Iran hasn't just bloodied US bases in its ongoing fight with Washington and Israel—it has quietly dealt a historic blow to American spying capabilities in the region. Citing four sources with knowledge of the matter, NBC News reports that Iranian missiles and drones have wrecked intelligence facilities and surveillance gear across the Middle East on a scale that US spy agencies have never seen, and that repairs will run into the billions. The strikes have reportedly hit CIA and other spy outposts, including the CIA station at the US Embassy in Riyadh and an intelligence site in Iraq's Sulaymaniyah province, and damaged shared military-intel radar and monitoring systems.
The attacks are forcing Congress to hunt for money to rebuild and pushing officials to rethink how and where they deploy people and equipment in a region where Iran has launched more than 2,000 strikes in eight countries. The damage has also triggered uncomfortable questions about why US agencies were slow to harden their facilities against drones. As one defense analyst put it, "We got hammered."
"The US walked into this war and had not sufficiently thought through base defense in any way, shape, or form," adds Seth Jones of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. Reuters previously reported that Iranian drone attacks on various CIA outposts have triggered suspicions that Russia may be involved, either via providing intelligence or high-level drone technology. Forbes, meanwhile, has more on the "steep and growing" costs of the overall war.
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