作者： admin

A newly released public report from the U.S. Department of Defense’s inspector general has laid bare deep vulnerabilities in America’s military stockpiles and infrastructure, confirming that months of combat operations against Iran have created critical ammunition shortfalls, exposed production bottlenecks in the U.S. defense industrial base, and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage and losses – directly contradicting public assurances from former President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the conflict had not strained U.S. military capabilities.

In the report submitted to Congress on Monday, the watchdog noted that the heavy rate of munitions consumption during Operation Enduring Freedom against Iran has led to strategic gaps in national military stockpiles, while also highlighting longstanding constraints in the domestic defense industry that slow emergency resupply of key weapons. “The munitions expenditure on OEF has resulted in strategic inventory shortfalls and revealed industrial base bottlenecks for munitions resupply,” the report reads.

To address the growing gaps and production delays, the Pentagon has implemented a series of adjustment measures, including streamlining military procurement procedures, cutting production lead times for critical weapons, and building up stockpiles of key raw materials, components, and high-priority munitions, the report adds. Even so, the watchdog cautions that expanding domestic production capacity for advanced munitions requires years of lead time and substantial upfront investment, meaning shortfalls are likely to persist for the foreseeable future.

The inspector general’s findings line up with multiple independent reports from major news outlets that emerged in the early months of the conflict. Middle East Eye first reported at the conflict’s onset that the U.S. faced immediate shortages of missile interceptors, leaving allied Gulf states waiting for scheduled weapons deliveries. In August, The Associated Press reported that the drawdown of U.S. stockpiles for the Iran war had severely undermined America’s ability to support Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion, leaving a “beyond critical” shortage of advanced Patriot missile interceptors, the primary system used to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles targeting Ukrainian cities.

Reuters further confirmed the scope of the stockpile depletion, reporting that the U.S. has nearly exhausted its reserves of sophisticated long-range standoff strike missiles. Citing two anonymous defense sources, the outlet reported that the Pentagon has used “virtually all” of its available surface-to-surface precision weapons, including ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles and the newer Precision Strike Missiles.

Beyond ammunition shortages, the inspector general’s report also documents extensive material losses across U.S. military assets in the Middle East. The tally includes four F-15 fighter jets destroyed in Iranian strikes, one F-35 stealth fighter damaged, seven KC-135 aerial refueling tankers damaged, and as many as 30 MQ-9 Reaper surveillance and strike drones destroyed. The report also confirms that the U.S. Navy’s primary regional logistics hub in Bahrain was repeatedly targeted by Iranian drone and ballistic missile attacks.

Across U.S. military bases spread across eight Middle Eastern nations – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan – the report counts hundreds of buildings and structures that have been damaged or destroyed by Iranian strikes. The watchdog notes it remains unclear whether all damaged bases will be rebuilt, and equally unclear which government will cover the costs of reconstruction. As of the report’s publication, the cumulative estimated cost of the Iran conflict stands at roughly $33.4 billion, a figure that does not include additional infrastructure repair costs. Of that total, $3.7 billion is attributed to lost and destroyed equipment, while $22.3 billion covers the cost of munitions expended during combat operations.

This assessment aligns with previous reporting from Middle East Eye, which quoted current and former U.S. officials arguing that traditional forward-deployed base infrastructure in the Middle East is no longer a viable strategic posture, given Iran’s proven ability to strike fixed positions with large volleys of drones and ballistic missiles.

The report also outlines the human cost of the conflict: more than 50,000 U.S. personnel have been deployed across the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility to support operations against Iran, with more than 1,500 air combat missions conducted as of the end of June. According to the watchdog’s casualty tally, seven U.S. service members have been killed in combat operations, and another seven have died in non-hostile incidents connected to the deployment. An additional 417 service members have been wounded in action, the report confirms.

India’s sprawling electoral system includes a little-scrutinized layer of political entities that has recently drawn intense attention from tax officials and investigative journalists over alleged misuse of campaign finance rules. Known as Registered Unrecognised Political Parties (RUPPs), these groups hold legal registration with India’s election body but have never secured enough votes or seats to earn official recognition at the state or national level.

With more than 2,800 active RUPPs across the country, the system was designed to open space for small, emerging political groups to participate in democratic processes. Like larger national and state parties, RUPPs are eligible to receive untraceable small donations and offer tax exemptions to donors, who can reduce their taxable income by contributing to registered political entities. But long-standing concerns have emerged that these loose regulations are being exploited for illicit tax avoidance, with a months-long BBC investigation uncovering stark gaps between the massive sums some RUPPs report receiving and their near-non-existent electoral activity.

