Biden admin claimed only 3 service members were injured
More than 60 U.S. service members suffered injuries while working on the pier that former president Joe Biden wanted to build off the coast of Gaza—far more than Biden officials had disclosed—according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday.
The Pentagon inspector general said that 62 service members sustained non-combat injuries in support of the Gaza pier, contradicting the Biden administration’s claim that only 3 people were hurt, Reuters reported. “Based on the information provided,” officials could not “determine which of these 62 injuries occurred during the performance of duties or resulted off duty or from pre-existing medical conditions,” the inspector general added.
The revelation comes after the Biden administration already faced heavy scrutiny for spending $230 million to build the pier—only to dismantle it after only 20 days of operation. Biden began the project, which involved around 1,000 U.S. service members, to deliver aid to the Palestinians. Israel had blockaded Palestinian aid because Hamas routinely steals it to fund terrorism.
A Pentagon spokesman said last year that Gazan civilians had not received any aid unloaded from the pier, which in some cases was “intercepted by some people who took that aid off.”
Before the pier’s construction began last April, multiple staffers at USAID, the agency that disburses U.S. foreign aid, warned Biden about severe weather challenges, but the president decided to push it forward anyway, according to a Pentagon report in August. The pier was plagued by rough weather, one reason that the administration shuttered the project after 20 days.
The inspector general also revealed Tuesday that the military under the Biden administration failed to meet equipment standards for the pier project. “Nor did they organize, train, and equip their forces to meet common joint standards,” the report said, according to Reuters.
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