Ever since it was first announced as a publicity stunt during the State of the Union, the U.S.-built Gaza pier has been nothing but a money pit.

The project that was supposed to be an “emergency mission” to provide humanitarian aid into Gaza kept getting more expensive, as it became obvious that the Biden administration was writing checks with its mouth that the military couldn’t cash easily.

Officials with the US Central Command first brought up the option of building a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza in late October, the senior administration official told CNN. The risks however were deemed too great at the time, with unpredictable winter weather and heavy fighting in Gaza.

The pier also didn’t have a great track record operating in choppy seas.

It’s also been more than a decade since the military last used this kind of floating pier, known as a Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, or JLOTS, in a real operation, when it delivered humanitarian aid to Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake...