A new report published Wednesday revealed that prominent security insiders are sounding the alarm over what they describe as a "terrorist target" that President Donald Trump is building in Washington, D.C. According to Politico, military and security experts warn that one of the president's most touted vanity projects may not only draw terrorist attacks, but would also impede emergency response efforts should one occur.

"President Donald Trump's declaration that his proposed Washington triumphal arch, replete with drones and a weapons arsenal, will protect the city is coming under heavy fire from experts in munitions and terrorism," Politico writes. "The arch is more likely to become a high-value target for terrorists on the scale of the 1983 Beirut bombing of U.S. soldiers or the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, a former brigadier general told a federal judge in a court declaration Tuesday."

That assessment came from retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson and was seconded by other security experts. For scale, the 1983 Beirut bombing killed 241 U.S. service members, while the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing — the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history — killed 168 people. It directly contradicts the claims of Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who portray the planned military arch — a looming, 250-foot monument slated for a traffic circle on the edge of Washington's National Mall — as a necessary installation to protect the capital from terrorism and other attacks. The Mall corridor is lined with national museums and memorials and draws millions of visitors each year.

While Hegseth has insisted the project offers a "generational national defense opportunity," a barrage of court filings submitted Tuesday by opponents of the arch — including the attorneys general of Virginia and the District of Columbia — disputes that characterization. The opponents are asking the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to extend an injunction currently preventing the administration from starting construction. Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, temporarily blocked construction of the arch last week just before the Trump administration broke ground, and she is now considering a longer-term stay, a decision that will determine whether construction remains blocked while the case proceeds.

Politico also cites a declaration from Donell Harvin, a Georgetown University homeland security and terrorism expert, who argued that the arch would create a "hardened military target" capable of drawing attack. He contended that the plan to store munitions and explosives at the monument would further complicate emergency response in the event of a terrorist attack. "Emergency services would struggle to reach civilians in need if the military were actively defending the Arch during an attack," Harvin wrote.

According to Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones (D) and District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb (D), the construction would also impede a vital emergency evacuation route out of the city, in addition to imposing significant costs on state and local governments. Other state and local experts told the court that the administration has neglected to plan for the scale of disruption and risk that both the construction and the monument itself would create.

The administration has until Friday to deliver its justification for lifting the injunction against the arch, a project Trump has made the centerpiece of his vanity-project agenda. Delivering his Veterans' Day address at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday, Trump declared, "Soon we're going to dedicate a magnificent triumphant arch to our veterans."

Commentators were quick to point out the irony in that statement. "Not if the Veterans have any say," noted legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold. "They are actually suing to stop the monstrosity." Veteran groups are indeed part of the effort to block the construction, arguing that the arch would loom over the cemetery. "Putting Cadet Bone Spurs' name on the Arc de Trump is a slap in the face to all veterans," one commenter wrote.