Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known

https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran/iran-caused-extensive-damage-us-military-bases-publicly-known-rcna331853

by hggh • 3 months ago

148 155 3 months ago

oa3355• 3 months ago

my thesis is that the IRGC has successfully established deterrence by demonstrating relative resilience against US attacks (still have boats and missiles), ability to meaningfully strike US bases and its Allies, and willingness to sacrifice a lot of Irans civilian infrastructure. its hard to sift through the propaganda on both sides, but I haven't yet seen anything to disprove this convincingly. anyone else?

karmakurtisaani4• 3 months ago

I also believe they have the upper hand as they are willing to play the long game. It's like when Russia attacked Ukraine, they gambled on taking Kiev with paratroopers on the first few days. Didn't work and they got stuck.

It will be ironic if Iran gets a stronger position than they had before the war as a consequence of a peace treaty.

ajross8• 3 months ago

It's not really an "if". Iran is in a stronger geopolitical position (than the one they held before the war) today. Any deal they make can only improve things for them, by definition (or else they wouldn't take it).

That's precisely the trap the Trump administration has created for itself. If the only way out is to lose, then you've already lost. And Iran knows it.

maxglute5• 3 months ago

IMO Ability to break US forward base sancturary breaks entire US expeditionary model. US+co land basing responsible for most of strike sortie generation/sustainment. Carriers are mathematically supplementary in theatre level conflicts.

Degrade land based strike sorties and support sorties and push CVG back to ~1000km (where strike stories drop to ~50% due to tanking) = entire strike sortie sustainment math breaks hard. Less strike sorties -> even more dependence on high-end munitions. Combined with resilient antiair also denied US ability to move to budget (i.e. JDAM) mop up phase. Strategically Iran being able to soak US damage and still fire back = US air campaign tactically failed to degrade Iran missile complex chokehold over region. Consider US used up ~half of highend standoff and interceptors (if you believe CSIS) then status quo after crippling forward bases simply broke US war logistics. US cannot sustain (not even matter of afford) to fight Iran with current highend munition burnrate + cvg sortie generation, and and defeat Iran tactically to rely on lowend munitions without more political exposure, i.e. a few more pilot rescues going to start meaningfully chip away at US CSAR fleet. Nevermind political fallout of failed rescue or F35 down in Iranian soil.

Hence Trump pivoted to threatened civil infra / counter-value, US saw limits / diminishing returns on ability to neutralize remaining Iranian counter-force threats. US simply cannot afford to prosecute prolonged counter-force standoff air campaig without further strategic exhaustion. Same reason Iran shifted to counter-value oil/infra because the damage to US basing already done, and their ability to degrade US CSG sorties limited.

Obviously this applies to WestPac.

oa3355• 3 months ago

thanks for your insights. do you have a background in defense?

much of what you are saying sounds plausible to me, but i really don't know much about modern military tactics. do you have any suggestions for where i can learn more about that topic wrt how it applies to this war?

Obviously this applies to WestPac

do you mean a a potential war with China? i dont think China has leverage over a critical choke point like Hormuz and is instead exposed to one (Malacca) that US would surely blockade.

basisword• 3 months ago

Not surprising. In years to come I'm sure we'll find the USG has lied as much to the public during this war as Russia and North Korea would to their citizens. The "laundry fire". The pilot "rescue". The lack of transparency on injuries and casualties. Look at Netanyahu's recent health issues. He didn't lie - he 'delayed the report'.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 months ago

I think they just have a different strategy and goals than we in the West expect. We seem to think if we just kill a lot more of their guys that victory is certain but that's not the case.

statguy4• 3 months ago

This has massive strategic implications for the US. The US couldn't protect its bases in the middle east from a middle power like Iran and in fact its bases were the reason that its "allies" in the gulf were attacked. Iran would have no reason to attack those allies otherwise. The US has also shown that Israel is the only ally that it really cares about.

Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Australia are taking notes. Prediction: there is not going to be a war over Taiwan - Taiwan will gradually come to a Hong Kong like agreement with China.

actionfromafar2• 3 months ago

That's a pretty wild prediction - Taiwan is also a middle power and could beef up if it wants to.

nradov• 3 months ago

Nah. Seeing how China reneged on the "one country, two systems" promise and wrecked Hong Kong has turned the Taiwanese people more firmly against reunification.

Iran would be attacking other nearby states regardless of whether they host US military bases. Iran has a long history of aggression, including sponsoring terrorist groups. Personally I favor a less interventionist US foreign policy but even if we completely disengaged from the Middle East it would still be a violent neighborhood — probably even more so.

pazimzadeh11• 3 months ago

Iran has a long history of aggression, including sponsoring terrorist groups

The US has a longer history of aggression and sponsoring terrorist groups:

Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/26/exclusive-cia-files-pro...

  During the Iran–Iraq War, which began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran on 22 September 1980,[1] the United States adopted a policy of providing support to Iraq in the form of several billion dollars' worth of economic aid, dual-use technology, intelligence sharing (e.g., IMINT), and special operations training.[2] This U.S. support, along with support from most of the Arab world, proved vital in helping Iraq sustain military operations against Iran.[3] The documented sale of dual-use technology, with one notable example being Iraq's acquisition of 45 Bell helicopters in 1985,[4][5] was effectively a workaround for a ban on direct arms transfers; U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East dictated that Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism because of the Iraqi government's historical ties with groups like the Palestinian Liberation Front and the Abu Nidal Organization, among others.[6] However, this designation was removed in 1982 to facilitate broader support for the Iraqis as the conflict dragged on in Iran's favour.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq...

statguy4• 3 months ago

The Taiwanese know they can't take on China directly, they now know that Western support is meaningless - in fact it pushes them more into conflict with China. Given a choice, I think the Taiwanese would prefer a Hong Kong like outcome to a Ukraine/UAE like outcome.

AFAIK Iran never directly attacked several countries (e.g. UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi, Bahrain) before this war.

tim3334• 3 months ago

I think an EU type agreement might be the way to go. Separate countries but in a union. I know Xi would hate it as he wants to be the ruler of all but compare say France and Germany - years of peace under the EU arrangement with Ukraine / Russia with both countries getting wrecked.

Balgair• 3 months ago

Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Australia are taking notes.

Donny also goes back on his word constantly. Look at all the trade agreements that he signed before 'liberation day'. Look at really everything afterwards too.

Even if Iran wanted to sign something, they can't. It will mean nothing. They know that.

pram• 3 months ago

One thing I noticed in the videos on Twitter of quadcopter type drones being flown into US bases in Iraq, is there doesn't seem to be any current defense. They were flying around with impunity, taking their time looking for a target. It's definitely scary.

general1465• 3 months ago

It could be either unused base (Camp Victory in Iraq) or fiber optic drones, which are effectively invisible for current systems because you need to have good enough radar to see them thanks to their size and used material and they are not having any RF emissions like usual FPV drone would have

throwawaypath• 3 months ago

Those are not US bases, those were Iraqi Armed Forced bases.

tim3334• 3 months ago

There's a lot of that going on in the Ukraine war. Defenses include other drones to take out the attacking drones, shooting them down and cutting communications to them.

consumer451• 3 months ago

The US defense industry is trying to build shareholder value. The Ukrainian defense industry is fighting for its life.

Here is the craziest thing in Ukraine. We don't even have terms for this, it looks like "air-launched high-speed quad-copter interceptor?"

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:v7762wvbhnna4t4gptkbjogc/po...

Bender7• 3 months ago

I would expect more of this. Most of Iran's military infrastructure is deep under 500 to 800 meters of hard rock, heavily funded by US tax dollars bully lunch money and the oil industry. Most everyone else's military infrastructure is mostly on the surface just begging for attention.

