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.

  • talEnglish
    52·
    6 months ago

    Eh, chalk it up as a training exercise. Rapid construction of docks is something that might need to happen in an amphibious assault. We had to do it for D-Day.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbour

    In the autumn of 1942, the Chief of Combined Operations Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, outlined the requirement for piers at least one mile (1.6 km) long at which a continuous stream of supplies could be handled, including a pier head capable of handling 2,000-ton ships.

    Maybe try to figure out how to do it more-cost-effectively based on this.

    And I wouldn’t be surprised if people in the Levant will be using it for a long time to come, so someone will get good out of it.