $50 billion, based on their conversations with administration officials. The White House and Pentagon have not confirmed that number. The administration also hasn’t set a firm end date for military operations in Iran. Trump has said the operation could last for four weeks or more, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has refused to place a timeline on the missions. Outside analysts have offered varying estimates on the expense of Operation Epic Fury, which enters its third week on Saturday. An analysis from the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Security put the cost of the first 100 hours of air and naval strikes at $3.7 billion. The conservative American Enterprise Institute has calculated the operational costs so far at between $11.2 billion and $14.5 billion. Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, was among the Democrats who doubted that figure was high enough. “I don’t know whether that also includes all the operational costs of the ships, planes, fuel, staff time,” he said. “If they were to come back to us and say, ‘This is how much we have spent on this operation,’ it would have to include months of preparation and deployment, as well as munition stockpile restoration, magazine refilling, as well as operating costs.”

The Trump administration believes it can withstand a brief spike in oil prices — for as many as four weeks, as one person close to the White House suggested — before the political hit does lasting damage. Administration officials’ confidence was bolstered Tuesday when oil dropped to $80 per barrel, down from $120 this weekend, reinforcing their view that the spikes are temporary and manageable. They have three to four weeks “where they can ride out what they need to” before oil prices become a more durable political problem, said the person close to the White House, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to share details of private conversations. “Assuming the economy continues to turn around once the active part of the war is concluded, you’ll have the whole summer from May through August to ride the turnaround,” the person said. A former Trump administration official added that the administration needs a “consistent, multi-week read” of oil prices before it shifts its approach. “These temporary little gyrations are not what they’re going to be basing their policy on,” the official said. Those two people, as well as a current U.S. official, said the administration never seriously considered altering its military strategy in the face of oil price hikes. Still, the administration was caught off guard by the speed and severity of the Sunday spike, a fourth person close to the White House said. “At the worst moments [Sunday] night, it was insane,” the fourth person said. “That definitely surprised me, and it absolutely surprised them.” Instead of changing course, the administration spent much of Monday trying to soothe spooked traders worried about the disruptive impact of a prolonged war on oil supply chains. Officials also tried to allay the fears of uneasy Republicans, who see the Iran war as counter to the affordability message they believe the GOP should be pushing as it battles to retain control of Congress in the midterms. More than 7 in 10 voters said they are very concerned or somewhat concerned that the war will cause oil and gas prices to rise in the United States, according to a recent Quinnipiac Poll. White House spokesperson Taylor Rodgers said that Trump has made it clear that increased oil and gas prices are “short-term disruptions.” “Ultimately, once the military objectives are completed and the Iranian terrorist regime is neutralized, oil and gas prices will drop rapidly again, potentially even lower than before the strikes begin,” Rogers said. “As a result, American families will benefit greatly in the long-term.” In the meantime, the White House is taking steps to address oil prices, such as considering lifting sanctions on Russian oil, and continuing to telegraph that the war will be a short one. “I get a sense of concern from the administration, but not panic,” said another U.S. official, familiar with energy issues. “It’s more a curiosity — ‘Why is this happening? Aren’t there ways to counteract this? Aren’t there quick fixes to deal with this?’” Still, it’s not clear that oil prices will immediately return to their prewar levels. When it comes to oil prices, there’s the market psychology and there’s reality, including how long it takes Gulf countries to restart production if problems in the Strait of Hormuz force them to shutter operations, said Ilan Goldenberg, a former Biden administration official who dealt with the Middle East. “I have very little confidence in this White House, given how little they planned for the outcome of this war, that they have mapped out all the second- and third- order effects to oil supplies and the oil markets,” Goldenberg said. U.S. intelligence has also started to see signs that Iran is preparing to deploy mines in the Strait of Hormuz, according to CBS News, which could further complicate a return to normal oil production post-war. Trump said Tuesday he has seen no official reports that Iran is doing that. While temporary spikes in oil prices aren’t making the White House balk publicly, it is grappling with a host of other pain points. The public remains skeptical about the war and uncertain about its goals, and support is likely to erode if service member casualties increase. Seven service members have died since the start of the war a little more than a week ago. That includes six Americans who were killed after an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait and a seventh who died from injuries sustained when Iran struck a Saudi military base where U.S. troops were stationed. The Pentagon said Tuesday that about 140 U.S. service members have been injured since the war started. “This war is already unpopular with the American public, but it can get even more so,” a former administration official said. “A mass casualty event, either on the battlefield or from a terror attack here at home, is a real risk. If that were to occur, coinciding with a spike in oil prices and the inflationary implications of shipping lanes being shut down, it could set off a much wider panic both on Wall Street and on Main Street. One thing that doesn’t appear to be driving White House decisionmaking on Iran: outcry over civilian casualties. The U.S. is investigating