The investigation focused on six of the highest-donation RUPPs in the 2023-24 financial year, which together reported receiving roughly 17 billion rupees (approximately $180 million) in donations. Despite this enormous inflow of funds, the six parties collectively fielded only 15 candidates in India’s 2024 national general election – and none came close to winning a seat, with every candidate losing their election deposit. One of the most striking cases is the Gujarat-based Satyawadi Rakshak Party, which reported receiving more than 3.3 billion rupees ($35 million) in donations in the year ending March 2024. When the general election was held months later, the party fielded just one candidate, who lost. According to the party’s public financial disclosures, 84.8 million rupees was spent on election campaigning, while more than 3.16 billion rupees was marked as “public welfare” spending. When contacted, party president Swati Ben Patel told the BBC the money was spent on charity, but the party kept no formal records of expenditures. Reporters who visited the party’s registered headquarters – a locked residential flat in Anand, Gujarat – found no signage, campaign materials, or evidence of any ongoing political activity. The office was permanently closed.

Similar discrepancies appeared across all six parties investigated. Aam Janmat Party, founded in Patna, Bihar in 2020, reported no individual donations over 20,000 rupees (the threshold that requires public disclosure of donor identities to the Election Commission) in its first two years of operation. Then its finances exploded: the party reported 2.16 billion rupees in donations in 2022-23, and that figure nearly tripled to 6.2 billion rupees ($66 million) in 2023-24 – more than double the total donations reported that year by India’s main national opposition party, the Indian National Congress. Like Satyawadi Rakshak Party, Aam Janmat fielded only one candidate in the 2024 election, who lost his deposit. The party’s founding president, Anamika Paswan, told the BBC she resigned from the group in 2022 and is now a vice-president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar. Reporters who visited the party’s new registered address in Ahmedabad, Gujarat found the office permanently closed, and the party’s current president did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The party’s listed treasurer confirmed the group had halted all operations and said he had no knowledge of its finances. Remarkably, the party’s registered bank account remains active: the BBC successfully transferred a small donation to the account after the party claimed to have shut down.

Another group, Garib Kalyan Party, reported 1.38 billion rupees in 2023-24 donations but fielded only three candidates, all of whom lost. Its candidate Indradevi Hiralal told the BBC she never even visited her assigned constituency to campaign in 2024, despite the party’s website posting photos of supposed door-to-door canvassing. The party’s registered office was also found closed, and the president’s mother said tax officials had previously searched the family home, though she did not know the reason for the raid.

The investigation uncovered a common pattern of exploitation of existing tax rules, according to tax officials and insiders. Middlemen, including chartered accountants, connect taxpayers looking to reduce their tax bills with RUPPs that are willing to accept donations in exchange for small cuts of the funds. Donors get the tax exemption they are seeking, while the parties and their controllers keep the remainder of the sum. Surender Tiwari, president of Swatantrata Abhivyakti Party – which reported 2.19 billion rupees in 2023-24 donations – told the BBC he had no control over the group’s finances. He said a chartered accountant handled all financial matters, gave him a small sum for his campaign, and then used evidence of the election activity to market the party to donors seeking tax breaks. The accountant in question, Mayur Singh, denied any wrongdoing, saying his role was limited to filing required audit reports, though he acknowledged working for multiple of the parties investigated.

Two donors interviewed by the BBC confirmed they had given money to a RUPP explicitly to claim tax benefits. One told the outlet he donated on a friend’s advice, saying, “I did it as a way to save tax, and have declared the same” – adding that authorities had not contacted him about the contribution.

Indian tax authorities have been aware of the suspected misuse of RUPPs for years. An internal Income Tax department document reviewed by the BBC shows investigations into the issue have been ongoing since at least 2002. The document identifies 55.91 billion rupees ($595 million) in suspected bogus political donations made by taxpayers seeking illegal tax benefits, as well as 6.65 billion rupees in suspicious foreign transactions. It also notes possible violations of tax laws, foreign funding regulations, and election rules. None of the six parties investigated by the BBC have been publicly named in the broader inquiry, and the outlet was unable to confirm that any of the parties committed illegal financial wrongdoing. Three of the six parties confirmed they or their officials had faced Income Tax department action, while a fourth confirmed a relative’s home had been searched. Tax authorities at both the state and central level did not respond to requests for comment on the specific cases.

Beyond tax fraud concerns, India’s Election Commission has been grappling with the large number of inactive RUPPs cluttering the official voter rolls. Last year, the commission delisted more than 800 RUPPs that had not fielded a candidate in six consecutive elections, but it lacks the legal authority to cancel a party’s formal registration, limiting the impact of these clean-up efforts. The commission did not respond to questions about whether tax authorities had shared information on suspected irregularities involving the six parties investigated. As scrutiny of the sector grows, authorities face a major challenge: untangling the web of donations, intermediaries, and shell entities to identify who actually controls these little-known parties, where their funds originate, and how the billions of rupees they receive are ultimately spent.