New Report Reveals True Extent of Devastation of US Fifth Fleet HQ in Bahrain
Another ‘bombshell’ has been released by WSJ regarding the extent of the damage dished out by Iran onto US regional bases, corroborated by detailed new satellite photos:
The most shocking revelation from the report surrounded findings about the US’s NSA (Naval Support Activity) Bahrain base, where the Fifth Fleet Headquarters are housed.
Less than 150 miles from Iran’s southern coast, NSA Bahrain has been the anchor of American naval power in the Middle East for more than three decades. The base can host every type of ship in the U.S. fleet, and has played a critical role in countering Iranian weapon smuggling, minelaying and tanker attacks.
They report that the US Fifth Fleet Headquarters has been rendered “unusable”—at least in part—after taking a huge ballistic strike:
That building alone, according to the report, is estimated at $200 million. The total for the rest of the Bahrain base was double that:
The damage to that HQ and other bases was so extensive that the US is apparently considering moving some of them “further west” rather than rebuilding them:
The military is now considering revamping the base in Bahrain, reducing the U.S. presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and moving some bases or base functions west, farther from the reach of Iranian missiles and drones, according to the officials familiar with the deliberations.
Structures that were attacked may not be rebuilt. Command and control nodes could be moved underground. And military capabilities could become more spread out across the region, the officials said, though they cautioned that no decisions had been made.
They write that the CSIS estimated the damage to the bases could be as high as an eye-watering $5 billion dollars:
Pentagon comptroller Jay Hurst told Congress last month that the department’s estimated cost of the war, then at $29 billion, didn’t include damage to U.S. bases.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated in a report published Tuesday that the total cost of the war was about $40 billion. That estimate included their calculus of $2.2 billion to $5.1 billion in damage to U.S. bases, based on structures that CSIS identified as damaged.
The base was like a small American city, with all its trappings and excesses:
“We’ve been there for more than 50 years, and the base grew up the way the base grew up,” said retired Vice Adm. John “Fozzie” Miller, who commanded U.S. naval forces in the Middle East. “I think there are some things we would do differently.”
As the only U.S. posting in the Middle East where families could live, the base functioned like a small American city, with a softball field, restaurants, a naval exchange and a school. Sailors who spent weeks at sea would pull into Bahrain and head to the base to decompress.
Retired Marine Corps colonel Mark Cancian laments that last time he was at the now-ravaged base, troops were taking part in an innocent little rite of imperial hedonism, or in other words a “dance party”:
“When I was there last time, they were having a dance party,” said Cancian, who was based at NSA Bahrain twice.
As the saying goes, I guess “the party’s over.”
And this closing from the WSJ piece truly emblemizes that:
The US has long been lax, never expecting anyone to dare strike its bases directly, probably as the Romans didn’t expect Odoacer to sack the throne in their final terminally ill period. Or maybe they just didn’t care anymore. The US had coasted on its aura of “invincibility” for so long that its core had been hollowed out; by the time Iran struck, the once “feared” US was a shell of its former self, and its bases were vaporized with little effort.
The entire Imperium is disintegrating at the peripheries and the US no longer has the tensile strength left to keep a grip on it. All its remaining resources are wasted to be shuttled back and forth, plugging gaps and putting out fires, here in Ukraine, there in the Gulf region.
But hey, the dance parties sure are sweet! …at least until the hypersonic screams start drowning out the DJ’s tunes.
The Empire has no clothes, as has been revealed almost daily, with the latest affirming news that F-35s are in fact now being delivered to the US Marine Corps without any radars:
The above news had come months ago, but many “experts” claimed it was being misinterpreted and that F-35 jets were not actually being delivered with no radars.
Now we’ve got the final word on the matter straight from the head of the F-35 Joint Program Office this week:
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Masiello, head of the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), disclosed the acceptance of the six radarless F-35Bs at a hearing before members of the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this week. This came as part of a larger back-and-forth between Masiello and Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat and a retired naval aviator, about F-35 readiness rates across the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy, which have long been a point of concern.
“We have accepted six aircraft for the Marine Corps that do not have a radar installed. That is correct,” Masiello confirmed.
Kelly then asked if this was due to a lack of available AN/APG-85 radars, which Masiello also confirmed.
When it comes to the continuing saga of the AN/APG-85, F-35s are now being delivered without any radars, and it could be years still before that changes.
Read that again—it could be years before F-35s can be delivered with radars.
The even more devastating revelation was that the F-35 mission readiness rate has plunged to an abysmal 25%:
Two weeks ago, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a Congressional watchdog, released a report stating that the average F-35 full mission capable (FMC) rate across all variants had fallen from 38 to 25 percent between Fiscal Years 2020 and 2025. GAO defines FMC as an aircraft “that can perform all of its missions.” The F-35 JPO has not disputed GAO’s figures directly, but has openly disagreed with the methodology it uses to determine FMC.
That means only 25% of all F-35s are able to perform all their missions at any given time, while the rest suffer through hangar queen syndrome. The program has turned into a veritable joke at this point.
These latest findings come at a particularly relevant time given that hostilities between the US and Iran rekindled tonight, with each trading more shots as Trump accused Iran of allegedly hitting a ship in the strait:
It’s worth mentioning that under the guise of playing footsie with the dementedly neurotic US regime, Iran has been making economic waves to secure its future.
Not only did Russia’s Zakharova announce that Iran has begun pushing to accelerate the new International North-South Transport Corridor which would link Russia, Iran, India, the Persian Gulf, and more via sea, rail, and road:
Responding to a question about the fate of the railway construction project for the Rasht-Astara section — a key link in the western branch of the INSTC — Zakharova confirmed that engineering surveys for the future route resumed as soon as the military-political situation allowed.
But there are also reports that Iran is moving forward on another seminal project which links Iran to China via rail under a common railway gauge:
Iran continues to make advancements toward securing its future and slowly reshaping the regional economic and geopolitical geography, all while the US rages and struts impotently:
In conjunction with the generational removal of US bases and assets—which sources like the WSJ earlier admitted could be permanent—one thing’s for certain: the future of the region now has a completely new trajectory.
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19th Century Britain built its power on the back of its manufacturing dominance. 20th Century America built its power on the back of its manufacturing dominance. Then they deindustrialised and found out that a hollowed out economy can’t support military supremacy.
As much important, or more, how many American soldiers have died and were seriously injured.
Likely in tens and hundreds.
They were eliminated not only at military bases, but at makeshift command and control centres settled in industrial barracks, mobile units, containers ad hoc arrangements and at commercial office spaces. Easy to count them if they were near base, but not if tens of kilometres away at industrial parks.
Some were targeted at hotels to which they were hastily relocated. They were grassed to Iranian military by employees of that hotels, even if they were undercover in civilian clothing, pretending to be tourists etc. But haircut, behaviour, group socialising would give them off.
One base was relocated back home to USA, soldiers and their families were told to pack up only personal items into small rucksacks, airplane hand luggage and moved to airport within tens of minutes. That means total collapse of defence and imminent threat.
Shia Muslims, the locals and, even more so, migrant workers employed at that hotels, restaurants, were photographing suspects, their cars, giving their coordinates and later posting images from damage.