My personal preference would have been that the US had built it's bases in the same manor is Iran or better. At least I think we could have possibly done better. Keeping most infrastructure under ground means less dependency on power for cooling, more surface land for other functions. Maybe put some earth-bermed greenhouses on the surface and grow some produce for the locals.

philipwhiuk• 3 months ago

You can't rapidly scale up an FOB under 800m of rock and you can't land planes underground.

Bender7• 3 months ago

For sure no fast FOB but they can store planes underground and they can be towed out and prepped fast just as they are doing with their missiles today. The wings come off rather easily. My remote site ordered one by mistake from the old CAMS system. The driver was just as confused as we were.

I should add that one way to think of it is that Iran built those amazing underground missile cities just for the US to take over. It won't be easy and there will be mass casualties but I think that since we paid for them we should annex them. Some countries in northern Europe have similar underground bases. I would love to visit them. The closest to that I have been inside was NORAD.

actionfromafar2• 3 months ago

An AWACS was picked off sitting on the ground, that's a bad look. It took Russia years to get to that stage in the war.

One has to wonder how much of the bad US performance is due to deep, systemic problems and how much is due to a rushed and unplanned military operation.

sam_lowry_• 3 months ago

Russia lost its own AWACS early 2022 to a DJI drone attack, IIRC

tim3334• 3 months ago

There was a certain arrogance from Trump - the Ukrainians offered to help out with years of up to date experience countering Iranian style done warfare but of course no.

joquarky• 3 months ago

Several decades of education cuts along with a second or third generation of nepotism/cronyism will get you some significant systemic problems.

Jamesbeam• 3 months ago

Don't forget the emotional damage.

Their war propaganda is so much better than that of the US military.

Lego Trump, soul-crushing tweets, with Trump it is like taking candy from a toddler but still…

I’m glad the US is winning so hard they don’t know what to do about it.

Otherwise, they would look blatantly incompetent on a Russian army 3-day special operation level.

I am seriously no longer concerned about Greenland.

OutOfHere3• 3 months ago

Article doesn't fully load. It says "Just a moment. We are getting your experience ready." and is stuck there.

dredmorbius• 3 months ago

And Archive.Today can't seem to bypass that paywall:

<https://archive.is/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcnews.com%2Fworld%2Fi...>

(All current copies have the same issue.)

catlikesshrimp2• 3 months ago

internet archive, although more easily archive.today, should make a firefox extension to archive paywalled articles from people who have subscriptions and release them in the future (5, 10 years)

OutOfHere3• 3 months ago

Unfortunately, archive.today can never be trusted to have a safe Firefox extension. It is difficult enough to trust the site anymore after it was found that it was engaging in a DDoS attack against a different site. Imagine the hazard from an extension.

In the same spirit, however, it would help to have an extension that auto-archives unpaywalled versions of paywalled articles, and makes them auto-available to users subject to the paywall.

nkurz• 3 months ago

Full article:

American military bases and other equipment in the Persian Gulf region suffered extensive damage from Iranian strikes that is far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair, according to three U.S. officials, two congressional aides and another person familiar with the damage.

The Iranian regime swiftly retaliated after the Trump administration attacked on Feb. 28, hitting dozens of targets across U.S. military bases in seven Middle East countries. Those attacks struck warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems and dozens of aircraft, according to the U.S. officials and an assessment by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

In the initial days of the war, an Iranian F-5 fighter jet bombed the U.S. base Camp Buehring in Kuwait, despite the base having air defenses, a rare breach that marked the first time an enemy fixed-wing aircraft has struck an American military base in years, according to two of the U.S. officials.

The U.S. bases that came under attack are home to thousands of American troops, and in some cases their families, though they were largely cleared out in the days and hours before the U.S. and Israeli went to war with Iran. The Pentagon has not detailed the extent of the damage to U.S. military bases publicly or, according to the U.S. officials, to members of Congress.

“We do not discuss battle damage assessments for operation security reasons,” a Pentagon official said in a statement. “Our forces remain fully operational, and we continue to execute our mission with the same readiness and combat effectiveness.”

U.S. Central Command declined to comment on battle damage assessments.

Last month, the administration asked private satellite companies, including Planet Labs, to withhold imagery of the bases from the public, making the extent of the destruction difficult to assess, according to the U.S. officials and experts, including a statement from Planet Labs to their customers.

The administration’s request remains in place, a Planet Labs spokesperson said. A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

Some Republican lawmakers privately have expressed frustration directly to senior Pentagon officials about their refusal to provide information about the extent of the damage or any cost estimate for repairs, according to two GOP congressional aides.

“No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking,” one of the aides said. “We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record high budget.”

Asked for comment, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said the U.S. had achieved the military objectives of Operation Epic Fury. “As the president has said, this was the last, best time to strike, and — thanks to our heroic warfighters — the operation was a tremendous success,” Wales said in a statement. “President Trump took decisive action to ensure that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon to threaten the United States or our assets and allies in the region, and Americans are already safer for it.”

The damage to and cost of repairing the bases could reignite a yearslong debate over the merits of maintaining U.S. bases in such close proximity to an adversary like Iran. Some national security officials, including some serving in the Trump administration, have for years pushed to move U.S. bases in the region further east and away from Tehran’s reaches. The issue also could embolden critics of America’s military presence overseas who have advocated for shrinking the U.S. presence in the Middle East, one U.S. official and one person familiar with the matter said. The three U.S. officials familiar with the damage to U.S. bases in the Middle East described it as extensive. The headquarters building for the U.S. Navy in Bahrain, the nerve center for the Navy’s operations in the region, sustained serious damage, the officials said. They said other parts of the base in Bahrain also suffered significant damage that is likely repairable.

Multiple hangars and warehouses at Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait also were struck, according to the American Enterprise Institute’s unofficial assessment that was reviewed by NBC News. The assessment also shows a munitions storage facility at a military base in Erbil in northern Iraq was damaged and a runway at the sprawling Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar was destroyed.

U.S. bases had been cleared of U.S. troops and other personnel, so many of the bases were left essentially empty and vulnerable to attack by Iranian missiles and drones. Many of the troops who were temporarily relocated are expected to return to the bases once tensions in the region subside.

Thirteen U.S. troops have been killed in the conflict and as many as 400 have been wounded, although more than 90% have returned to duty, according to the U.S. military. The Pentagon has refused to provide specifics, but during an April 8 briefing, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine said the U.S. and partners in the Gulf region intercepted 1,700 ballistic missiles and one-way attack drones during the war. A fourth U.S. official said only a fraction of the projectiles actually got through the U.S. and ally defenses.

Congress is considering legislation to support the cost of the war, including unspecified repairs and other costs in a so-called supplemental bill that could exceed $100 billion, according to two of the U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the matter.

According to the AEI’s assessment, Iran hit more than 100 targets across 11 bases in seven Gulf countries. Those attacks fell on U.S. and host-nation bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

“As part of Epic Fury, the potential future costs to rebuild American military infrastructure overseas may include repair, reconstruction, outright replacement, or even abandonment/decommissioning of locales,” Mackenzie Eaglen, a senior fellow at AEI, said in a statement about the group’s assessment. “War damage also includes estimated costs for infrastructure that is unsalvageable.”

Eaglen’s cost estimate for repairing the infrastructure is more than $5 billion, but that amount does not account for some of the radar systems, weapons systems, aircraft and other equipment destroyed in the Iranian strikes, she said. Eaglen has worked on defense and budgetary and military readiness issues for years and is a former Pentagon official.

The Iranians damaged at least two air defense systems in the region, according to the U.S. officials.

Iran has also destroyed U.S. military aircraft. NBC News reported that at least one fighter jet, more than a dozen MQ-9 Reaper drones, two MC-130 tankers and four helicopters known as “little birds” were also destroyed.

