US considering moving Gulf bases hit by Iran westward, including to Israel — report

The United States is considering moving Middle East military installations westward, including to Israel, to reduce their exposure to Iran’s missiles and drones, which dealt the region’s sole US Navy base some $400 million in damage largely unacknowledged by the Pentagon, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Tehran’s retaliatory strikes, following the start of the US-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran on February 28, hit US military installations across the region, killing 13 servicemembers and wounding hundreds.

Buildings harmed at the Naval Support Activity Bahrain (NSA Bahrain) base, which lies some 240 kilometers (150 miles) south of Iran, include the Fifth Fleet headquarters, a barracks, several warehouses and a potable water tank, the Journal said Thursday, citing satellite and social media images.

No one was killed at the base, according to the US military, the Journal said.

The outlet said it estimated the cost of the damages based on procurement reports and the Pentagon’s publicly available cost model.

The estimate included only construction costs, the Journal said. It cited an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank as saying that, depending on what the buildings housed, that estimate could end up being dwarfed by other costs of the damage. For example, according to CSIS, two satellite communication terminals that Iran destroyed early in the war cost some $20 million each, the report said.

The damage to NSA Bahrain has led the US to weigh revamping the base, including by moving command centers underground and passing on rebuilding some of the destroyed structures, according to US officials familiar with the deliberations who were cited by the Journal.

The US may also curb its presence in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and shift some of it westward, following Iran’s targeting of military installations in the two Arab states, the officials said.

According to two of the officials, one of the destinations being weighed is Israel, where dozens of US jets parked at Ben Gurion Airport since the lead-up to the Iran war have stymied Israelis’ travel.