Here’s one of those “good news, bad news” stories for you, this one involving military aid to Ukraine. The good news is that we may have sent them three billion dollars less in military equipment than originally thought. The bad news is that the Pentagon is using that as an excuse to send Zelensky another three billion dollars worth of gear without needing to ask Congress for more money. The other bad news is that the Pentagon is still obviously unable to conduct an audit of all of its resources. We should also point out that this wasn’t a typical “accounting error” in terms of addition and subtraction, but we’ll get to that in a moment. (AP)
The Pentagon has overestimated the value of the weapons it has sent to Ukraine by at least $3 billion — an accounting error that could be a boon for the war effort because it will allow the Defense Department to send more weapons now without asking Congress for more money.
The acknowledgment Thursday comes at a time when Pentagon is under increased pressure by Congress to show accountability for the billions of dollars it has sent in weapons, ammunition and equipment to Ukraine and as some lawmakers question whether that level of support should continue.
As noted above, the beancounters at the Pentagon didn’t forget to carry the two or use a malfunctioning calculator. They were appraising the used military equipment being sent to Ukraine at its full replacement value, rather than its estimated value as used gear. So in reality, they don’t suddenly have three billion dollars more than they thought. This was a bookkeeping adjustment.
But even that explanation is nonsensical. Sooner or later we’re going to have to replace that gear with new equipment and we’ll have to pay the full price for it. So the American taxpayer is still getting soaked for an extra three billion dollars, even if the bill is deferred for a while.
If there’s any good news coming out of this turn of events, it at least appears that the Pentagon is trying to conduct an inventory of its equipment and everything that’s being sent to Zelensky as many in Congress have been demanding. They’re just not very good at it. And how much of that military equipment is winding up in the wrong hands or on the black market? A Pentagon spokesperson told reporters that there is a “robust program” in place to track everything. The Inspector General’s office has been investigating that question and has not found any discrepancies yet, but cautioned that the investigation is still in its “early stages.”
This continually increasing flood of arms is allegedly supposed to be supporting a Ukrainian spring counteroffensive. But there’s only a few weeks of “spring” left and we’re not seeing it happening. Zelensky keeps putting it off, claiming that he doesn’t “have everything he needs” to pull it off. But just how much does he need and why isn’t Europe sending more?
Is anyone in Congress going to finally demand an estimate of how much this is going to cost in total? Does anyone ever plan on holding a vote on this question? Our country is not in shape fiscally to simply say, ‘money is no object.’ According to the Council on Foreign Relations, the United States has sent more than $75 billion to the war effort in Ukraine. That’s more than Russia’s entire annual military budget. Russia invaded Ukraine, not the United States. This is not our war, but we’re certainly paying a premium price for it. How many homeless shelters or drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers could you have built with that much money? Just something for you to ponder this weekend.
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