Waste of the Day: Empty DOT Buildings

Jeremy Portnoy

Office buildings owned or rented by theDepartment of Transportation are being used at roughly 40% capacity on average, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

The Utilizing Space Efficiently and Improving Technologies Act of2023 requires federal buildings to use at least 60% of their office space. Only 21 of the DOT’s 189 buildings meet that benchmark.

The DOT spends $370 million annually on rent and maintenance for its 168 underutilized buildings. Its 10 most expensive buildings are all underutilized.

The largest building is the DOT’s Washington headquarters, whichcosts $72.1 million annually but is only 34% utilized.

The second-largest, theFederal Aviation Administration headquarters, costs another $56.3 million and is 33% utilized. The DOT is spending $91 million to close down the buildingand relocate its employees by mid-2027, which it estimates will save $56 million annually.

However, the GAO says the actual cost savings may be lowerbecause the DOT is “planning as they go” and has not decided where to movethe displaced employees. New space may need to be leased.

Another aviation building, One Aviation Plaza in New York,costs taxpayers $15.4 million annually while operating at only 13% capacity.

As of March, the DOT has no plans to consolidate its other office buildings.

Transportation officials told auditors that some investigators and inspectors spend half their time at airports, manufacturing plants or other offsite locations. Those employees have office desks reserved for them six days a week, resulting in unused office space. The GAO suggested employees could instead have shared desks available for them only on days when they are physically in the office.

Background: Unused federal office space has been a problem since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2024, after stay-at-home orders ended,Open the Books reported that only 6% of federal employees reported in-person on a full-time basis. Meanwhile, the government spent $15.7 billion on leases and maintenance costs.

Summary:Before planning infrastructure projects for the rest of the nation, the DOT should figure out a proper layout for its own office space.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2026/08/14/waste_of_the_day_empty_dot_buildings_1199213.html

Waste of the Day: Museum Timesheets Get Forged

By Jeremy Portnoy, August 11, 2026

A federal investigation concluded that the New York State Museum in Albanyforged its employees’ timesheets to improperly receive $597,624 in federal grants.

The allegations were first reported by the New York Times in late 2024 and recently substantiated by investigators from the Department of the Interior and the New York State comptroller.

The New York State Museum receives annual grant funding from the U.S. Geological Survey’s STATEMAP program, part of the Department of the Interior, which helps states map their geological features like mineral deposits and groundwater.

Themuseum is required to match all the federal grant funds by paying the salaries of staff working on the map project.

But in 2023, the museum’s former payroll administrator,Brian Slater, alleged he had been told to falsify the timesheets of employees who were actually working on other projects.

Slater said he was told he “could be terminated at any time for disobedience,” andimplicated former museum director Mark Schaming as one top official allegedly involved in the scheme.

The New York State Education Department investigated immediately but did not identify any wrongdoing.

An internal report obtained by the New York Times found that “It is not possible to conclude that there is mismanagement or fraud.” The new federal audit contradicts those findings.

The Department of the Interior found several employees who were instructed to submit inaccurate timesheets.

The museum also used money meant for expenses like travel and office supplies to pay staff salaries.

Such a change required approval from the federal government.The museum is currently undergoing a $150 million renovationas part of Gov. Kathy Hochul’s $400 million investment in revitalizing Albany.

She said last yearthe capital city “struggles with perceptions of public disorder and elevated crime… deterring would-be residents from living in Albany.”

Summary: In a way, it’s fitting that a museum of New York’s history is displaying fiscal mismanagement for all the world to see.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2026/08/12/waste_of_the_day_museum_timesheets_get_forged_1199209.html

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

CIA had ‘low confidence’ in Trump assassination plot claims – WaPo

The intelligence on the alleged threat reportedly originated from Israeland was met with skepticism by American spies

Published 13 Aug, 2026 20:15 |

The US intelligence community doubted reports of an Iranian plot to kill President Donald Trumpby shooting down Air Force One as it departed a NATO summit in Türkiye, the Washington Post has reported. Their assessment was reportedly conveyed to the administration, yet the Secret Service still opted to covertly move Trump to another aircraft.

US media broke the story of the clandestine maneuver this Monday. On leaving the meeting, Trump abruptly switched from his new Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-8 to the previous Air Force One, but it turned out he secretly left that aircraft as well in an airport catering truck, flying aboard a smaller military plane to the UK. He is said to have reboarded the older Air Force One there to create the impression that he was on it the entire time.

