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The facts
A report released by the Pentagon’s inspector general on Monday has officially detailed significant losses incurred by the United States from Iranian attacks between February 28 and June 30. The report states that the US lost dozens of aircraft, including at least 30 MQ-9 Reaper drones, and that hundreds of buildings and structures at US military installations across Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan were damaged or destroyed. The total cost of damage to US diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE alone was estimated at $184 million. The report also acknowledged that the US is experiencing munition stockpile shortages and supply chain “bottlenecks,” a claim that contradicts President Donald Trump’s previous statements asserting the US has “virtually unlimited” ammunition. The Department of Defense reported that at least 11 US military personnel were killed in action and seven died in non-hostile events during the conflict. Additionally, 417 US military personnel were wounded in Iranian attacks. The report noted that the Iraq mission faced over 600 attacks, costing up to nearly $157 million, with the US Consulate General in Erbil’s new compound suffering damage to multiple buildings and the US Embassy in Baghdad also sustaining damage.
Our take
Well, shit. The Pentagon's own inspector general has finally filed the official receipt for America's four-month-long, multi-billion-dollar pratfall in the Gulf, and it turns out we weren't just winning so much we were getting tired of winning. We were getting our asses handed to us in a spectacularly expensive demolition job. Dozens of aircraft, including at least thirty of those fancy MQ-9 Reaper drones that cost more than a suburban neighborhood, are now just smoking craters and spare parts for Iranian engineers. Hundreds of buildings across eight different countries got the structural equivalent of a surprise home inspection from Tehran, with the final bill for just the diplomatic wreckage coming in at a cool $184 million. Remember when the official line was that all those incoming strikes were being heroically intercepted and thwarted? Yeah, the report bullshitted that fantasy into dust. The interceptors must have been using pillows.
The logistical fuckery is its own special kind of comedy. The military was apparently running around the desert like a guy who showed up to a paintball fight but forgot his gun and his pants. They had 'bottlenecks' in supply chains and were running short on munitions, which directly contradicts the Commander-in-Chief's bold, strategic assessment that we have 'virtually unlimited' ammunition. Trump saw the report and just doubled down, announcing we're making 'more Exquisite and Elite Weapons than at any time in our History'. Exquisite and Elite are doing a lot of work there, probably describing the gold leaf on the condolence letters to the families of the 11 killed in action and 417 wounded. Nothing says 'elite' like your premier jet-powered KC-135 tanker crashing in Iraq or your embassy in Kuwait shutting down because the building is full of holes.
They even had to shift logistics to Diego Garcia, which created the brilliant problem of everything taking two and a half weeks to arrive by boat. So if you're a soldier in Jordan running out of ammo while an Iranian drone circles overhead, just hold tight, because the resupply ship packed with 'Exquisite and Elite' gear left port 14 days ago and is currently battling seasickness. The embassy in Riyadh got dinged by two drones for $11.5 million in damages. The consulate in Dubai lost a utility building for a piddly $120,000 - that's practically a rounding error in this festival of destruction, like the cost of the 'Get Well Soon' balloon bouquet sent to the entire U.S. Central Command.
And let's not forget the pièce de résistance of imperial humiliation: Iran managed to 'capture a US submersible Dive-LD'. We got our fucking underwater robot stolen. In the middle of a shooting war, the Iranian navy went fishing and reeled in a piece of American taxpayer-funded spy tech. The report is a meticulous, dryly written catalog of a superpower getting its pocket picked, its car keyed, and its garage burned down while the president stood on the lawn shouting about how rich he is. It's the ultimate audit of failure, proving you can have all the Elite Weapons in the world, but if you can't get them to the fight, or if they get blown up as soon as they land, you're just operating a very costly clay pigeon range for the Iranian military. The only thing 'unlimited' here is the capacity for embarrassing, expensive bullshit.