Additional helicopters, tankers, an E-3 Sentry plane and two more helicopters known as Jolly Greens were also damaged, according to U.S. officials and information provided during a Pentagon briefing.

Radar systems in the UAE and a satellite communication system in Bahrain were also damaged the U.S. officials said, but it’s not clear whether Bahrain or the UAE would cover the cost of those systems.

https://old.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1svdezz/iran_ca...

pazimzadeh11• 3 months ago

trump did literally everything backwards. he should have started with the blockade and increased the pressure over time, with decapitation strikes at the end if needed. also..help arm the people of iran before doing anything else. that would have made iran look like the aggressor when they eventually bombed their region.

instead the islamic republic's "strategic patience" fully paid off and now most rational people sees them as victims.

what trump's doing is like trying to cure multi-drug resistant bacterial infection with whatever random antibiotics are on hand - the very thing that created resistance.

oa3355• 3 months ago

exactly this... this has been strategic disaster from US perspective. a blockade plus covert ops could have split IRGC leadership - instead public decapitation caused rally round the flag effect and gave immediate legitimacy to khamenei heir. completely idiotic

karmakurtisaani4• 3 months ago

If we are on the topic of what he should have done, I think the first on that list is not go to war with Iran at all.

pazimzadeh11• 3 months ago

sure, I'm just talking pure strategy e.g. if you were going to war with iran, what's would be the ideal play?

fragmede2• 3 months ago

That option came off the table when the IRGC went through killing thousands of their own civilians and turned off the Internet.

cineticdaffodil3• 3 months ago

It takes two too tango, so Iran would stop its proxxy warring on the us if the us stopped responding? How did that work out under biden and obama?

kcplate9• 3 months ago

I think that’s easy to say with the benefit of hindsight, but it seems to me that if the Iranians actually claimed they were 11 days away from a nuclear bomb during the prewar negotiations, it’s likely that the blockade first would not have been the right leading move.

Plus I believe that if you took the “11 days away” claim off the table I don’t think you accurately say that a blockade without the military campaign first would have been successful. Seems like we are in a “what came first the chicken or the egg” moment.

There is no doubt in my mind that a blockade with an intact Iranian navy would not necessarily look like this one.

pazimzadeh11• 3 months ago

if the Iranians actually claimed they were 11 days away from a nuclear bomb during the prewar negotiations

Do you want to cite a good source for this? I think you're confusing having enough 60% enriched uranium for "11 bombs" with "11 days." If Iran was 11 days away then what was the point of the 12-day war last year? The first step would be not blatantly lying to the public

There's way more evidence that iran wasn't building a nuke than that they were:

Gabbard Says Iran Did Not Rebuild Nuclear Program After 2025 Strikes, Contradicting Trump (March 19, 2026)

From the then U.S. Director of National Intelligence https://time.com/article/2026/03/18/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nucle...

Iran was nowhere close to a nuclear bomb, experts say (March 11 2026)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/iran-was-nowhere-...

tcp_handshaker• 3 months ago

Its incredible how a living US president, in the 21 century, managed to transform the US into nothing more than a second rate regional power.

I know the inventory size of US military forces...spare me that argument. A superpower is defined by what it can make happen, not what it owns. Russia owns nukes and can't take Kyiv. The US owns eleven carrier groups and needs Pakistan to pass notes to Tehran. Inventory is not power. Outcomes are.

SpicyLemonZest2• 3 months ago

You’re just making the mirror image error of the current American regime. It’s not that the US could bomb Iran into submission if only it were more powerful; the strategy is flawed, it cannot work even in principle, because the IRGC prefers being bombed to sacrificing their nuclear capability and regional proxies.

watwut7• 3 months ago

also..help arm the people of iran before doing anything else

What exactly would that be supposed to achieve? American belief that guns to random people solve everything is beyond absurd.

pazimzadeh11• 3 months ago

I used to think that, but tell it to Shinzo Abe.

Basiji are just regular kids with guns. It would make a huge difference.