CIA analysts were highly skeptical of intelligence on an imminent assassination plot and conveyed that position to the administration. Reports about the threat were “Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence,” an unnamed intel official told the Post.

The latest report adds more color to the whole affair, which has already sparked a major scandal. Reporters and many high-ranking officials were left in the dark about Trump’s maneuver and the perceived threat. Journalists felt they had been treated like “unwitting and unknowing decoys very much in the line of fire,” CNN senior reporter Aaron Blake has said.

Trump admitted to switching planes on Tuesday, insisting he was only doing what the Secret Service considered the best course of action. “I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go in a different flight, different plane. I just have to do what they say,” Trump told reporters.

The scandal also coincides with the departure of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who announced on Wednesday she would leave her position at the end of the month “so she can spend more time” with her family. The 28-year-old, who became a mother for the second time in May, returned to the White House after a hiatus in June.Leavitt’s abrupt departure has sprouted theoriesthat she was among the unwitting officials left on the decoy aircraft and that the affair may have been the final straw for her. (Who thought that fucking thing up??? WAPO is the worst!)

(https://www.rt.com/news/644220-trump-plot-cia-doubts/

World War II Memorial vandalized, fountain full of bubbles | NBC4 Washington

NBC4 Washington

The World War II Memorial was found vandalized, and a fountain overflowed with bubbles. Here’s a look. 8/13/26

https://youtu.be/z6GeFOSEPZM

>>24932742

https://x.com/PenguinSix/status/2087978165981298928

https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2088024840250765731

Trump already told the little creep No, plus Zelensky never pays what he owes 1/2

Sell Ukraine 10% of US Patriots and ‘we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles,’ Zelensky tells CNN

Updated: 11:37 AM EDT, Thu August 13, 2026

Ukraine has only a tenth of the interceptor missiles it urgently needs from the United States to stop surging Russian ballistic missile attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN in an interview, adding his days are spent in “millions” of phone calls, in opaque deal-making with allies for more.

Russian ballistic attacks have risen fast in recent weeks, hitting the capital Kyiv particularly hard, as Moscow exploits Ukraine’s near-zero stocks of Patriot interceptor missiles. Zelensky said a tenth of the US current stockpile would be enough to stop all Russian ballistic missile attacks, but 5% would be enough to get Ukraine through the winter.

“This year we have two and a half times less interceptors than we had in 2025,” he said. “Russia has two times more ballistic missiles per month than they had before.” July was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, according to the United Nations. “Each night you have attacks, and four or five times per month we have massive attacks … terrible nights. Very heroic, very resilient people really. But they (are) tired.”

He added that if the US “sell us 5%, we will go through the winter and save people’s lives. If they can sell us 10%, we will destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles. I have 1%.”

There is a global shortage of the missiles due to the US war with Iran, where the US and Gulf states used dozens to tackle Iranian missile and low-cost drone attacks. The shortage is costing Ukraine most acutely, where cities some nights appear defenseless to Moscow’s rocket assaults.

In response to Zelensky’s comments to CNN, a White House official said in a statement that the US government “is currently exploring several potential pathways for future defense industrial cooperation with Ukraine.”

The official added, “These discussions are in the exploratory phase; no specific industrial cooperation initiatives have been decided upon or guaranteed at this stage.”

The official emphasized the importance of America protecting its advanced weapons systems. “We must prioritize protecting these exquisite systems and expanding overall production of critical weapons systems for the U.S. warfighter and for our partners and allies.”

Zelensky gave a rare window into his personal efforts daily to secure more interceptors, that involved deal-making he preferred to keep private. “This is what I live each day: from 1% to 5%. I have some months, and million phone calls … I try to exchange something to missiles … I do some things which I can’t even share. It doesn’t mean that it’s outside of the law. But I can’t speak about it.”

Zelensky said there were still doubts about how President Donald Trump’s apparent commitment to letting Ukraine build its own Patriot interceptor missiles would come to fruition.

Trump, on the sidelines of the NATO Ankara summit, said he would permit Ukraine to get a license to manufacture the complex interceptors themselves, but days later said he was unsure of the idea. The manufacturers of the Patriot missile systems have sent officials to Kyiv to discuss the idea, but results remain elusive. (The answer will be a bigger Noooo!)

