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.
If Israel makes military targets of the US Navy then that’s going to be real “fuck around and find out” territory. Helping from afar was inadequate, so now we’re going to be helping in person.
The last time Israel attacked a US Navy ship “by mistake”, they paid a few million in reparations in total, facing no retaliation. Let’s see if that changes.