More important than guns though is probably the ability to coordinate (satellite connectivity, p2p networking, etc..)

epsters• 3 months ago

But Trump literally did those things in that order :

- Ripped up the JCPOA in 2016, freezing Iranian assets while imposing maximum-pressure sanctions; not even lifting them during Covid, blocking medicines and essential supplies which causing untold number of avoidable deaths. Biden also kept most of these sanctions in place during his term.

- Initiated a currency crisis to instigate "popular uprisings" in December of last year ( which immediately followed Netanyahu's sixth visit to the White House and in which Netanyahu secured Trump's go-ahead). The US Treasury secretary boasted : "We created a dollar shortage in the country. The Iranian currency went into free fall, inflation exploded”

- On cue, the CIA , Mossad coordinated and armed the "peaceful protestors" with Mossad openly tweeting in farsi : "Go out together into the streets. The time has come... We are with you in the field." Also Mike Pompeo : "Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.". As the USS Gerald Ford was making its way over to the Middle-east from murder and kidnapping operations in the Caribbean, Trump truth-socialled to iranians to "KEEP PROTESTING -TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!" and "HELP IS ON ITS WAY,"

- Trump recently also admitted to Fox New that they sent lots of weapons to Iranians via the Iraqi Kurds : "We sent a lot of guns to the Iranian protesters, we sent guns through the Kurds, I think the Kurds kept them."

All of this was on top of decades-worth of covert operations, assassinations, sabotage operations, and (let's be honest for once) terrorist attacks via various proxies. All garnished with agitprop laundered through the mainstream media, "independent media" , NGOs, think-tanks, human-rights and activists groups. Pretty much anything we hear about Irani s filtered through this states-funded, intelligence-directed machinery.

It is when these combined efforts failed that Trump finally resorted to threatening to destroy their civilization (which regardless of the means employed or who was in charge was always the endgame because that was the only outcome satisfactory to the Israelis)

If i had to guess where they failed, it would be doing all this on the back of the Genocidal war in Gaza and Israel's general invasion of the middle-east, plus the 12-day war and the countless live-streamed war-crimes not to mention the countless failed wars and "interventions" in the middle-east; There has been a mass-awakening about Israel's true nature and ambitions and how it has been the driving force for all these wars and behind the foreign policy of the US and its allies w.r.t. Iran. Also alienating, bullying and betraying your allies whether the Europeans, or the Kurds or anyone else, probably didn't help.

pazimzadeh11• 3 months ago

Not only did Trump admit to failing to arm the Kurds (which is because they betrayed the Kurds one too many times, as you mentioned) but I wasn’t talking about arming the Kurds. The Kurds want to carve out a piece of Iran, not regime change in Iran.

The sanctions never worked against the regime, they just brought Iran closer to Russia and China. Russia and Iran have not always been best friends (even recently).

Yes, the US/Israel initiated a currency crisis to instigate "popular uprisings" but they did it at the wrong time, the whole game is knowing when the situation is ripe and they screwed it up.

I would argue that the 2025 12-day war was also a huge mistake, you only get the element of surprise once. The 12-day war and the 2026 operations should have been combined.

They took away from the 2025 strikes that Iran was weak and wouldn’t respond beyond symbolic strikes…and that was wrong.

The whole thing feels rushed and it’s probably because of the midterm elections coming up, Trump thought he could get it done and that the news cycle would move on by November.

metalman• 3 months ago

missed the real message that "they" are desperate to hide, which is that Iran destroyed a great deal of infrastructure while causing very few casualties, because clearly they have very high precision armaments, and intel, so the message is : they can hit other targets at will and escelate plus China stated that they are delivering new missles and systems that Iran payed for before this began, right about

now.

statguy4• 3 months ago

The casualties are low largely because US troops simply abandoned their bases and moved to hotels, treating the citizens of their gulf allies as human shields.

KevinMS• 3 months ago

They consider these bases expendable and nonessential, maybe even just political gestures.

Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known

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