Heavy Iranian retaliation spurs US plans for West Asia pullback: Report

US military and intelligence officials are quietly discussing a major reduction in Washington’s military presence across West Asia after Iran’s retaliatory strikes inflicted heavy casualties and damaged US bases and intelligence facilities, a report says.

The discussions are aimed at developing what officials described as “another post-9/11 strategy” after the war exposed “deep vulnerabilities” in Washington’s military infrastructure across the region, according to a report published by CNN on Tuesday.

Officials are “now acting at least in part to predict what might be acceptable” to President Donald Trump, whom they described as a “mercurial president” who has “articulated no clear strategy for a post-war future,” According to the sources.

The US still has around 50,000 troops deployed across West Asia, forming a massive military network that has come under repeated Iranian missile and drone attacks since the war began.

Iranian strikes have wounded thousands of US service members and killed 18 others, while the Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain and other American installations have suffered severe damage, said the report.

“CIA officers who were sent home during the hottest part of the fighting earlier this year are being sent back to the region,” one source told CNN, highlighting the extraordinary disruption to US intelligence operations.

US forces are now “evaluating” how to “harden” their remaining positions, including by moving several installations underground to protect personnel from further Iranian missile and drone attacks.

The vulnerabilities of US forces “were always known,” another US official acknowledged, but Washington “never acted on it with urgency.”

During the most intense phase of the fighting, Iranian attacks became so severe that US troops were moved from military bases into civilian office buildings and hotels, as Tehran said Washington used the personnel as human shields.

The damage also reached US intelligence infrastructure, with NBC News reporting in late August that Iran had inflicted “billions” of dollars in “unprecedented damage” on American intelligence facilities across West Asia.

The sources warned that repairing the intelligence facilities and surveillance equipment would “cost billions of dollars,” adding that another heavy financial burden to an already costly war.

IRGC Navy seizes cutting-edge US unmanned submersible in Strait of Hormuz

The unmanned submersible incorporates some of the world

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has continued its strikes against US assets in the region in response to recent US attacks on Iranian ships navigating the Strait of Hormuz.

The latest round of aggression against Iran began on February 28, when US and Israeli forces launched large-scale strikes on Iranian territory.

Iran’s Armed Forces responded with daily waves of missiles and drones targeting US and Israeli assets across the region, and closed the Strait of Hormuz to US and allied vessels.

On June 17, Iran and the US signed the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at ending the wars across all fronts.

In recent weeks, in violation of the MoU, the US has continued its naval blockade of Iran and struck multiple locations in southern Iran, prompting Tehran to target US military facilities across the region and close the strategic waterway again.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk