Transcription
Ketevan Gorgestani, our international affairs editor, who's with me here in Paris. And Ketevan, look, um talk to us about a different angle of this story, because while the ceasefire is still holding between Iran and the United States, and we're learning a little bit more now, aren't we, about the damage that the US has suffered to some of its assets in the Gulf. What can you tell us?
Well, look, there's a new investigation done by The Washington Post that reveals that the extent of the damage inflicted by the Iranians to US assets in the Gulf has been is much larger than previously analyzed and acknowledged by the United States. First of all, there's the structural damage. According to The Washington Post, there are at least 217 structures linked to the US military and 11 major pieces of equipment that were destroyed or damaged by Iranian fire at 15 US bases across seven countries in the Gulf. Everything from hangars and barracks to important aircraft and communication systems.
But structural damage is not the only thing. There are also human casualties. We remember those seven US service members were killed by Iranian fire, separate from the six who died in an accident. But now we also know that there are more than 400 troops injured. And according to Washington Post sources, at least a dozen of these injures have been injured very seriously.
Now, the United States in the Gulf has presence and bases pretty much everywhere in the Gulf. And among some of the strategic sites that the Iranians managed to hit are these. The satellite communication sites, for example, at Al Udeid base in Qatar. Remember that picture of the E-3 Sentry aircraft that was hit and damaged very strongly by the Iranians. That was on the Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia. The Iranians also managed to hit very crucial strategic locations, the US Navy Central Command headquarters in the region in Bahrain, as well as a Camp Arifjan that is in Kuwait and that is home to the US Army's regional headquarters. And according to the Washington Post, Bahrain and Kuwait were some of the most the hardest hit locations because this these two countries had allowed the Americans to use their bases there to directly strike the Iranians and that could be the reason why they were hit so hard by the Iranians.
Experts cited by the Washington Post don't believe that these attacks significantly sort of hampered or limited the US's ability to project force and bomb Iran. But they do say that this shows that maybe the United States at least underestimated the capabilities of the Iranians, especially when it comes to drone warfare because a lot of these attacks were actually done by drones and not always by missiles.
Okay, so that was a look at the American assets that have been damaged, Ketevan. What about how much this has cost the United States?
Well, we have an official price tag that was presented by the Pentagon very officially to Congress and that price tag is 25 billion dollars for the first sort of 7 to 8 weeks of conflict, but some lawmakers are now questioning the accuracy of this number. First of all, because it only seems to include things like munitions, operations, maintenance, but not what we have just talked about, which is the cost of those damages to US military assets. According to a CNN report, repairing and replacing some of the destroyed facilities, the destroyed assets, equipment, could add at least 15 billion dollars to that 25 billion dollar a price tag.
Then you have to add to that the cost of the ongoing naval blockade, for example, south of the Strait of Hormuz. And then there's also the operational cost that has depleted the stockpiles of the United States armed forces. There's been an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies done and they look at how much has been used in the stockpiles. 45% of the US's precision strike missiles, 50% of those THAAD missile interceptors, nearly half of the Patriot missile interceptors, a third of the long-range Tomahawk weapons. Not only do these weapons cost about a few million each, at least for the cheaper ones, but replacing them will take several years. The earliest some of these things can be delivered is three to four years.
And so the conclusion of this analysis is not that the US cannot carry out a conflict with Iran. They say that the US has enough to continue a war, whatever turn that conflict might take with Iran. Where they see a risk and where they see a worry is what happens if the US has to fight another conflict in the next few years, somewhere else, for example, in the Indo-Pacific. They believe that maybe the United States would have trouble replenishing some of these stockpiles in time to be able to fight another conflict somewhere else in the world.
All right, really interesting. Thank you very much, Ketevan Gorjestani, for us there.