“The Biden team has been too slow to beef up Ukraine even as Mr. Biden repeatedly served as a crisis broadcaster of a sure invasion,” writes Rowan Scarborough in the Washington Times.
The administration has offered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy safe passage out of the war zone only to be rebuffed. “I need ammunition, not a ride,” was the response of the embedded president now standing alongside his compatriots as they fight for the very survival of their country.
According to a congressional source, the White House and the Pentagon have been “slow-rolling” Kyiv’s long-standing request for weapons and ammunition out of fear of escalating the situation, stating, “DOD and NSC lawyers are slow-rolling the re-supply of weapons to Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic’s over concerns it will draw the United States into the war.” In January the White House briefed congressional members warning them of the potential for escalation should the United States take a more determined position.
In the absence of American conviction, the Baltic nations have stepped up to supply their beleaguered neighbor with their own American Stingers and Javelins and are now requesting the Biden Administration replenish their supplies that were depleted by the transfer.
“They refuse to release US stocks of stinger wartime reserves,” said the source. “That is why other nations sent their own.”
In a February 3 written request, the Polish military asked the American embassy in Warsaw for permission to send their American-made weapons to Ukraine, with the promise that the US would replenish the Polish supply. To date no transfer has been authorized. A Pentagon official said the weapons were stuck in the military bureaucracy.
“At the current moment, the US Army is still sorting out multiple requests and what may be available for these high demand assets,” the official stated. “So a final decision is still pending.”
Former intelligence official Richard Grenell tweeted in response to the delays, “You’ve been telling the world that a bloody war was coming but waited to provide serious support until the war started.”
In addition, the Biden Administration is now telling congressional staff that they may not have the authority to arm a Ukrainian resistance once Putin takes the capital and begins what is sure to be a brutal occupation stage. Biden appears to be laying the groundwork for abandoning Ukraine in similar fashion to how he abandoned Afghanistan. And I’m sure he will tell us then that there was really nothing that could be done. But don’t worry. As the president assured us in his State of the Union address, “freedom always triumphs over tyranny,” so there is also really nothing more we need to do.
M. Danko
March 3, 2022
Terse.blog