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/08/12/world/patriots-ukraine-zelensky-interview-cnn-latam-intl

>>24932762

2/2(he’ll get a HELL NO)

“I hope that I will get it,” Zelensky said. “I don’t have now 5% and I don’t have such an acceptance. And this is for me is a big challenge, one of the biggest I had from the very beginning of this war.”

Zelensky said he was beseeching the White House directly, through calls, messages and indirectly through allies, to boost their Patriot assistance. But he was otherwise reluctant to provide details on his recent interactions with the Trump administration.

He confirmed he held a phone call with Vice President JD Vance recently, but declined to detail, as reported by the Financial Times, whether Vance requested Ukraine stop attacks on a Russian oil port in the Black Sea that were harming US companies and risking a surge in global energy prices.

Kyiv has also presented new proposals for the Trump-led peace process that has appeared moribund in recent months. Zelensky declined to provide details but said: “We need more involvement of the American side to the peace plan. I’m thankful to the team of President Trump that they want to continue. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin doesn’t want to stop this war now and (there’s) not enough pressure on him now.”

He also rejected the idea of Ukraine conceding the remaining territory in the Donbass that Putin seeks to conquer, saying that security guarantees remained key for Kyiv.

“Russia begins to speak about this war, and they speak about territory. The key question is why he will not come again with 1 or 2 additional million soldiers after a big pause. Why he will not come again to occupy us?”

Zelensky added he agreed with some Western assessments that Putin may seek to escalate the war against NATO, possibly attacking the smaller NATO Baltic states.

“He doesn’t know how to end this war without big occupation or big victory for his society. It’s more simple to find some smaller country … for him, it will not be important if this country is in NATO or not in NATO. He wants quick victory, 100% sure that he will win, occupy or destroy or control.”

https://lite.cnn.com/2026/08/12/world/patriots-ukraine-zelensky-interview-cnn-latam-intl

‘Error in Judgment’: Former CDC Director Says it Was ‘Mistake’ to Recommend Covid Vaccine to Pregnant Women

The former head of the Centers for Disease Control during President Donald Trump’s first term declared it a “mistake” to vaccinate pregnant women for Covid-19.

Speaking to NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich for Tuesday’s episode of Katie Pavlich Tonight, Robert Redfield said he was not in favor of the Covid-era policy of vaccinating pregnant women.

The topic has sparked heated reactionssince text messages from former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, recently came to light, in which the former top health official acknowledged the possibility that the vaccine could cause miscarriage.

Subsequent research has shown no link between the Covid vaccine and miscarriages, and the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologistscontinues to recommend pregnant women be vaccinated against the virus.

“I never thought we should vaccinate pregnant women, I was not in favor of that policy recommendation because the Covid vaccine did not prevent infection,” Redfield told Pavlich.

“So the argument that some people had that you had to vaccinate pregnant women to protect the unborn baby because it would protect mommy from getting infected,that was not a true statement because it doesn’t prevent infection.

“And so I was of the view that the only thing the vaccine really accomplished, which was important, was it prevented serious illness and death in people that were at high risk for serious illness and death, and those are people largely over 65, of which obviously that doesn’t include the pregnant women population.”

“So I think it was a mistake to vaccinate pregnant women,” he said, later calling it “an error in judgment.”

But the “real mistake,” Redfield noted, was the lack of an “open, transparent discussion of this for the public so the public could make their own decisions about whether they should take the vaccine when they were pregnant or not.”

The nation’s handling of the Covid pandemic has come back into focus after Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) published Fauci’s diaries online and hauled the former NIAID head in front of a Senate subcommittee.

Fauci ended up invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times and Paul’s committee later voted along party lines to hold him in contempt of Congress.

Former CDC director says 'it was a mistake to vaccinate pregnant women' for COVID-19

Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, joins “Katie Pavlich Tonight” to discuss the revived discussion over whether COVID-19 vaccinations of pregnant women can cause miscarriages. Redfield says he hasn’t seen study data to prove it but faults the federal government for recommending the mRNA-based vaccines for pregnant women during the pandemic.

