Pete Hegseth is finally due to appear before the House armed services committee at 10am ET, giving lawmakers their first opportunity to publicly question the defense secretary since the US and Israel launched war on Iran over two months ago.

Since the war began, Hegseth and General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have only given press conferences and haven’t testified before Congress. Caine is also set to testify today. They are both also due to appear before the Senate armed services committee tomorrow.

Today’s appearance is formally billed as a routine hearing on the Pentagon’s budget request (the administration is requesting a record $1.5tn in defense spending, and the request was put together before the war), and comes amid intensifying questions over the rate at which the department is depleting weapon stockpiles.

Hegseth is also likely to face scrutiny over civilian casualties in the war on Iran – not least the horrendous strike on an Iranian girls’ school that killed at least 175 people, most of them children. We can also expect questions on the US’s strategic rationale for the war, the effectiveness of the US-Israeli bombing campaign, the US’s preparedness for retaliatory strikes from Tehran, the strait of Hormuz crisis, his abrupt firings of senior defense officials, and more.

“Pete Hegseth’s got a lot to answer to from this disastrous war,” Jason Crow, a Democratic representative on the House committee, told Politico. “How much is this costing? What’s the end game?”

Pennsylvania Democrat Chris Deluzio told the outlet that Hegseth has been “dodging congressional questions about the Iran war since day one”.

We’ll be watching the hearing and will you bring you all the key lines here.