who is responsible for a Tomahawk missile that hit an Iranian elementary school, killing 175 people, many of them children. “No nation takes more precautions to ensure there’s never targeting of civilians than the United States of America,” Hegseth said during a press conference Tuesday morning. “We take things very very seriously and investigate them thoroughly.” The U.S., meanwhile, is facing pressure from its Middle East allies to soon bring the war to a close. A person familiar with Saudi Arabia’s discussions on Iran said that the Saudis want the war to end and they “are telling the U.S. to make sure the Iranian infrastructure of oil is not hit so Iranians don’t become desperate. They have to give the Iranians an off-ramp.” If the war does drag on, however, there may be little the administration can substantively do to undo the economic damage caused by spiked oil prices. “One good thing that Trump did say was, ‘We’re a strong economy. Look, a short term spike in energy prices isn’t something to panic about.’ And, yeah, I think that’s exactly right … If somehow there’s some kind of real settlement and things go back to normal, prices will gradually go down,’” said a former Treasury official. But if it doesn’t, “there’s no magic button that’s going to address high energy prices.” Eli Stokols and Jack Detsch contributed to this report.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has gutted the Pentagon oversight offices that would have investigated the recent strike on an Iranian girls’ school — a move that has degraded America’s ability to protect civilians amid its largest air campaign in decades. The Pentagon chief last year slashed offices that didn’t contribute to his goal of “lethality,” including the group that assists in limiting risk to civilians, known as the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence. Around 200 employees who worked on the issue, including at that office, have been reduced by about 90 percent, according to two current and former officials and a person familiar with the effort. The team that handles civilian casualties at Central Command, which oversees the Middle East, has dropped from 10 to one. Hegseth can’t close the offices because they are approved by Congress. But he has managed to make them nearly inoperable, according to the people, as the Pentagon investigates its responsibility in what could be the worst U.S.-led killing of civilians since 2003. Iranian state media said the strike killed about 170 children and 14 teachers. “The fact that our secretary of Defense, that our Central Command commander, cannot actually tell us whether or not they dropped a bomb in this location, that is so unbelievably unacceptable,” said Wes Bryant, the Pentagon’s former chief of civilian harm assessments until last year. “It just points even more to recklessness in this, in the entire planning and execution of this campaign, the fact that they don’t have any idea.” Hegseth has said no other country takes as many precautions to ensure the U.S. is not targeting civilians. But the Pentagon chief, who has long derided the use of laws in war, this week called military rules of engagement “stupid.” “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt and kill the enemies of our country,” he said at a Tuesday press conference on the U.S.-Israeli military operation. “No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement, just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for warfighters.” Some defense officials worry that lack of restraint is having a damaging effect on investigations of civilian casualties, starting with the Trump administration’s strikes against Houthi forces in Yemen in 2025. “The real issue is the degree to which the administration cares,” said one defense official, who like some others interviewed, was granted anonymity out of fear of retribution. “Under an administration that cares about [civilian casualties], the center would be helpful. With or without the center, if they don’t care the center doesn’t matter.” Pentagon spokesperson Riley Podleski, when asked about the downsized offices, pointed to Hegseth’s comments about the U.S. taking precautions to protect civilians. The U.S. and Israel have hit more than 5,000 targets in Iran during the 11 day conflict. Hegseth said that Tuesday would be the “most intense day of strikes.” That heavy pace was underscored by an analysis from Airwars, a UK-based watchdog group that monitors air strikes across the globe. It reported that the first 100 hours of the military campaign against Iran hit more targets than in the first six months of the U.S.-led coalition’s bombing campaign against the Islamic State. The elementary school strike also occurred in those first hours. Iran said a U.S. missile destroyed the school, which sat next to an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base. Open source video appears to show a Tomahawk missile streaking toward the school. Only two countries other than the U.S. are known to have Tomahawk missiles: Australia and Britain, and neither is taking part in the military campaign. Hegseth said the Pentagon is investigating the strikes but did not indicate which office is doing so. “The Defense Department has defunded critically important civilian protection functions at a time when they are desperately needed,” said Annie Shiel, of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, a human rights advocacy group. It’s not just staff that are reduced, it’s also a “reduction in prioritization,” she said. “The policies are still in place. But they don’t have the resources or top-cover to implement them to their fullest extent, and that is very concerning. Ultimately, it’s civilians who pay the price.” Hegseth’s relationship to the law of war has been a strained one. He first came to President Donald Trump’s attention in 2018 as a Fox & Friend co-host, where he launched a series of segments calling for the acquittals or pardons of four U.S. troops accused of war crimes. His comments caught the attention of Trump during his first term and led to the release of the Navy SEAL and three soldiers. Two of the men, including SEAL Eddie Gallagher, had been turned in by their own men. Trump and his Cabinet members have left the campaign’s endgame open-ended. Trump on Monday said the war was “very complete, pretty much.” Hegseth, the following day, added a layer of ambiguity. It will happen “on our timeline,” he said. It will happen “at our choosing.”