Iranian strikes inflicted billions in damage to US intel assets
Iranian missile and drone attacks have inflicted damage on US intelligence posts and surveillance hardware in the Middle East that is more extensive than any destruction America’s spy agencies have endured and will cost billions of dollars to repair, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.
Since CIA was established in 1947, it has never experienced attacks on its facilities and equipment on a similar scale, the officials told NBC News,
Iranian missiles and drones hit intelligence sites as well as conventional military targets, including a CIA office in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and an intelligence center in Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah Province.
Radar systems and other surveillance equipment were also struck, along with fixed electronic intelligence stations, satellite communications systems and data-processing centers.
Power lines and cooling systems needed to operate high-technology equipment were damaged, reducing Washington’s ability to monitor developments across the Middle East.
The strikes also spread across a wide geographic area, with an earlier assessment finding more than 100 targets.
Those countries included Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the report said while it put the number of damaged US bases at 16.
The financial toll is enormous, with the American Enterprise Institute estimating that infrastructure repairs alone could exceed $5 billion, excluding damaged equipment and weapons.
The US Department of War requested $67 billion in emergency funding in late July, including $18.2 billion to replenish Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) and other advanced missiles.
The cost of the wider war has also been staggering, with Bloomberg reporting that the US fired 13,629 munitions at Iranian targets between February and April.