11:02

https://youtu.be/agef8ABhp-Q

https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/error-in-judgment-former-cdc-director-says-it-was-mistake-to-recommend-covid-vaccine-to-pregnant-women/

KEKThe great Patriot hoarding: Why Kiev’s donors have locked their missile vaults

US-made interceptors are in short supply, and Vladimir Zelensky’s closest partners aren’t willing to share.1/2

Published 12 Aug, 2026 13:38 | Up

Kiev has stepped up its long-range strike campaign against Russia,seemingly expecting its European backers to provide anti-air missiles to defend against Russia’s inevitable retaliation. There’s just one problem: The missiles don’t exist.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Ukrainian forces killed at least 13 people in a drone raid on the city of Nizhnekamsk in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan. Russia’s retaliation was swift, with precision weapons used to destroy drone factories, distribution centers, and other military industrial sites in Kiev and Ukrainian-controlled Zaporozhye.

Ukraine carried out the attack on Tatarstan despite Vladimir Zelensky’s 40-day “influence campaign” of sustained long-range strikes against Russia – designed to rally Western support – ending less than two weeks earlier with Ukraine’s air defense systems entirely depleted and unable to fend off Russian retaliation.

Zelensky, seemingly having learned no lessons from the campaign, took to social media to plead with his Western sponsors for “more air defense assistance for Ukraine.” Assistance, however, was not forthcoming.

Who’s got Patriots for Ukraine?

Of all of Ukraine’s Western-provided air defense systems,none are more valuable than US-made Patriot batteries. Zelensky has spent thelast month or so repeatedly asking for Patriot interceptors – specifically the latest PAC-3 models – from his Western backers, but has so far come up empty-handed. (They shouldn’t have sold them on the black market like a lot of their arms giving to them.)

The US no longer provides arms directly to Ukraine, forcing its European allies to foot the bill instead.US President Donald Trump refused to make an exception for Zelensky, rebuffing the Ukrainian leader’s request for 300 interceptors during a meeting in the White House last month.

Only three of the seven European nations who operate the Patriot system have shared interceptors with Ukraine this year, and the numbers transferred have fallen far below the 300 requestedby Zelensky. Germany has given Ukraine 35 missiles, Spain five, and Poland a reported five.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration pushed several European countries to send Ukraine their own stores of Patriot missiles, according to the Washington Post. Some declined, arguing that to do so would leave their own territory defenseless. “We have done everything we can to our advantage, but as a frontline country we cannot jeopardize our continued readiness in terms of air defense,” Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen bluntly explained just last week.

On Monday,South Korea– which is believed to have between 150 and 200 PAC-3 interceptors –definitively ruled out any military aid to Ukraine.

How bad is the Patriot shortage?

In short: very. The US fired more than half of its 2,200 Patriot interceptors during 38 days of war with Iran earlier this year, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.Between 759 and 827 remain available to the US military, a figure that includes interceptors stored on allied soil, in countries like South Korea and Germany.

For these remaining interceptors,Ukraine must compete with the US, Israel, and the US’ Gulf allies, all of whom would take precedence if the US resumes full-scale hostilities against Iran.

PAC-3 interceptors are built by Lockheed Martin,which can produce only 52 missiles per month at current rates. Germany’s MBDA is opening a plant to build Patriot missiles under license, as is Romania’s Electromecanica Ploiesti. However, the German plant will not be open until early next year, and the Romanian factory will open in 2028. Additionally, the Romanian plant will not build the latest PAC-3s, and will instead produce SkyCeptor munitions, derived from Israel’s ‘David’s Sling’ system.

Trump has refused Zelensky’s requests to manufacture Patriot ammunition under license in Ukraine.

(https://www.rt.com/russia/644166-ukraine-patriot-missile-shortage/

>>24932862

2/2

Why can’t the US make more missiles?

The US is producing the weapons as fast as it can,but its industrial capacity is insufficientto meet the demand, especially since manufacturing depends on fragile supply chains.

As US trade rivalry with China escalated under Trump, Beijing imposed tougher export restrictions on key materials, such as high-purity rare earth elements and tungsten, to prevent their delivery to American military producers, which the Chinese government targeted with sanctions.

Last month, the US Army announced plans to order $53.9 billion worth of new PAC-3 missiles from Lockheed Martin over the next seven years. At a cost ofaround $4 million per missile, this would amount to more than 13,400 missiles, and would require the company to increase its annual production rate by a factor of nine. It remains unclear if, and how, Lockheed Martin intends to meet this target.

Could Ukraine use alternative systems?

