By Anjali Sharma
WASHINGTON – According to media reports on Saturday Iran and its allies have damaged at least 16 US military sites across eight Middle Eastern countries during the US-Israeli war with Iran began on February 28, rendered some of those positions virtually unusable
The damaged facilities constitute the majority of US military sites in the region, according to the media report, citing a congressional aide familiar with the damage assessments.
“There has been a spectrum of assessments,” a source said. “From a pretty dramatic side, of the whole facility is destroyed and needs to be shut down, to leaders who say these things are worth repairing due to the strategic benefit they give the US.”
The satellite images showed that Tehran’s main targets included US advanced radar systems, communications systems and aircraft deployed in the Middle East, many of them expensive and difficult to replace, said the report, which drew on dozens of satellite images and interviews with sources in the United States and Gulf Arab nations.
The congressional aide said “It’s notable they really identified those facilities as the most cost-effective targets to hit,” “Our radar systems (are) our most expensive and our most limited resources in the region.”
Acting Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst III told lawmakers on Wednesday that the conflict with Iran had so far cost US taxpayers 25 billion USD.
The repairs to the US Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters could total $200 million alone, one congressional official told US media after a Pentagon assessment.
An external assessment from the American Enterprise Institute showed Iranian forces also struck Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, a runway at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, and a munitions storage facility at a military base in northern Iraq, as per US media reports.
