House Armed Services Committee

The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) has emerged as one of the few institutional checkpoints on the undeclared US war in Iran. House Republicans declined to authorise the conflict, and the committee has repeatedly challenged the administration over the absence of a war powers request and the scale of unappropriated spending .

On 22 April 2026, HASC received a classified Pentagon briefing confirming that Hormuz mine clearance could take up to six months after a Ceasefire — the first time Congress was given an official timeline on post-war reopening . Then on 29 April, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth filed a 27-page FY27 Posture Statement to HASC, signed Secretary of War. The phrase 'Department of War' appears 18 times in the appropriations text; Operation EPIC FURY is named in a congressional document for the first time; NATO allies who refused base and overflight rights are condemned as 'unconscionable, and we will remember'; the Iran war cost is stated as $25 billion and the FY27 budget request is $1.5 trillion — 40% above FY26 .

HASC is the primary House body responsible for defence authorisation legislation, overseeing armed forces, weapons acquisition, and the legal frameworks governing military operations. A formal War Powers Resolution defeat in the House at 219-212 demonstrated the administration had only the narrowest of margins — and that the committee could yet become the vehicle for forcing accountability on the $200 billion supplemental request that Republican leaders admitted they lacked votes to pass .