In his State of the Union address in March, President Joe Biden announced he would direct the U.S. military to "lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the Gaza coast that can receive large ships carrying food, water, medicine, and temporary shelters." The only other detail Biden gave in his speech before a joint session of Congress was that "no U.S. boots will be on the ground," supposedly. Now, one dozen Republican members of the U.S. Senate are raising serious yet unanswered questions about Biden's plan and the safety of U.S. troops ordered to build the Gaza pier.
"We have strong reservations about your directing the United States military to establish a temporary pier on the Gaza Coast," explains the letter led by Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). "While we acknowledge that this decision was taken with the consent of the Israeli government, we are concerned that the mission entails a significant risk to U.S. personnel," it continues.
"We are also concerned that this approach fails to address the main causes of the humanitarian crisis," the letter also signed by Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Rick Scott (R-FL), Ted Budd (R-NC), Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), and Eric Schmitt (R-MO) notes.
On the latter of the senators' two major areas of concern, they say that Biden's planned "deployment ignores the most basic cause of Gaza’s humanitarian crisis: the fact that Hamas ignited the current war on October 7 by murdering 1,200 people, including more than 30 Americans, and taking another 240 hostages, including 12 Americans. The conditions for ending the war and the ensuing humanitarian challenges are the same today as they were on October 7," the lawmakers emphasize: "Hamas’ surrender and the return of the approximately 140 remaining hostages, including six Americans."
On the security front, the Republican signatories state that, brd on what information has been provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee so far, Biden's plan "appears to ignore force protection issues entirely against an enemy that tries to kill Americans every day."
"We are gravely concerned that the Department of Defense has given too little consideration to the likelihood that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations operating in Gaza would attempt to attack the U.S. personnel that will be deployed to this mission," the letter underscores. "Since October 7, Iran-backed proxies, of which Hamas and PIJ are two, have attacked U.S. forces in Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and off the coast of Yemen," lawmakers remind. "Hamas is blatantly indifferent to the humanitarian crisis that its October 7 massacre has wrought, and it is unlikely to be deterred by the humanitarian nature of the U.S. mission to establish a pier off the coast of Gaza."
In addition, the senators note that Defense officials previously told lawmakers that "there is already a large backlog of humanitarian trucks waiting to enter Gaza" and the main problem with facilitating humanitarian access to Gaza is "the security and distribution internal" to the enclave.
"Your decision to build a pier for Gaza merely creates another port of entry that will be backlogged," the senators tell Biden. Even worse, Biden or his military planners have not laid out a strategy to ensure aid delivered to the pier, once it clears the backlog, is secured and does not end up stolen by Hamas terrorists.
With existing ports of entry through which aid has been delivered, there have been numerous confirmed instances of Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorists stealing humanitarian aid and even killing Gaza residents trying to receive food and medical supplies. Yet Biden doesn't have a plan to keep the U.S. military from building another port that resupplies Hamas terrorists?
In addition to their letter to President Biden, the senators also sent a list of 15 vital yet unanswered questions about Biden's Gaza pier to the Department of Defense:
- When was United States Central Command tasked with giving the president options for delivering humanitarian aid directly to Gaza? What other options were presented, apart from establishing a temporary port in Gaza?’
- When did United States Transportation Command first learn that it would be tasked with executing this mission?
- What is the projected timeline for executing this mission?
- How many troops will be deployed for this mission, and on what date was that force size determined?
- What is the projected cost of this mission? Please provide a budget, including planning costs, equipment, troop costs, fuel, and any other associated expenses.
- What force protection risks does this mission entail? What are the mission’s force protection requirements? How many of the troops deployed for this mission will be deployed in a force protection mission?
- Are there any unique capabilities that are being deployed for this mission, which therefore will not be available in the event of a contingency elsewhere?
- What is the intelligence community’s assessment of the capabilities of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups in Gaza in terms of their ability to strike U.S. forces who will be deployed in this mission?
- What is the intelligence community’s assessment of whether Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist groups in Gaza would seek to attack U.S. forces who will be deployed in this mission?
- What are the rules of engagement in the event that Hamas, Palestinian Jihad, or another terrorist group attacks the pier that the U.S. military intends to construct?
- General Kurilla testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 7, 2024. He said that, during a recent visit to Israel, he saw 2,500 aid trucks waiting to enter Gaza, but “the challenge is the security and distribution internal to Gaza.” Since the U.S. military will not (and should not) enter Gaza, what is the plan for bolstering the security of aid distribution within Gaza so that the pier does not become yet another backlogged port of entry?
- Once aid is off-loaded on the shore of Gaza, who will be receiving that aid for distribution within Gaza? What vetting has taken place to ensure that these immediate recipients are not affiliated with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or any other terrorist group within Gaza?
- What is the plan for ensuring that the humanitarian aid will not fall into the hands of Hamas or other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations?
- Given the risk that humanitarian aid will fall into the hands of Hamas or other U.S.-designated terrorist organizations, has United States Central Command conferred with the Office of Foreign Assets Control for advice and/or an exception?
- Please provide an update on any Department of Defense efforts and resources that are being used to rescue the hostages that Hamas is currently holding in Gaza. If applicable, are any resources being diverted away from hostage-rescue efforts for the new Gaza pier mission?”
Looking at the President and his administration's previous botching of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and its other significant planning failures, the senators are right to have sobering concerns about the government's plans or, so far, lack thereof.