Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the US Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia, housing the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the unified combatant commands including CENTCOM, which directs Middle East operations. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth leads the department under Donald Trump's second term.

On 22 April, the Pentagon gave the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) a classified briefing warning that mine clearance in the Strait of Hormuz would take up to six months after any Ceasefire — the first official timeline placed before Congress, and one that deepens the gap between Trump's verbal 'nearly over' framing and the military's operational assessment. The Pentagon ordered the 82nd Airborne headquarters to the Gulf, planned the seizure of Iranian oil infrastructure on Kharg Island, and is running CENTCOM's blockade through late April. Notably, the Pentagon was excluded from the Northwood Hormuz mission planning by British and French officers, and will only be 'briefed on the outcome'.

Beyond the Iran campaign, the Pentagon is reshaping the defence industrial landscape in 2026. It filed a classified brief against DJI, escalating a three-layer regulatory lock spanning FCC, FAR, and sealed national security arguments. A sole-source Ghost-X ISR contract worth $16.8 million was awarded to Anduril without competitive tender. On 24 April, a leaked Pentagon email proposing Spain NATO suspension and Falklands leverage over Argentine airspace denial triggered a diplomatic incident at the EU-NATO Cyprus summit.

The Iran war cost reached $29 billion by 12 May 2026, up from $25 billion a fortnight earlier, according to CBS and Bloomberg reporting. No supplemental funding bill has been submitted to Congress; the $200 billion Pentagon request remains unfunded and the administration is financing the campaign from existing appropriations. At $29bn against a six-week campaign, the daily burn rate has risen substantially above the $400 million per day CSIS assessed in March.

Defence Secretary Hegseth testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee on 12 May that Article 2 of the US Constitution provides the legal basis for the Iran campaign, removing the AUMF requirement Congress has sought to impose. This reframes the Pentagon's authorisation posture: CENTCOM's 61-vessel blockade, Operation EPIC FURY's air campaign, and any further action are characterised as presidential self-defence authority, not acts of war requiring legislative approval. The Pentagon's classified HASC briefing on Hormuz mine clearance — up to six months post-Ceasefire — now sits against Hegseth's doctrine that the executive branch can continue operations indefinitely without congressional sign-off.