A series of serious corruption and strategic failures rocked the American military, defense, and media circles.
The United States has lost a quarter of its entire fleet of drones MQ-9 Reaper in the war with Iran. This reveals an investigation of The Washington Post, citing three US officials.
Billions of dollars wasted in the Middle East
According to the leaked data, the US military has lost at least 45 unmanned aerial vehicles, which represents exactly 25% of the pre-war US arsenal of this type. The total cost of losses exceeds 1.3 billion dollars. The machines, whose unit price varies between 30 and 50 million dollars, have proven to be easy targets for Iranian air defenses in the Strait of Hormuz area due to their low speed and flight altitude. The sources specify that some of the devices were not shot down directly, but crashed due to jamming of communication links and electronic warfare.
A $500 million factory without a single missile produced
In parallel with the failure in the sky, the Pentagon is facing a huge production absurdity on the ground. A ProPublica investigation and an official report by the Department of Defense Inspector General reveal a complete collapse in Texas. The United States has invested over $500 million in a modern factory in Mesquite, California, operated by the giant General Dynamics. The plant was designed to urgently produce 30,000 metal components for 155-millimeter artillery shells per month to fill the gaps left by deliveries to Ukraine and the ongoing conflict with Iran. However, the inspection found that for nearly two years, the factory had not produced a single usable projectile. Robotic arms crashed into equipment, machines regularly broke, and workers admitted that they had to hit the equipment with blacksmith hammers to get it to work. The project has been completely halted, and taxpayers' money has been lost.
Corruption scandal at the top of Forbes magazine
The media world in the US was also shaken to its core after The New York Times reported the shocking dismissal of the chief editorial director of the prestigious business magazine Forbes – Randall Lane.
The investigation shows that Lane was secretly removed after a hidden transaction of $6 million to his personal account was revealed. The amount was transferred by the founder of the company Shook Research - a firm that partners with Forbes to prepare the prestigious annual rankings of the best financial advisors in America. The payment was discovered by a private equity firm during an email audit. Randall Lane himself took responsibility, calling the incident a "serious error of judgment" that led to a complete loss of confidence in the editorial policy of the business bible.