On March 18 local time, The Washington Post, citing a senior U.S. government official, reported that the U.S. Department of Defense had requested the White House's approval to apply to Congress for a budget exceeding $200 billion for the war against Iran.

As previously reported, on the 11th local time, U.S. defense officials told lawmakers during a closed-door briefing in Congress that in the first six days of large-scale U.S. military operations against Iran, military expenditures had already surpassed $11.3 billion.

This estimate did not include many costs associated with the operations, such as the mobilization of military equipment and personnel prior to the initial airstrikes. Therefore, as the Pentagon continues to tally the costs, lawmakers anticipate that this figure will rise significantly.

Defense officials stated during a recent congressional briefing that the U.S. military had expended munitions worth $5.6 billion in the first two days of the conflict.

The scale of U.S. military spending and the rate of ammunition consumption are far higher than previously disclosed levels. A report released on the 5th by the U.S. think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), estimated that the cost of U.S. military operations in the first 100 hours amounted to 3.7billion,equatingtoapproximately890 million per day.

The CSIS analysis suggests that the war is costing around $890 million a day. U.S. media have stated that the war, which Trump described as one that the U.S. "can't afford to lose," is rapidly evolving into a war that the U.S. "can't afford to fight."