Ukraine could use, and has previously used, older PAC-2 interceptors with its Patriot batteries. The US Army awarded Raytheon a $441.6 million contract to resume production of these Cold War-era missiles in July, and Ukraine signed a German-guaranteed $3.7 billion contract of its own with Raytheon in April.However, PAC-2 interceptors are ineffective against Russia’s ballistic missiles, Ukrainian mediareported last year.

There are European-made long-range anti-missile defense systems, including the SAMP/T and the IRIS-T SL, some of which have been sent to Ukraine already. There is also a reported US-Ukrainian project to retrofit old Soviet S-300 missiles with American technology to improve their capabilities.Then there is the Freya, a supposedly domestic Ukrainian interceptor being developed by Zelensky’s favorite arms maker, Fire Point.

Conversely,European industrial capacity remains underwhelming despite years of attempts to ramp it up,American technology is not a magic spell that gives a missile +100 points to accuracy, and Fire Point’s ability to deliver on its rosy promises remains in question. Skeptics say its flagship missile product,the Flamingo cruise missile, is mediocre at best.

Are more interceptors the answer?

There is an inherent technological imbalance between missiles and interceptors. Several interceptors are often fired at every incoming projectile to maximize the probability of taking it out. Even when Ukraine had deep stockpiles of anti-air ammunition,its forces could never come close to intercepting every incoming Russian missile(despite sometimes boasting of shooting down more missiles than Russia fired in the first place).

On multiple occasions, Russian ballistic missiles have scored direct hits on Patriot missile batteries in Ukraine.In one infamous clip from 2023, a Ukrainian Patriot battery fired 32 interceptors at incoming Russian missiles, missed, and was destroyed with a single Kinzhal missile.

Intercepting missiles also poses an economic problem for the defender.Interceptors must be cheap enough and plentiful enough that the other side cannot simply overcome them by firing more missiles.American interceptors are neither cheap nor plentiful. Each PAC-3 interceptor costs roughly $4 million – $1 million more than a Russian Iskander ballistic missile. Moreover, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the HUR, believes that Russia builds up to 840 Iskanders per year – compared to 600 PAC-3s built by Lockheed Martin.

The math is not on Ukraine’s side, especially considering Russia also builds up to 180 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles annually, and has already met its yearly production quotas for its newest Tsirkon and Oniks ballistic missiles this month, all according to the HUR.

What is Ukraine’s strategy now?

The mood in Kiev is apparently one of panic and denial. Rather than aborting Ukraine’s campaign of long-range strikes against Russian civilian infrastructure,Zelensky is doubling down, and intensifying his demands for air defense ammunition. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has stopped publishing the numbers of Russian missiles it intercepts. It can be assumed that this number is close to zero, as it was on August 1,when Zelensky admitted that “only one ballistic missile” out of 30 was intercepted, “simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot systems.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said that he is working to get Ukraine the air defenses it “urgently needs,” but Rutte can’t create interceptors out of thin air,and as winter draws closer and Russia likely prepares to target Ukrainian energy infrastructure, the full cost of Zelensky’s long-range PR campaign could soon become apparent.

(https://www.rt.com/russia/644166-ukraine-patriot-missile-shortage/

US lost quarter of its Reaper drones in Iran war – WaPo

Iranian air defenses have proven the long-range UAVs obsolete

Published 13 Aug, 2026 18:58 | Updated

The US military lost 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones, or a quarter of its entire supply of the reconnaissance craft, during its war on Iran, the Washington Post has reported.The loss cost the US taxpayer an estimated $1.3 billion.

The loss figures were revealed by the Washington Post on Thursday,citing three unnamed US officials. A fourth US official told the newspaper that not all the lost drones were shot down. Some, they said, crashed after losing communications with their operators.

A successor to the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper is a medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) drone, capable of flying for up to 30 hours while carrying out surveillance missions or targeted strikes with Hellfire missiles. One of these craft costs between $30 and $50 million, and the US military had approximately 185 before the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28 – 165 in the Air Force, and 20 operated by the Marine Corps.

Within hours of the war beginning, reports of downed Reapers began circulating on Iranian Telegram channels.Video footage soon followed, with the Iranian military claiming to have shot down multiple MQ-9s mid-flight, and destroyed others as they sat in hangars at US bases across the Gulf region.

By the time the US and Iran reached a tentative ceasefire on April 9, preliminary reports inUS media suggested that around two dozen Reapers had been shot down by Iranian forces. If the Washington Post’s figures are accurate, the initial accounts may have undercounted the losses by almost half.

