What the War Actually Cost: Site 512, Interceptor Production, and the $18B Figure

Site 512 — The Base the Lobby Said Didn't Exist [C1]

One of the pro-Israel lobby's consistent arguments for the alliance's value is that Israel does not require a permanent U.S. troop presence — unlike Germany, Japan, or South Korea, which host extensive American bases. This argument was used as recently as the Democratic Majority for Israel's May 2026 policy memo as a reason the alliance is cost-effective relative to other American security partnerships.

In early 2026, a U.S. Defense Department presentation confirmed the existence of Site 512 — a long-rumored U.S. military installation in Israel specifically designed to detect Iranian missile launches. Shortly after the DoD presentation, Israel explicitly invited the United States to relocate additional Middle East military bases to Israeli territory. The permanent U.S. troop presence that the lobby claimed the relationship did not require is now documented as existing — and is being expanded at Israeli invitation. [C1/C2 — Times of Israel; DefenceSecurityAsia; DoD official social media (@DeptofWar)]

The Interceptor Production Cost [C2 — CSIS]

During the Iranian ballistic missile salvos that accompanied Operation Epic Fury, the United States fired missile defense interceptors to protect Israeli territory. The Center for Strategic and International Studies assessed that the interceptors expended in defense of Israel during this period represented several years' worth of U.S. interceptor production capacity. These interceptors are not free. They are manufactured at a specific production rate, at a specific cost, and once fired cannot be replaced on a timeline that does not leave gaps in America's own missile defense posture. The cost of defending Israel from the consequences of Operation Epic Fury was borne not only in dollars but in American strategic depth. [C2 — CSIS analysis, "Last Rounds: Status of Key Munitions, Iran War Ceasefire," 2026]

Three New Documented Facts: The Blueprint, The Suppression, The Sealed Report

This section adds three categories of new verified material to the War Profiteers record, developed from DOJ Epstein file releases (November 2025 and February 2026), Senate Finance Committee letters, and court filings through May 2026. These are additions to the existing record, not replacements.

I. The Blueprint Was Written Before Kushner Had the Role [C1]

The Kushner-Affinity foreign principal map documented in the section above establishes what Kushner built and who funded it. What the DOJ Epstein file releases of November 2025 and February 2026 now establish is where the model came from.

Beginning in June 2016, Jeffrey Epstein drafted a detailed financial architecture for the Saudi Royal Court proposing that the Kingdom restructure its sovereign wealth outside the Western banking system. The blueprint — documented across fourteen months of emails to Raafat Alsabbagh and Aziza Alahmadi at the Royal Court — included an oil-backed complementary currency, a bilateral Saudi-China financial axis priced outside dollar clearing, a sharia-compliant digital currency, and new legal structures to shelter Saudi sovereign wealth from American regulatory reach. In Epstein's own language: Saudi Arabia was "held hostage by the US banking system" and the blueprint was how it escaped.

Specific elements subsequently implemented: his advice to route Saudi Arabia's international debt through Saudi Aramco rather than the Kingdom — to limit JASTA litigation exposure — was adopted when the landmark $17.5 billion bond offering was issued through Aramco in 2018. His October 2017 proposal to sell China a $100 billion option on a Saudi Aramco interest was matched eighteen days later by a news article Epstein saved to his files reporting that PetroChina and Sinopec were prepared to pay exactly $100 billion for a five-percent stake. The position Epstein formally proposed for himself on November 10, 2016 — Financial Confidant to the Crown Prince, zero compensation for the first year, biweekly access, new legal structures for economic development zones — is structurally identical to the position Kushner has occupied since 2021. Epstein proposed the Israel-Oman investment corridor in July 2017; Kushner presented the same corridor at Davos in January 2026.

II. Bessent Is Sitting on $1.08 Billion in Epstein Wire Transfers. He Admits It. [C1]

In February 2024, bipartisan Senate Finance Committee staff sat in a room at the Treasury Department and reviewed thousands of pages of Epstein financial records documenting 4,725 wire transfers totaling $1.08 billion — including $170 million in payments from Leon Black and hundreds of millions routed through Russian correspondent banks now under U.S. sanctions. Staff were not allowed to make copies. They could only take handwritten notes.

Senator Wyden made a minimum of three formal requests to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for the complete file — in March, June, and September 2025. Bessent refused all three. At a public event at the Young America's Foundation, Bessent acknowledged the files were "sitting there" at Treasury, then claimed it was not his department's job to investigate them. Wyden introduced the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act (PETRA) to compel production. Senate Republicans blocked it on the floor on March 3, 2026.

Bessent chairs CFIUS — the committee currently reviewing the $52.5 billion acquisition of Electronic Arts by Saudi Arabia's PIF, a transaction in which Affinity Partners holds a 1.1% stake.

"Secretary Bessent is blocking investigators from following the money, and it's long past time for him to stop running interference for pedophiles."Senator Ron Wyden, Senate Finance Committee floor statement, March 3, 2026

III. Cannon Permanently Sealed the Report That Would Answer the Central Question [C1/C2]

Volume II of Special Counsel Jack Smith's report covers the Mar-a-Lago classified documents investigation, including a classified Pentagon document regarding a possible U.S. attack on Iran that Trump discussed at Bedminster in July 2021 on audio recording — saying, "this was still a secret" and noting he could no longer declassify it as a private citizen. The central question the War Profiteers record raises about insider positioning is the question Volume II is believed to address.

On January 21, 2025, Judge Aileen Cannon blocked the DOJ from sharing Volume II outside the agency. After the 11th Circuit found "undue delay" and gave her 60 days, Cannon issued a new order on February 23, 2026 permanently sealing the report — ruling on a question the appellate court had explicitly assumed jurisdiction over. Yale Law School's MFIA Clinic filed an amicus brief arguing she "violated settled law." The 11th Circuit has oral arguments scheduled for June 2026.

Additionally, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — who ran Trump's classified documents defense — was accused by Senator Wyden on March 18, 2026 of intervening to block the DEA from providing an unredacted copy of a 2015 OCDETF memorandum (Operation Chain Reaction) documenting a DEA investigation into Epstein and fourteen co-conspirators for drug trafficking, prostitution, and money laundering. Blanche publicly denied the characterization. The Wyden letter is publicly available at finance.senate.gov and was confirmed by Bloomberg and The Hill.