The $320 million pier the United States built in Gaza to speed food and other aid to Gaza civilians has been virtually destroyed in what the Pentagon is calling "heavy seas."
Why can the government execute a half baked plan to deliver aid to Gaza on a floating pier that doesn’t float and wastes +$300 million… while millions of Americas are struggling financially?
— Nathan Spearing (@thespearing) May 28, 2024
Because they don’t have to make that money. They just steal it from you, reappropriate… pic.twitter.com/fEGgjYWsxG
If you ever feel useless or stupid remember that the US government spent $320,000,000 on a pier in Gaza that broke down and sank a few days after completion. pic.twitter.com/31nDRP5SWJ
— Dispropaganda (@Dispropoganda) May 28, 2024
The pier opened on May 17. It was shut down for several days because no one thought to provide security for the trucks rolling off the causeway. More than 70% of the aid was stolen before it even got to the warehouse.
Don't worry, America. The pier will be towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod where it will be reassembled and towed back to its location so that the trickle of aid to Gazan civilians will continue. That is, at least until it experiences "heavy seas" again or, God forbid, a storm just blows it away.
This is the perfect metaphor for the Biden presidency: poorly planned, poorly executed, and incompetently managed.
Part of the pier, which consists of a narrow causeway to drive aid into Gaza and a wider parking area to drop off supplies transported by ship, disconnected on Sunday, the officials said. The parking area will have to be reconnected to the causeway before the pier can be used again.
The damage, first reported by NBC News, occurred three days after heavy seas forced two small US Army vessels to beach in Israel, according to US Central Command, while another two vessels broke free of their moorings and were anchored near the pier.
“I believe most of our soldiers were able to remain on the vessels and still are currently on them,” Singh said during Tuesday’s Pentagon press briefing. “And … within the next 24 or 48 hours, the Israeli Navy will be helping push those vessels back and hopefully they’ll be fully operational by then.”
The heavy seas forced two small U.S. Army vessels to beach after being tied up to the pier and two other ships broke free from their moorings and floated out to sea.
The pier was constructed by a little-known and rarely used capability known as the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, which includes both Army and Navy personnel. Incredibly, the military knew the limitations of building a pier in Gaza and went ahead with it anyway.
The temporary pier, called the Joint Logistics Over the Shore (JLOTS), requires very good sea conditions to operate. CNN reported previously that JLOTS can only be operated safely in a maximum of 3-foot waves and winds less than approximately 15 miles per hour.
Heavier sea conditions delayed the deployment of the pier for several weeks, as the system sat docked in the Israeli port of Ashdod waiting for favorable conditions.
The US has stressed that the temporary pier is only meant to augment humanitarian shipments going through the land crossings between Israel and Gaza.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said that “Mother Nature has a say here” in how the pier works. "Even in the summertime, [it] can be a pretty tough place," he added.
Maybe someone should have thought of that before "Mother Nature" washed away $320 million.
The "temporary pier" has to operate for more than 10 days and offload a lot more than the 1,000 tons the U.S. claims it has offloaded. It's unknown how much of that aid has actually been delivered to Gazans and how much Hamas has stolen.
This was a terrible, awful, stupid idea that Biden should be wholly blamed.
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