Executive
Waste of the Day: Biden Poured $230 Million Into Broken Gaza Pier
Topline: President Joe Biden announced his plan to build a floating pier for humanitarian assistance in Gaza during his State of the Union speech in March. Four months later, the $230 million project is barely treading water.
The Pentagon will take down the Gaza pier
The Pentagon announced yesterday that the pier will “soon cease operations.”
Key facts: About 1,000 U.S. soldiers spent two months building the pier on the Gazan coast, which opened on May 17.
Over the next few days, rough seas and civilian unrest disrupted the transfer of aid supplies. White House staffers learned on May 25 the pier was about to fall apart — just hours after Biden bragged about the project in a speech at West Point, per CNN. That forced the Pentagon to spend over a week repairing the dock with help from the Israel Defense Forces.
The pier was only usable for 12 days between May 17 and June 23, according to The Guardian.
In that time, the U.S. delivered only 250 truckloads of food and supplies, less than half of what would arrive in Gaza in a single day before the war, according to The Guardian. Most of it is stuck at the pier; officials fear it’s too dangerous to deliver the food to Gazans because of airstrikes and street conflicts.
John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, wrote in the Washington Examiner that the U.S. team tasked with getting aid to Gaza knew the pier was a “dumb idea” as early as last December.
Not helpful enough
Critical quote: Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the head of the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean region, told the Associated Press that the pier won’t do much to address the humanitarian crisis.
The pier has supported a little bit, but it’s not to the scale that is needed by any stretch of the imagination. So we need to emphasize on the land routes to ensure the amount and the quantity and the efficiency.
Background: Previous reporting from OpenTheBooks.com revealed that the Biden administration has also sent $1.2 billion in Palestinian aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, including $121 million since Oct. 7. Funding was paused in January.
Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.
The Wall Street Journal reported that 10% of UNRWA staff have ties to Islamic extremists, and there is currently draft legislation in the Israeli parliament to officially label UNRWA as a terrorist organization.
Summary: The humanitarian crisis in Gaza needs pragmatic, responsible solutions — not half-broken boondoggles.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) was the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.
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