The MQ-9 Reaper entered service with the US Air Force in 2007, and was extensively used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the US’ undeclared wars in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and beyond. Synonymous with President Barack Obama’s drone assassination program, the MQ-9 Reaper was viewed as untouchable until 2017,when Houthi forces in Yemen managed to shoot one down with a Soviet-era anti-air missile.

A string of losses followed, and by the time the US and Israel began striking Iran in February,the Reaper was already considered obsolete and ineffective against any military with anti-air capabilities.

However, the US has no viable replacement for the Reaper. General Atomics stopped production of the drone in 2020, and the Pentagon is not expected to launch its program to select a successor until later this year. Meanwhile the Senate Armed Services Committee has recommended that MQ-9 production be restarted, while Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff David Tabor told a Senate hearing in June thatthe Pentagon is “looking at options to buy back as many of the MQ-9As as we possibly can” from US allies.

The Reaper is one of multiple weapons systems left in short supply by the Iran war.The US has reportedly used more than half of its Patriot and 80% of its THAAD anti-air missiles, and a third of its Tomahawk cruise missiles since February 28. US President Donald Trump has denied that the US is facing a missile shortage, but has asked Congress for $87.6 billion to cover “urgent needs” related to the war, including $21 billion for munitions.

(https://www.rt.com/news/644219-reaper-drones-lost-iran/

It’s pretty bad that Russia is reporting Americas shortage on arms in America!

Collapsing ceilings, asbestos, and holes in walls: Pentagon watchdog sounds alarm over condition of US bases in Pacific

The US military buildup in the region is relying on heavily dilapidated infrastructure, a new report by the Pentagon inspector general has indicated

Published 13 Aug, 2026 18:06

US military installations across the Pacific are in an alarming state of decay, a new Pentagon inspector general’s report has found, calling for “immediate attention” to fix crumbling infrastructure.(when did the inspectors last do the inspection, it sounds like years)

The heavily redacted report, released this week, is part of an ongoing audit of US military facilities in the region.Inspections at 11 installations have revealed various severe issues, including collapsing ceilings, corroded walls, and a significant presence of mold. Additionally, there is extensive use of hazardous construction materials such as asbestos and lead-based paints.

The unclassified “management advisory,”dated August 6, goes on at length about the Kadena and Yokota air bases in Japan. The uncovered issues affected both “mission‑critical systems” and “other critical infrastructure… and housing infrastructure.”Multiple buildings at the bases have “visible corrosion, visible mold, visible fire damage, visible cracks on the building exterior and interior, visible concrete spalling, and exposed rebar,” as well as “inoperable communication connections” according to the advisory.

In some instances, storage buildings had multiple rusted-through holesexposing the hardware inside to the elements.Housing units have suffered from “ceiling collapses, visible mold, or visible concrete spalling,”repeatedly prompting relocation of assigned servicemen and their families. Some of the buildings also had crumbling facade elements “ranging from small fragments to large slabs” falling off, posing a threat to personnel.

The officials stationed at the inspected facilitiesblamed the situation on the age of the bases, which date back to the 1970s, as well as on “recurring environmental conditions, such as typhoons, earthquakes, and tsunamis that further degrade the infrastructure,” according to the advisory. They also pointed to convoluted schemes of funding, which come from both the US and Japan, with the latter funds geared largely “toward broader strategic objectives” rather than fixing dilapidated infrastructure.

The decay of US military installations in the Pacific has been a persistent issue for years, yet neither civilian nor military authorities have been able to reverse it.In 2024, for instance, the Biden administration launched an Installation Infrastructure Action Plan to address the disrepair at bases overseas. According to the plan, at least “70 percent of utility systems at Pacific Air Force locations [were] severely degraded due to the highly corrosive environment.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been pushing a staggering $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal year 2027, a sharp increase over the more than $901 billion enacted for the current year. The massive $600 billion increase alone is almost twice the total annual military budget of China, which has been painted as the main US rival by the White House. The administration has repeatedly singled out the Pacific as its priority, rallying local allies to spend more on defense, citing China’s alleged military buildup.

(Why are all these articles on the military coming out at the same time? Who’s leaking all this info?)

(https://www.rt.com/news/644218-us-dilapidated-pacific-bases/