Biden’s Failed Gaza Pier to be Permanently Retired In A Few Days
An egregious waste of a whopping $230 million of your money, that resulted in injured servicepersons, almost no aid delivered, and embarrassment to the U.S., passes into the dustbin of history.
It didn’t take long for the Gaza Pier to become a floating slow-moving train wreck:
• Biden’s Gaza Floating Port Plan Generating Concern Among Military Professionals
• Report: Gaza Terrorists Attack U.S. Humanitarian Pier During Construction Work
• Biden’s Gaza “Pier to Nowhere” a Disaster and National Embarrassment, Breaks Apart
And now, in one final kick in the you-know-what, the Biden Administration has announced that the Gaza Pier will be dismantled.
From the Associated Press: US-built pier will be put back in Gaza for several days to move aid, then permanently removed:
The pier built by the U.S. military to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza will be reinstalled Wednesday to be used for several days, but then the plan is to pull it out permanently, several U.S. officials said. It would deal the final blow to a project long plagued by bad weather, security uncertainties and difficulties getting food into the hands of starving Palestinians.
The officials said the goal is to clear whatever aid has piled up in Cyprus and on the floating dock offshore and get it to the secure area on the beach in Gaza. Once that has been done, the Army will dismantle the pier and depart….
U.S. troops removed the pier on June 28 because of bad weather and moved it to the port of Ashdod in Israel. But distribution of the aid had already stopped due to the security concerns….
As a result, aid brought through the pier into the secure area on the beach piled up for days while talks continued between the U.N. and Israel. More recently, the World Food Program hired a contractor to move the aid from the beach to prevent the food and other supplies from spoiling….
And the weather now is projected only to get worse.
The pier was damaged by high winds and heavy seas on May 25, just a bit more than a week after it began operating, and was removed for repairs. It was reconnected on June 7, but removed again due to bad weather on June 14. It was put back days later, but heavy seas again forced its removal on June 28.
There is simply no way to describe this operation other than as a disaster. In one of the videos there are porta potties floating around.
From my perspective, there is no way U.S. military planners didn’t know that this would be of marginal to no utility, but they obviously were overridden by an administration desperate for feel-good talking points about delivering humanitarian aid, regardless of the actual results.
What a waste.
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