The U.S. military’s cost estimate to build a pier off Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid has risen to $320 million, a U.S. defense official and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The figure, which has not been previously reported, illustrates the massive scale of a construction effort that the Pentagon has said involves about 1,000 U.S. service members, mostly from the Army and Navy.

Still, the cost has roughly doubled from initial estimates earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“The cost has not just risen. It has exploded,” Senator Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Democratic-led Senate Armed Services Committee, told Reuters, when asked about the costs.

  • maynarkh@feddit.nl
    0·
    6 months ago

    How is mobilizing US Military land vehicles across the middle east any logistically different than sending 10 naval vessels?

    Time. The US military prides itself on being able to mobilize worldwide in hours. So instead of taking months to construct a dock, which the starving people of Gaza don’t have, they could take hours to get some people there.

    If anything that would be more costly.

    Nobody is arguing money here, if anything, less money into the region, specifically Israel, would be nice. Time is the elephant in the room.

    Plus, they’ll just get caught up at the checkpoints set up by Israeli military the same as the other convoys.

    Not if they have orders not to stop, and US diplomatic channels hammer that home before they get there. If the US used actual pressure, Israel would fold like a house of cards, just as they did last time.

    Because, generally, starting gunfights is frowned upon, so instead they fall back on beaurocracy.

    Even the bureaucracy would be enough. The US could tell Israel that they won’t get a penny if they continue this course of action any day, and Israel would back down, as they did before. They don’t so they don’t.

    The US is doing worse than fuck-all, it’s actively trying to put all its diplomatic power into running cover for Israel’s genocide, and Israel is humiliating the US in turn, while taking their money. Moreover, the whole thing could influence the US elections in a way that would result in a US dictatorship. It’s mind-bogglingly insane.

    • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
      01·
      6 months ago

      Lmao, land convoys are NOT faster than the Navy for supplying food and water. I can’t even begin to understand your position if you think something so silly.

      Skipping the bureaucracy is better than dealing with the bureaucracy. The fact that your message is inconsistent by saying the naval ships aren’t enough, but instead intentionally getting stalled at the border would be enough, seems ridiculous.